On April 16, 2024, the Responsible Business Forum published its annual report “Responsible Business in Poland. Good Practices”. This edition stands out due to its new format and the inclusion of a limited selection of best practices from 266 organizations. For the first time, Ten Square Games S.A., a veteran in sustainable practices, has shared its activities in this domain.

In 2023, Ten Square Games S.A. initiated structured preparations to report its sustainability activities in line with the CSRD standards. However, the Company’s initiatives in the area of sustainable development began many years earlier and now they are an integral part of its activities. In Ten Square Games S.A.’s view, the Company’s impact on the environment does not end with the development of its business activities. Consequently, the company has long participated in projects that promote sustainable business practices, extending these principles to its group entities. Ten Square Games S.A. is developing an ESG Strategy for all entities in the Group, providing a systematic framework based on the results of the materiality study.

The key issue for the organization, as confirmed by the results of the above survey, is people, more specifically, the people who work for Ten Square Games Group and the players – users of the Group’s products. Consequently, the Company’s main focus is on these two stakeholder groups, and its related initiatives have been included in this year’s Responsible Business Forum report. The report highlighted five of Ten Square Games S.A.’s practices in labor, environmental sustainability, and ethical business operations.

– Every year, the Responsible Business Forum’s reports confirm the importance of sustainability activities to the success of individual organizations. The 22nd edition of the FOB report featured as many as 249 labor practices. These figures underscore the significance of a supportive work environment in fostering a company’s financial success and long-term value by enhancing employee engagement and offering development opportunities to attract and retain top talent. In the gaming industry, in addition to the idea, it is the team that can determine the success of the company. Therefore, Ten Square Games systematically implements various initiatives focusing on labor practices building a strong and committed team, which is the foundation of the company’s success. – states Magdalena Jurewicz, CFO of Ten Square Games S.A.

The success of Ten Square Games S.A. is driven by its people, prompting the Company, as a responsible employer, to implement various supportive activities for its workforce. Among them is Boost Week, a week-long event organized since 2021 to share knowledge and integrate the team around the Group’s core values. This includes a series of comprehensive workshops on mobile game publishing held during working hours. They are also accompanied by a number of collaborative after-work activities to help teams get to know each other better. One of the most essential elements of this week-long event is a weekend Game Jam during which randomly selected teams compete against each other to create fully working games. This project-based approach not only enhances the team’s game production skills, central to Ten Square Games Group’s business, but also fosters collaboration and communication within the team. The main purpose of this weekly event, which is already a permanent feature in the life of the Group, is to exchange knowledge among employees, including on the activities of individual Group companies, and to create conditions in which employees from different departments or parts of the world have a chance to get to know each other and even cooperate with each other, which would not happen in the normal course of work.

Ten Square Games Group operates in an international environment, and more than 20% of the people working for it are foreigners. Therefore, the official language of communication at Ten Square Games is English. A good command of this language is also essential for dealing with contractors and players. More than 90% of the Group’s revenue comes from foreign markets. Thus, proficiency in English is crucial for the Group’s operational effectiveness and commercial success. Starting in 2021, English lessons during working hours can be used by the entire team. Beyond regular sessions, the company offers accelerated and specialized courses, with employees grouped by language proficiency and subject relevance. Employees learn in small groups, selected according to their level of language proficiency and subject area. Additionally, starting in July 2021, the company began offering Polish language lessons to foreign-speaking team members and their families to facilitate better integration into the team and adaptation in Poland.

Out of concern for the well-being of its employees, Ten Square Games S.A. also conducted a campaign to raise employee awareness of cancer prevention – Movember. The main goal of the project is to increase employees’ knowledge and get them to perform preventive periodic examinations and self-examinations. The company provides employees with vouchers for cancer examinations: a package for women and for men. Employees can redeem them at any of the partner’s facilities. In 2023, 115 employees took part in the campaign.

Ten Square Games believes that mobile games are a unique platform to reach a whole range of users. They can provide them with both excellent entertainment and a decent injection of knowledge. Annually, Ten Square Games develops environmental projects alongside partners for its two primary games. In 2023 the company was involved in celebrating Earth Week and World Water Day. On April 17, 2023, the Fishing Clash team created an event dedicated to cleaning up New Zealand’s virtual water bodies. Players were tasked with fishing trash out of a New Zealand fishery in order to restore it to its original appearance. Upon meeting this goal, the company donated $30,000 to an organization dedicated to monitoring plastic microbead pollution in New Zealand’s waters. Thanks to the project, the Company gained the involvement of players who, while having fun, increased their environmental awareness and contributed to funding activities in the real environment.

In 2022, in events held in Fishing Clash and Hunting Clash, players cleaned up virtual environments. As a result, the Company made a donation to the Ecosia organization, through which 60,000 trees were planted. By undertaking these projects, the Company wanted to raise awareness among players about saving marine biodiversity.

As a mobile game developer, Ten Square Games believes that games should not only be a source of fun and social relations, but also build a sense of unity among players. Therefore, in 2023 the Company has prepared a Code of Conduct – a set of rules and guidelines that define desirable patterns of behavior for all players. It is a guide to ethical player behavior in the game. The document conveys information about the rules for protecting players’ personal data, channels of communication with the Company and ways to report possible irregularities. The goal of the document is to better identify and eliminate inappropriate behavior among players, to equip them with guidelines for their safety in the virtual space and tools to enhance their safety and well-being while playing. It aims to create a safe and inclusive gaming space.

– A sense of social responsibility and a desire for sustainable development have been present at Ten Square Games since the Company’s inception. The ongoing development of our ESG strategy systematically aligns past projects and programs with the core issues pivotal to TSG’s growth. Publication in the Responsible Business Forum’s report is an additional motivation for us to share our sustainable development activities in a structured way.” concludes Nina Graboś, director of IR, PR and ESG at Ten Square Games S.A.

The report “Responsible Business in Poland. Good Practices” is the largest Polish review of companies’ ESG activities. The latest, 22nd edition, describes 1046 good practices, reported by 266 organizations. The good practices are grouped as standard into 7 areas described by the ISO 26000 standard: community involvement and development, labor practices, environment, human rights, consumer issues, fair operating practices, and governance.

The report can be downloaded here: link

Ten Square Games is a leading developer of free-to-play mobile games. The company employs about 330 professionals working in studios located in Wrocław and Verona. TSG’s portfolio includes titles such as Fishing Clash – one of the most popular 3D fishing simulators in the world, Hunting Clash – a realistic hunting simulator, Airline Commander – a flight simulator, and Wings of Heroes, which had its global premiere in October 2022. Founded in 2011, Ten Square Games went public on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in 2018.