Game on – meet Stockholm’s
booming gaming industry
Stockholm is one of the most important cities in Europe when it
comes to game development. From 2010 to 2013, Stockholm’s
gaming industry grew by more than 300 per cent, and the growth
is expected to continue for many years to come thanks to
international success stories like King, DICE and Mojang.
Gaming explosion
Stockholm’s gaming industry has literally exploded in recent years and covers a wide
range of games. Traditionally, Stockholm’s gaming industry has its heritage on the
console side, with so-called AAA titles, big budget productions for Xbox or PlayStation
costing hundreds of millions and selling millions of copies.
In fact, Stockholm is one of only about 10 places in the world where AAA titles are
developed, and is growing year on year. In 2013, the number of AAA projects in
Stockholm was at a record high, which is unique as the amount of AAA titles
published worldwide has declined by about 50 per cent since 2008.
From Battlefield to Candy Crush Saga
Today, Stockholm’s gaming industry is broader than ever – besides console games,
Xbox and PlayStation there is also a plethora of social games and mobile games for
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players of all ages. Recent success stories range from Battlefield to Minecraft and
Candy Crush Saga.
Stockholm’s beneficial entrepreneurial climate is key for the success of city’s gaming
companies. Stockholm has an international vibe, and the link to other creative
industries (including music, film, design and fashion) is well established among tech
and gaming companies. Exciting projects such as Stockholm Sounds (linking
Stockholm’s music scene to a mobile game around the city), Peppy Pal (educational
mobile game for children) and Apprl (personalised fashion recommendations from
bloggers and friends) are just a few examples.
International approach
Start-ups look to attract international audiences from the very beginning, and taking
advantage of Stockholm’s tech-savvy citizens as the perfect testbed for trying out
new games and features before launching a fully developed version. This approach
has been successfully tried and tested by Stockholm’s many ICT companies for years.
Key stakeholders in the Stockholm gaming community:
Minecraft – from launch to 2 billion revenue in 3 years
An outstanding example from Stockholm’s gaming industry – and in fact Sweden’s
history of business – is Mojang, creators of the award-winning game, Minecraft.
Mojang’s growth is totally unique: in its first year of operations, the revenue was €60
million, going up to some 163 million euros in year two. In year three (2013), it
landed at a record 2.07 billion SEK (some 225 million euros). The idea for the game is
the work of Markus ”Notch” Persson, who quit his job as a games developer to focus
fully on Minecraft.
Minecraft is also used in community project Mina Kvarter/Block by Block, to
encourage young people to get involved in their local neighbourhood. The youths get
to create models of what their ideal neighbourhood would look like, and how their
current environment could be improved. So far, three test projects around Stockholm
have gathered some 80 youths aged between 11–20 years.
– DICE (Digital Illusions CE) is the company behind the successful Battlefield games,
which have been sold for more than 10 years. More than 80 million copies have been
sold, which makes Battlefield Sweden’s largest culture export after ABBA. DICE is
owned by gaming giant Electronic Arts. DICE’s next big launch is Star
Wars Battlefront, “the ultimate Star Wars battle experience”.
– Gaming developer King’s largest success story is Candy Crush Saga. All development
takes place in Stockholm. With more than 200 million active players, it is the world’s
most popular game, most likely of all time. In 2013, Candy Crush Saga was the most
downloaded game on the iTunes App Store.
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– Toca Boca’s popular apps for children have been downloaded more than 50 million
times. Toca Boca’s games have been saluted for their lack of gender stereotyping, to
prevent that children feel excluded from playing certain games.
– Companies like GooTechnologies, Hansoft and Bitsquid develop tools for game
development, for example rich 3D graphics, visualisation, collaboration platforms and
high-end gaming engines.
– Stardoll’s 300+ million users dress up and play with virtual paper dolls and interact
with the global community of Stardollers. The company revenue for 2013 was close
to 17 million euros.
– Feomedia’s quiz app Quizkampen was a big hit when it launched in late 2013. In
just one month, it had been downloaded 10 million times – without any marketing
activities, only by word of mouth and on social media platforms.
– Mag Interactive, whose Ruzzle word game app reached 50 million downloads in
just one year.
What will be Stockholm’s next gaming hit is difficult to predict – perhaps one of
Mojang’s new games, a social game, a mobile game..? Or perhaps something
completely different, that we can’t imagine today? Come to Stockholm to find out for
yourself!
Contact at Stockholm Business Region:
Sabina von Greyerz, PR manager, [email protected],
+46 (0) 704728069
Stockholm Business Region AB
+46 8 508 280 00
www.investstockholm.com
www.visitstockholm.com