International Factfile 2015: Romania

Romania is a small but mighty market for games, playing host to big players in the global industry.

The country continues to have just one big distributor for games, Best Distribution, which handles the importing of games for the country’s similarly small pool of High Street and online retailers.

Despite this, Romania has held some big games events in the past.

In late 2013, the country’s capital Bucharest was home to the International eSports Federation Finals for Aeria Games’ shooter A.V.A., boasting almost $10,000 in prize money.

The Romanian eSports Championship similarly offered $10,000 in winnings last year, followed by the DreamHack Masters Bucharest event.

The growing presence of pro-gaming has led to an increasing number of eSports teams originating from the region, such as XPC, as well as specialist games media sites.

Although enthusiast players are helping to support games retail in Romania, the market has seen a number of stores drop out of the industry over the last couple of years, leading to questions over the High Street’s future.

In particular, local outlets have been impacted by the low cost of games in other European countries such as the UK, leading players to import from elsewhere.

Romania’s development sector is increasingly prosperous.

Alongside major studios like Ubisoft, King and EA that have set up in the region, there are many small independent outlets which continue to thrive.

The size of the development segment inspired the creation of the Romanian Game Developers Assocation (RGDA) in late 2013.

Population: 19,942,642

Capital City: Bucharest

Currency: Leu

GDP (Per Capita): $10,859

KEY RETAILERS

Carrefour, GameShop, Emag, Auchan, Real, Altex, Flanco, Diverta

TOP DISTRIBUTORS

Best Distribution

TOP DEVELOPERS

Ubisoft, MavenHut, Mobility Games, Amber Studio, IDEA Studios, Quantic Lab, Transylgamia, Angry Mob Games, Big Blue Studios, Deep Byte Studios, Green Horse Games

PUBLISHERS IN THE REGION

Ubisoft, EA, Gameloft, King