Anshar Studios: the sum of your choices

The company develops complete video games from concept to launch, using state of the art technology that ensures photo-real visuals and an immersive experience.

“For a small independent studio like ours, inventiveness, passion and creativity are crucial. It is the only way to stand out in a noisy flooded market where the number of releases is exploding,” says Grzegorz Dymek, COO of Anshar Studios.

“Our motto is “gamedev (which stands for game development) or die”, says Grzegorz, “We are all passionate about game playing. In our view, this is the important part of building your advantage because being in it just for the money or just because it is popular is not the right approach.”

Anshar’s latest project is a game called Gamedec, a cyber-punk isometric role-playing-game. “We’ve been working on that for the last four years. It’s around 300,000 words long in dialogue – that’s equivalent to all of the Harry Potter books,” he says. “Throughout the game, the choices you make will define your experience. It’s a bit like our job: exciting but also challenging.”

For Anshar, like for many others in their industry, cashflow is a major challenge. “Liquidity is the basic issue because you are constantly investing heavily in yourself. You need cash protection to secure yourself in case of delayed payments or unexpected expenses.” The company benefited from an EU-guaranteed loan through BGK, backed by the EIF under the Investment Plan for Europe, that gave them the cashflow they needed to push ahead with developing Gamedec, buy some licenses and build up their resources.

“Today, gaming is part of culture. People expect more than just entertainment; they are looking for new social experiences, to interact, compete or collaborate. I hope that we’ll achieve that and keep creating rich, connected, and personalized experiences for gamers.” Anshar, incidentally, is a word that means gates of heaven in the Sumerian language – Sumer being one of the earliest known civilisations in Mesopotamia. “Because we feel the sky’s the limit…” says Grzegorz.