The Israeli Game Industry: A Retrospective

It’s 2020, so I took upon myself the challenge to summarize the last decade in the Israeli game development scene. Being somewhat of a newcomer to the industry myself, I felt the need to look just a bit deeper into the past.

In the 90s, the Israeli gaming industry was already very much alive. There were two large companies: Compedia, known for their educational games, which were published in more than 40 countries and won dozens of prizes, and Machshevet, the largest local importer and translator of games, who also developed games of their own. Jane’s IAF, a combat flight simulator developed by Pixel Multimedia and published by Electronic Arts, became a source of pride when it introduced the international market to the historical operations of the Israeli Air Force. Another major success was Piposh, a comedic point-and-click adventure game series that became a cult hit in Israel. The future looked bright, but a long slumber was soon to follow.

The 2000s took us to the age of goofy browser games, most notably Falafel King (2002), which is still talked about today, and the successful Flash version of Portal (2007). Some companies started developing games more seriously for Facebook, and later for the iPhone and Android (this will become important later on). Ballerium, an MMORTS was in development for several years and even got a publishing deal, but eventually closed. A few years later, the multiplayer first-person shooter Rising Eagle showed some potential, but ultimately, it didn’t take off. At the time, no one could actually point at an Israeli gaming industry. There were conceptions about video games being childish or violent. Investors believed that the market is unprofitable. The talent was abundant, but people didn’t have enough game development related experience (remember, this is pre-Unity). Lucrative hi-tech positions were much more tempting and safer for potential game developers. There was also the complexity of assembling and managing multidisciplinary teams and a challenging content-to-tech balance to nail. Developing games was a risky business. But some believed in the potential of an Israeli game industry. In 2008, The Israeli organization GameIS formed and started promoting local ventures by raising awareness, holding professional gatherings, social events, game jams, and more.

In the 2010s, everything changed. During the last decade, we saw the Israeli gaming industry become the monster that it is today, forming around a few companies that specialize in hyper-casual and casino games for mobile. Israel soon positioned itself at the top of the international mobile market, with companies like Playtika (sold for $4.4 billion in 2016), Plarium (sold in 2017 for half a billion dollars), JellyButton (Sold to Playtika for tens of millions of dollars in 2017), Ilyon (sold for 100$ million at the beginning of the year), Crazy Labs (which is continuously at the top of the app charts) and Ironsource, with its mobile publisher Supersonic (which already released a few major hits since it launched earlier this year). When people talk about “The Israeli Gaming Industry,” this is what they’re talking about. In the last couple of years, the conversation around video games blew up in the media, and awareness started increasing. This happened thanks to the popularity of titles like Fortnite and Minecraft amongst children, the successes of local mobile developers, and gaming-related tech ventures, and the growing interest in E-Sports.

Meanwhile, a small indie community emerged. Between 2010 and 2015, the first pioneers started appearing, slowly becoming aware of each other’s existence: Legends of Ellaria, Judgment, Star Singularity, Warriors: Rise to Glory!, Buck, Moduwar and Plot of the Druid were among the first indie projects developed in Israel. Later, more experimental games surfaced, like the award-winning stop-motion adventure Tiny Money, the award-winning audio driving game Blind Drive by Lo-Fi People, Alon Karmi’s historical semi-docu FPS One Tank in May, the stunning adventure game Lost in Play by Happy Juice games, and the exploration puzzler Into The Maze by Indistinct Chatter. With the rise of affordable game Engines, making games became easier than ever. Today there are around 70 known indie games in Israel, developed by about 70 studios of various sizes, most of which have commercial aspirations.

Among the regular hurdles of being indie developers, the community also tries to overcome a relative lack of experience in management, marketing, and fundraising. There are currently no PC game publishers in Israel (update: 11Sheep are now the first Israeli indie publisher), no funds, and no government support, so getting funded is hard. The community’s evident strength is in everybody’s willingness to share knowledge, connect and support each other, knowing that anybody’s success is a worthwhile goal to pursue. The potential in the indie market just hasn’t come into consciousness yet, mostly due to there not being high-profile success stories. I could say it is a chicken and egg kind of situation, but there are already some achievements (so really it’s a chicken kind of situation).

At the start of the year, Gavra Games managed to harness their success in the Chinese market to raise 750,000 NIS (~$215,000) to fund the mobile version of Warriors: Rise to Glory! on the Israeli Shark Tank in primetime television. The apocalypse survival simulator Judgment sold over 100,000 copies on Steam, which allows its developer Suncrash to fund their next project, Dream Engines: Nomad Cities. Capricia Productions used their metal band mentality to close several contracts with investors and recruit some high-profile musicians to work on their epic metal album/game hybrid Of Bird And Cage. The action VR game Racket: NX by One Hamsa became one of the top games for VR. The cartoony BUCK was successfully funded on Kickstarter. LoneBot’s critically acclaimed runner Infiniroom became a hit in the mobile market, and The Office Quest is the first Israeli game released for all major platforms.

Two major indie centers evolved in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In Jerusalem, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design offers a degree in Visual Communications with a specialization in games, with students and graduates already involved in projects, like 42Lions’ award-winning musical narrative game Closer to Nowhere, NotSlot’s funky adventure co-op Nugget and Penny, and Drimia Interactive’s competitive bullet hell Chimera Box (disclaimer: I’m involved in this project). The academy also hosts the JGC, an annual game conference with international speakers. Also in the city, the grassroots MakeGamesJLM community snowballed to almost 800 members in six months, creating a safe space for newcomers and professionals to work together. Supported by the Jerusalem Municipality, they host a weekly meet-up where members share knowledge, establish relationships, and participate in communal activities. In addition, they organize lectures, courses and game jams designed to introduce new members to the world of game development.

In Tel Aviv, Shenkar College of Engineering and Design opened a 2nd degree in game design this year. More game development programs operate in Mentor college, Hands on Games school and the IAC. Ludo Workspace, which opened last year, serves as a home for the indie developers community, hosting regular events, talks, and playtest evenings. In 2018, two gaming venues opened in Tel Aviv, the casual LVLUP Gaming Bar, and the hardcore HYPE Gaming Lounge.

In the north, Tiltan College of Visual Arts and Communication in Haifa offers a diploma in game design, and also operates a game studio which currently works on the dark metroidvania Grime.

In the digital space, we have forums for game developers, some of which are GameIS, Unity IL, Israeli Unity3D Developers, Unreal Engine Israel, Game Artists IL, XR Devs Israel. All of these communities contributed tremendously to build the base of knowledge required for the industry to grow and evolve.

The future looks brighter than ever. Israel has a flourishing mobile gaming industry. The academy has already noticed the potential in games and releases amazing talent to the market every year. We see more and more commercial successes, alongside phenomenal artistic accomplishments, and hopefully, those will lead to many more. We have the knowledge and the guts, and people are working very hard to make sure game development becomes a viable career option in the years to come. These are exciting times, but there’s still work ahead of us. For the next decade, I wish for us to keep our collaborative spirit, to become more creative with our marketing, to get access to more publishing contracts, and to finance an Israeli Gamescom booth. And mainly, we should raise awareness about our growing indie community, both locally and internationally, to finally become an indie industry.

Written by Idan Rooze. Thanks to Dani Bacon, Amir Blum, and Simon Gross for helping me in editing this article. Thanks to all the members of the Israeli indie development community who contributed to the discussion and shared their knowledge, experience, and stories with me: Alon Kaplan, Caleb Fnord, Chamutal Zered, Daniel Rafael, Guy Ulmer, Ido Adler, Kobi Nitsel, Oren De-Panther Weizman, Ori Brusilovsky, Shay Shem-Tov, Stav Goldstein, Tomer Barkan, Tsahi Liberman and Yevgeny Blinov.