The Polish division of Forbes has released its annual list of the 100 richest men in the country, putting Pawel Marchewkathe CEO of Techlandamong video game businessmen. None of CD Projekt’s executives made it into the top 10.
Poland is one of the most important European nations when it comes to video game development, with giants such as Techland, CD Project and Playway.
The richest man in the nation is Michał Solowow, which controls dozens of companies in many different industries, worth approximately $5.7 billion. Tomasz Biernacki, the founder of Dino Polska, follows with $4.4 billion and Jerzy Starak, the head of Polpharma, with $3.4 billion.
Paweł Marchewka appears in fifth place with 1.87 billion dollars (double from the previous year) and is the only exponent of the video game industry.
Marchewka founded Techland in 1991. The company initially took care of translating foreign video games into Polish, distributing them on the local market. In 1993, development began on Techland’s first games, including Exterminacja (1999) and Crime Cities (2000). Techland also develops the Chrome Engine, used for games such as Chrome, Call of Juarez, Dead Island and Dying Light. Dying Light 2 Stay Human was instead developed using the C-Engine, the studio’s new technology. Under Marchewka’s leadership Techland has become one of the most important video game companies not only in Poland, but in the whole world. Marchewka is also a gamer by his own. Among his favorite titles he cited: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Counter Strike and Red Dead Redemption 2.
The heritage by Marchewka has grown over the past year thanks to the successful launch of Dying Light 2 Stay Human, which sold more than 5 million copies in its first month on the market.
Looking at CD Projekt, founders Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński failed to make the top 10. Krzysztof Kostowski, the CEO of Playway, another big Polish publisher, didn’t make it to the top 10 either.
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