The international gaming industry has been booming for the last years, pumping out multi-million dollar products from several parts of the world. However, things are changing for game companies that are situated outside of the US, or other countries using the US dollar as currency. The reason — you simply get less money because development costs such as salaries and equipment are in the domestic currency, while “payments” from most major publishers are made in US dollars.

“It’s a tougher business nowadays. When the dollar falls 30 per cent, we get 30 per cent less money for our games,” said Johan Kristiansson, CEO at Starbreeze (Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, The Darkness) in an interview with Swedish newspaper DN.

Bo Andersson, CEO of Grin (Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter), said “We aren’t reducing the salaries, but it doesn’t rise as steep as before”.

Fortunately that means that they aren’t working their brains out and getting nothing for it, it’s just a bit more challenging. With the recent predictions of the US dollar going up again in the near future (don’t ask me for an explanation, I haven’t a clue), the problems for non-US developers will hopefully be getting smaller and smaller.