Game Developer Index 2021

Game Developer Index 2021
DATASPELSBRANSCHEN
Swedish Games Industry

Third edition
March 2022
Published by The Swedish Games Industry
Research: Alexander Milton, Gabriella Tångfelt,
Lukas Isaksson
Layout: Ingrediensen AB on behalf of Blinka Blå
Illustration, cover: Patrik Antonescu
Text & Analysis: Johanna Nylander
Translation: Tracy Rylance

The Swedish Games Industry is a collaboration between
trade organizations ANGI and Spelplan-ASGD. ANGI rep-
resents publishers and distributors and Spelplan-ASGD
represents developers and producers.

Dataspelsbranschen Swedish Games Industry
Magnus Ladulåsgatan 3, SE-116 35 Stockholm
dataspelsbranschen.se
swedishgamesindustry.com
Contact: johanna.nylander@dataspelsbranschen.se

Key Figures202020192018 20172016
Number of
companies 667 (+14%)
586 (+14%)513 (+16%) 442 (+14%)389 (+22%)
Revenue, million
EUR 3.312 (+43%)
2.318 (+24%)1.872 (+33%) 1.403 (+6%)1.325 (+6%)
Revenue per
employee
thousand euro 238 (-9%)
255 (+10%)236 (-10%) 263 (-15%)309 (-8%)
Result, million
EUR 720 (+46%)
493 (+47%)335 (-25%) 446 (-49%)872 (+65%)
Number of
employees
in Sweden 6.596 (+11%)
5.925 (+11%)5.317 (+14%) 4.670 (+25%)3.750
Men 5.186 (78,6%)4.699 (79%)4.286 (80%) 3.821 (82%)3.107 (83%)
Women 1.410 (21,4%1.226 (21%)1.036 (20%) 849 (18%)643 (17%)
Number of
employees in
Swedish compa-
nies abroad 7.177 (+121%)
3.253 (+25%)2.604 (+290%) 668 (+23%)541
Key Figures
Key figures from the last five years. Increase from previous year in brackets. We have used the annual average
exchange rate defined by the Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank. In 2020 1 EUR was 10,4867 SEK

4
Foreword
Creativity is the new steel
Index
Key Figures 3
Foreword: Creativity is the new steel 4
Summary 6
Revenues & Results 8
Highlights 10
Employees 12
Number of Companies 14
Other types of business 14
Number of Employees 15
& Revenues by Company type
Women & Gender Distribution 16
The Industry Voice: My Nilsson 17
Several initiatives in the industry 19
Some key figures 19
Largest companies 20
Revenue in EUR million 21
Number of Employees in Sweden 21
Business Groups and the Stock exchange 22
Listed companies 22
The Industry Voice: Martin Lindell 24
Game Developer Map – Sweden 26
Swedish game companies 31
around the globe
Game Developer Map – Global 32
Investments & acquisitions 34
Investments & acquisitions 2020 35
Six billion downloads 36
Entrepreneurship and 38
national collaborations The Industry Voice: Patty Toledo 39
Covid-19 41
Games industry in Europe 42
Public investments in the EU 44
Threats and challenges 46
Recruitment 46
Work environment 46
Financing 46
Digital Market 47
Sustainability 47
Methodology 48
Glossary 50
Financial journalist Pontus Schultz passed
away prematurely in 2012. A famous quote
from him reads “creativity is the new steel”. It is gratifying to be able to present a
new record year. Some media have called
computer games “the new basic industry” and
this may be a good fit for an industry that had
a turnover of EUR 3.3 billion in 2020. That is
about the same as exports of wood products
or iron ore, significantly more than the export
of trucks, to name a few well-known basic
industries. But games, of course, are different from
the basic industries in many ways. The raw
material is creativity. The content is volatile,
digital, hit-driven. It exists on screens (or in
speakers!), is rarely touchable. Customers are
players all over the world, games are rarely
sold in different markets – the perspective
is global. Passion is the impulse of entrepre-
neurship. The growth of games has taken
place without a proportionate increase in the
consumption of the planet’s finite resources.
These and other factors make the world of
computer games different, for better or for
worse, but mostly for better. A strange basic
industry. Growth in 2020 was 43% compared to the
previous year. This is due to several factors.
The pandemic is one factor, when large parts
of the world’s population have been more
or less involuntarily trapped, games have
KAPITELNAMN

5
Creativity is the new steel
been able to offer an important breathing
space: joy, fellowship, entertainment. This
has been seen in sales (but has posed other
difficulties, such as delayed development
projects). Another factor is the growth of the
world market, driven by the addition of more
players: new audiences and new markets.
This, of course, benefits Swedish companies
that reach global audiences. Part of the growth comes from acqui-
sitions; in this year’s report, for the first
time, the number of employees in Swedish
companies abroad is higher than at home in
Sweden. The acquisitions are largely possi-
ble thanks to the fact that listed companies
use their shares to invest abroad as well.
For example, Sweden is the largest investor
in the German games industry. The stock
exchange itself is also a successful export,
several foreign games companies have
chosen to list their shares in Stockholm
instead of in their home country (alternatively
double
listing). This is thanks to the expertise
in games that has emerged around Nasdaq
Stockholm. Most of this points to a continued positive
development for Swedish games companies,
but the bottleneck is the supply of skills.
Games education in Sweden is of a high
standard but is not enough to meet the needs
of companies. Reaching a larger labor market
is an important driver for acquisitions and establishments abroad. Among the employ-
ees are many with foreign backgrounds, in
some workplaces there are over fifty different
mother tongues. Unfortunately, the problem
of the so-called expulsion of competence
remains, although there is hope in the form
of investigative proposals and promises from
the government. Sweden has the future in its
own hands: there is demand, there are ideas,
there is capital – but we need more people
who have the skills to create games. You could say that Pontus Schultz has prov-
en to be correct. Finally, during the fall, questions about
unwanted behavior including sexual ha-
rassment have received a lot of attention. It
doesn’t matter on what scale it occurs, each
case is one case too many. It hurts the person
who is affected, it damages the company and
it damages the whole industry. We have come
a long way with the work on gender equali-
ty, but there is still much to be done on this
point. As a trade association, we are working
with members to find and implement mea-
sures to address the problem. It is a job that
may never be completed, but we must never
be careless with it.
Stockholm October 2021
Per Strömbäck
Spokesperson Swedish Games Industry
“The raw
material is
creativity.
The content
is volatile,
digital, hit-
driven.”
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

6 SUMMARY
The Game Developer Index charts, presents and analyzes
the operations of Swedish game companies as well as
international industry trends in the past year, by compiling
the companies’ annual accounts.
Swedish game development is an export industry
in a highly globalized market. In just a few decades,
the video game business has grown from a hobby
for enthusiasts to a global industry with cultural and
economic significance. The Game Developer Index
2021 summarizes the Swedish companies’ last reported
business year (2020). The report in brief:
• Swedish games industry’s revenue grew to EUR 3.3
billion in 2020, which is an increase of 43% compared
to global sales that increased by 20%.
• Every fifth employee in game development in Swe-
den is a woman, 1.410 in total. This corresponds to a
share of just over 21%.
• A majority of companies are profitable and the sector
in total is profitable for the twelfth year in a row.
The total profit for the industry was EUR 720 million
in 2020.
• Swedish game companies are growing and employ-
ing a total of 6,596 people on site in Sweden and
7,177 people abroad. The difficulty in recruiting Swed –
ish staff remains and many companies are expanding
through acquisition of foreign development studios.
In Sweden, the number of employees increased by
671, an increase of 11%.
• 81 companies started in 2020, bringing the number
of active companies to 667 in December 2020, an
increase of 14% compared to 2019.
• In 2020, 43 investments and acquisitions were report –
ed, four of which had a business value above the bil –
lion mark. Swedish companies were the purchaser in
40 of the deals, and in 11 of the transactions the seller.
• The 10 most profitable companies paid a total of over
EUR 140 million in corporate tax on profit.
• The 10 largest employees have paid social security
contributions of over 130 million EUR in total.
• 19 Swedish companies are listed on the Stock Ex-
change in Sweden. Together, their revenue was EUR
2 billion in 2020, and with a total market capitaliza-
tion of EUR 10 billion in December 2020.
Game development is a growth industry. Fourteen of
the companies that exist today have existed since the
1990s, but just over half of all companies have been
registered in the last five years. Games developed in
Sweden are released on a global market with strong
growth and the supply of skills is also largely in a global
labor market. Some factors for continued growth are:
more investments in regional clusters with incubators,
accelerators and trainings, more serial entrepreneurs
Summary

7
starting new businesses and the implications and
effects of the last couple of years’ frequent and large
investments and acquisitions. Swedish game developers are characterized by their
range and quality. Sweden has world leading devel-
opers within AAA, console, PC, mobile, VR/AR, digital
distribution and specialized subcontractors. The biggest
challenges of the sector are indirect such as access to
skills and funding, particularly in the early stages, as
well as laws and regulations around digital markets that
are out of step with developments. The biggest future
issue is regarding diversity, both among game design –
ers and players. Although major advances have been
made in the last few years, a lot of work remains to be
done. Long-term, video games have every opportuni –
ty to increase diversity and inclusivity; games offer a
possibility to leave the everyday behind and step into
worlds where the only limit is the imagination. The number of “second generation companies” is
growing, e.g. where experienced game developers
have gone on to create their own projects, or where the
management has created a second company, Also growing, is the number of investments and
acquisitions with Swedish companies as purchasers. In
total Swedish companies were lead investor in 40 of 43
games-related business deals in 2020. Of these, eight
were investments and acquisitions on the Swedish
market. Successful companies increasingly re-invest in
the industry, often in the Swedish market.
Iron Gate – Valheim
3,3
Swedish games industry’s revenue
grew to EUR 3.3 billion in 2020.
720
The total profit for the industry was
EUR 720 million in 2020.
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

8 REVENUES & RESULTS
Swedish game companies have continued to expand during
2020 and increased revenues by 43% to 3.3 billion EUR.
This is an increase of more than a billion euro.
In the global arena, the companies have successfully
gained market shares, attracted talent and expertise
and, not least, created gaming experiences for hun –
dreds of millions of players worldwide. According to
analysis company
ICD data, the global industry grew by
20% in 2020, and according to Superdata, the increase
was 12%. The European trade association ISFE has
measured the increase in five European countries to
22%. The same study estimated the total revenue for
the Games industry in Europe to 23.3 billion euro. With 81 new companies, the Swedish industry is
showing stable growth and over the past decade has
increased turnover from EUR 130 million to an incredi-
ble EUR 3.3 billion over a ten-year period. The industry as a whole continues to be profitable,
now for the 12th consecutive year. For Swedish parent companies with subsidiaries
abroad, the entire revenue is included in the total, as
not all companies separately account for the revenue
nationally in their public reports. This can, on the one
hand, make it more difficult to compare the games
industry with other industries, while knowing that a
large part of the value is retained in the group and thus creates value in the parent company as there is gener-
ally a low proportion of purchases of goods or services
from outside. The pandemic has affected the industry. Revenues
have initially been good for many companies with
games on the market, as well as those that could be re-
leased during the year. The players have become more
active and at times games have been one of the few
social spaces available. At the same time, several com-
panies have seen their share price affected by market
expectations, and there have been major changes both
for existing employees and to recruit to a situation that
in many cases has meant working entirely remotely. A
longer analysis of the impact of the pandemic can be
found later in the report. Throughout the year, there have been many invest-
ments as well as write-downs and depreciation on de-
velopment projects. Both of these events have affected
the reported results in this report. Unchanged from previous year, seven companies
have a turnover of over EUR 100 million. The ten largest
companies account for 82% of total revenue and
the ten most profitable companies have collectively
Revenues & Results
3 312
2 318
1 872
1 403
1 325
1 248
1 028
757
427
2020
2019
2018
2017
2015 2016
256
130
2010 2011201220132014
Revenue M EUR

9
paid more than EUR 140 million in tax on earnings. In
addition, payments of social security contributions on
salaries have increased as the number of employees
in Sweden increases, and the ten largest employees
have together paid over EUR 130 million in total social
security contributions. 35 companies have a turnover of
over SEK 100 million. Embracer Group has had revenues of over EUR 850
million this year, which means that the Karlstad based
company consolidates its position as the country’s larg-
est game development group, and alone accounts for
just over a third of the entire industry’s increase during
the year. The games industry is an export industry and, like
all Swedish exports, has benefited from the favorable
SEK exchange rate versus the rest of the world. This is
particularly noticeable in the buoyant revenue figures.
Despite the weak Krona, several companies have
made large investments, which of course influences
the result. A more detailed review of investments
in the Swedish industry can be found in the chapter
Investments.
Paradox – Hearts of Iron IV – Battle For The Bosporus
“With 81 new companies, the
Swedish industry is showing stable
growth and over the past decade
has increased turnover from EUR
130 million to an incredible EUR
3.3 billion over a ten-year period.
The industry as a whole continues
to be profitable, now for the 12th
consecutive year.”
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

10 HIGHLIGHTS
Fast Travel Games – Wraith: The Oblivion Afterlife
The number of Swedish-developed games that are released varies from
year to year, but these days the industry is broad enough for individual
titles not to have a significant impact on the overall outcome. Here are
some examples of major events in 2020 and early 2021:
Highlights
• Embracer Group continued to grow by acquiring
several companies around the world and now con-
sists of nearly 80 studios with over 240 brands. In ear-
ly 2021 Embracer acquired American company Gear-
box Entertainment, creator of famous games such
as Borderlands and Brothers in Arms. The Swedish
operating group Coffee Stain is the publisher of the
independent Skövde based studio Iron Gate, which
in January 2021 released the game Valheim, which
in the first month made a huge success and sold 5
million copies.
• King continues to be stable going forward. Candy
Crush had over 273 million players and the brand had
sales of over 10 billion in 2020. The Swedish company
reported 4.7 billion in sales and during the year was
the most profitable company in the industry with a
profit of over EUR 250 million.
• Mojang continues to have stable sales and continues
to be the world’s best-selling game with over 238
million copies sold. In May 2020, Minecraft Dungeons
was released. Meanwhile, Minecraft: Education Edi-
tion is used in school education in over 150 countries.
• Stillfront has a continued good growth and ac-
quired several game studios in 2020, such as German
Sandbox Interactive and US based mobile game
developer Storm8.
• G5 Entertainment maintains a stable position in
the mobile games segment with good growth in
both sales and number of employees. The company
reports record results, and for the fourth year in a
row their turnover is over EUR 100 million. With a
Expansive Worlds – theHunter Call of the Wild

11
wide game catalog including games such as Hidden
City, Mahjong Solitaire and Jewels of Rome, the
company had 7.4 million active players (MAU) at the
end of 2020.
• For Paradox, 2020 was the best in the company’s
history in terms of both turnover and profit. Crusad-
er Kings III was the company’s biggest and perhaps
most important game release of the year, and the
game was praised by both players and critics. Para –
dox has expanded its business with the acquisitions
of French Playrion Game and Finnish Iceflake Stu-
dios, while also gaining great success with releases of
several expansions to existing games.
• Several vampire games are in the making around
the country. Paradox acquired the rights to World of
Darkness several years ago and is currently working
on upcoming Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines
2. Malmö studio Sharkmob released Vampire The
Masquerade – Bloodhunt in 2021; a battle royal game
based on the World of Darkness.
• Unrelated to this universe, Skövde-based Stunlock
Studios has announced the survival vampire game
V Rising, and Linköping-based Graewolv has the
vampire game Project Veil in development.
• Raw Fury has continued to have good growth
during the year, invested heavily in more indie game
projects, and in the summer of 2021 opened two art
galleries, one in Stockholm and one in Croatian Za-
greb. In August 2021, the investment company Altor
acquired a majority in Raw Fury and bought out the
former partner Nordisk Games.
• Avalanche Studios Group had several major suc-
cesses during the year. Expansive Worlds theHunter:
Call of the Wild passed one billion in sales and has an
average of one million monthly active users. Systemic
Reactions Generation Zero and Second Extinction
both have over one million players. In the summer of
2021, Avalanche Studios Group announced
upcoming
game Contraband, which will be developed with
Xbox Game Studios as the publisher.
• In 2020, Ubisoft Entertainment became the coun-
try’s largest employer in the industry with 741 em-
ployees, including 641 at Ubisoft Massive in Malmö
and 100 people at Ubisoft Stockholm . During the
year, it became public that the company will make
a Star Wars game in collaboration with LucasArts.
Alongside this project, the studio is working on the
upcoming game Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora in
partnership with Lightstorm Entertainment and
FoxNext Games, as well as Tom Clancy’s The Division
series.
• Another collaboration with LucasArt takes place in
Uppsala where MachineGames has been commis-
sioned to develop the next upcoming Indiana Jones
adventure.
• During the year, several Swedish game companies
have been awarded prizes at various galas. For exam-
ple, Lost in Random from Thunderful Zoink won the
Best Indie Award at Gamescom 2021.
The above list is not exhaustive; there are many other
examples of Swedish game development success in the
past year.
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

12 EMPLOYEES
The number of employees in the games industry
in Sweden increased by 9% in 2020 to 6,596 people.
This corresponds to 671 new full-time positions.
Employees
In the same year 4,000 full-time positions were added
abroad in Swedish-owned companies, mainly due to ac-
quisitions. The largest employers in Sweden are Ubisoft
and EA Dice, both of which employ over 700 people. 15
companies in Sweden have over 100 employees. In addition to employees in Sweden, Swedish-owned
companies have over 7,000 employees around the
world outside Sweden, and a total of 7,177 people are
employed by a Swedish-owned game development
company. More details about this can be found in the
chapter on Swedish Games companies around the
world. The numbers presented above are based on the
reported average number of full-time employees over
the entire accounting period. This means that the
actual figure in the industry is often higher since many
companies have expanded and with more employees
at the end of the year than at the beginning of the year.
When possible, the number of employees in December
2020 has been used as a reference to better reflect the
progress during the year. When it comes to employees
abroad, the Swedish company must have reported that
there is a subsidiary in each country. Not included are smaller subsidiaries, such as individ –
ual marketing offices or other forms of business offices, often run as a consultants, as they have only a marginal
influence on the total number of employees. Also not
included are foreign marketing subsidiaries based in
Sweden. In addition to the reported numbers, there are
people in different company structures, people in
companies that have not yet published their accounts,
freelancers and subcontractors that are not shown as
employees in the annual accounts. Taking these hidden
numbers into account, the total is estimated to be
higher. As an example, there are 255 sole traders regis-
tered under computer games in the Swedish business
register. There is high demand for employees in all work
categories, which hampers the full development of
the companies, not least when it comes to recruiting
within the Swedish borders. This is evident when the
companies expand, and Embracer, Stillfront, EG7 and
G5 are examples of companies that employ more
people abroad than in Sweden. An overview of all Swed –
ish-owned game studios can be found on the World
Map later in the report.
6 596
5 925
5 320
4 670
3 750
3 709
3 117
2 534
1 967
1 512
1 203
2020
2019
2018
2017
2015 2016
2010 2011201220132014
Employees in Sweden

13
Really Interactive – Virtuoso
France:15,000
Spain: 9,500 Poland:
7,800
Germany:
10,487
Romania:6,000
Sweden:
5,925
LARGEST EMPLOYEE
BASES IN EUROPE (2019)
86,953employees in 2019
compared to 77,916 in 2018
Source: EGDF & ISFE Game Survey 2021
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

14 NUMBER OF COMPANIES
Number of Companies
A major change in this year’s report is the total number
of companies. This year, with the help of Statistics
Sweden’s business register, we have carried out a major
review of the companies in our database and manually
reviewed all companies with
NACE code* 58.210 – Pub-
lishing of computer games. Thanks to this, we identified
almost 200 companies with a clear connection to the
industry who were not previously included in the Game
Developer Index. We also found 170 companies listed
under
NACE 58.210 whose main business was in other
industries. These companies were not included in the
Game Developer Index database. Since far from all added companies were founded
in 2020, we have revised and updated the comparative
figures for the number of companies accordingly based
on the companies that exist today. This means that we
in this report show higher figures historically compared
to previous reports, but that the real figure is probably
higher since we can only revise for companies that
still exist and not those who have shut down or gone
bankrupt. For 2019, the revised increase was 151 com-
panies from 435 to 586. It should also be noted that,
for administrative reasons, the economic activity of a
game studio may be divided into several companies.
More details about the selection can be found in the
Methodology chapter. In this year’s report, 103 companies are over ten
years old, compared to previous Game Developer
Index, reporting that there was a total of 106 companies
in the industry in 2010. This data point is now revised to 115 companies thanks to the new
NACE analysis.
Looking back at old registers, we can see that around
80 of these companies from 2010 are included in this
year’s report. This points to a relatively small turnover
of companies in the industry, and very few companies
go bankrupt or change operations.
Other types of business
In 2020, there were 231 Sole traders, 35 Trading part-
nerships and 4 Economic associations registered under
NACE 58.210 – computer game publishing.
Among the sole traders, 87 reported revenue in 2020.
12 traders reported a revenue of more than SEK 500K
and only three individual firms had a revenue of more
than SEK 1 million. 16 traders were women, 7 of these
reported revenues, none over SEK 500K. 12 of the Trading partnerships reported revenue.
Several of the businesses registered under
NACE
58.210 and operating in 2020 were not working with
game development. In addition to these, we are aware
of about 40 traders who create games, but have their
business registered under other
NACE codes. Some of
these can be found on the Game Developer Map.
* NACE, Nomenclature of Economic Activities is the European statisti-
cal classification of economic activites. In Sweden these are called SNI,
Svensk näringslivsindelning.
In 2020, 81 new games companies were registered,
an increase of 14%, up to a total of 667 companies.
667
586
513
442
389
321
268
217
187
147
115
2020
2019
2018
2017
2015 2016
2010 2011201220132014
Number of Companies in Sweden

15
48 %34 %
12 %
4 %
2 %
Solo companies: 314
Without employees
Micro companies: 226
<10 employees, <2M EUR revenue

Small companies: 81
10–49 employees, <10M EUR revenue

Mid-sized companies: 28
50–199 employees, 200 employees, >50M EUR revenue
Total amount of companies: 659
Amount of Companies by size
Number of Employees & Revenues
by Company type
A large proportion of companies in the industry are
small. Just under half of the companies are without
employees and a quarter of the companies registered
no revenue in 2020.
The definition of companies below is based on the EU
definition of company size. In this report we have adjust
–
ed the definition of solo companies to companies with –
out employees (the EU definition also includes compa –
nies where the owner is employed), and medium-sized
companies are here defined as companies with 50-199
employees instead of 50-249 employees. These changes
are due to how data is reported from Statistics Sweden. In this chapter we have, for clarity purposes, used an
even exchange rate of SEK 10 per EUR.
The chart shows that the largest proportion of
companies in the industry is small. Solo and micro-com-
panies together account for 82% of all companies in the
industry. 144 companies have more than 5 employees,
of which only 22 companies are employing more than
50 people. Almost 100 companies have a turnover of
more than EUR 1 million, of which some companies
are subsidiaries of other companies in the industry. 35
companies in the industry had over EUR 10 million in
revenues in 2020. Due to new data sources and a revision of the num-
ber of companies in the report this year, we will not
make a comparison with previous years in this chapter.
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

16 WOMEN & GENDER DISTRIBUTION
In 2020, both the number and the percentage of female employees
in the game industry increased. In total 21.4%, or 1,410 employees at
Swedish video game companies are female, an increase of 184 women
compared to last year. Among the new recruits, 27% were women.
Women & Gender Distribution
During the year, 1,712 women were employed by a
subsidiary to a Swedish game company abroad. This
corresponds to 24% of all staff at Swedish-owned game
studios around the world. The majority of these are
working for Embracer Group, Stillfront, G5 Entertain-
ment and Paradox. What impedes analysis of this subject is the difficul-
ty in obtaining data on gender distribution in many
companies. The listed companies have an obligation to
report this in their annual accounts, but the majority
of small, medium-sized and even large companies are
not making this information available, neither in annual
reports nor web pages. For this year’s report, we have
supplemented with data on gender distribution from
Statistics Sweden, but it has not been available for all
companies. There is also a lack of data on non-bina –
ryness. In order for the industry to grasp the existing
challenges and actively work towards equality in, for
example, recruitment processes, it would be helpful if
more companies made this information public. The challenges lie in attracting more women to the industry and to retain them, but also to make more
women start companies. Women in the game industry
are mainly found in medium-sized and large companies.
The most equal distribution can be found in companies
working on mobile platforms and VR. One company
that stands out in this year’s report is Avalanche Studios
Group, which during the year increased both the pro-
portion and number of women employed in the compa-
ny and went from 18% women in the Swedish Division
in 2019 to just over 22% at the end of 2020. Also, six solo
companies are run as limited liability companies where
a woman has taken a salary during the year. To the extent that data has been available, gen-
der distribution has been reported based on gender
identity according to how the respective company has
reported this information. 16 out of 259 sole traders registered under NACE
code 58.210 (Computer game publishing) were women.
44%, 7 of the female sole traders, reported turnover in
2020. That compares with 33% of all male sole traders
in the industry.
1 410
1 226
1 036
849
643
580
516
405
293
212
121
2020
2019
2018
2017
2015 2016
2010 2011201220132014
Women Working in the Industry in Sweden

17
from forming a minority not only in companies as a
whole but also by forming a minority in their profes-
sional category. Although the proportion of women
is increased at the company as a whole, it does not
necessarily make a difference to those women who are
still a minority in their professional category, in tech
where 8.4% were women, negative effects could persist
even if the proportion of women in all other categories
increased.
What other lessons can we learn? – Hope is not lost! Every year since 2014, the game
developer index has measured a constantly increasing
proportion of women in the industry. Although it may
be some time before women’s minority status in indus –
try is significantly reduced, there are several possible
measures to reduce the negative effects women may
experience. According to research, there are a variety of
ways of working, such as breaking restrictive profes-
sional identities and thus giving women a better fit in
the game industry’s seemingly male coded professions
to work with objective evaluation methods. If compa-
nies can put aside prestige and work with real gender
equality internally as motivation with clear concrete
goals, I am hopeful for all people’s future experiences in
the game industry regardless of gender.
THE INDUSTRY VOICE MY NILSSON
Studio Manager, Frogsong
My Nilsson, now Studio Manager
at Frogsong, investigated the rep-
resentation of women in different
professions in the Swedish gam-
ing industry in 2020. Among other
things, she found that a lower
proportion of women than men
reached leadership positions,
even when taking into account
that fewer women work in the
industry. Most women were found in roles outside
the classic production chain of programmers, graphic
artists and designers.
Hello My Nilsson! Were you surprised by anything in
the results of your study? – It was expected that women were underrepresent-
ed in the classic production chain and in leadership
positions, but I was surprised that they were also so
noticeably underrepresented in professions outside the
production chain.
Is there anything in your results that you think
more companies can embrace? – What I most want companies to understand is the
negative effects that female employees can experience
Gender distribution in different professions
Women Men
Management
DesignTechArt
Sound
Support
100 %
50 %
0 % Distribution of leadership titles
Women outside leadership
Women in leadership roles
31 % 37,5 %
Men outside leadership
Men in leadership roles “Support” includes all non-production roles such as marketing,
finance, and HR.
Two key take outs from My Nilsson’s study
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

19
Several initiatives in the industry
• In 2020, Paradox offered a game development course
aimed at women and people who identify as women
or non-binary under the name Games by Her. The
goal is to help improve diversity in the game industry
and, in particular, within programming.
• Leveling The Playing Field is a funding initiative from
Coffee Stain, focusing on smaller studios that employ
at least the same number of women as men, to pro-
mote equality in game development.
• In 2020, The Internet Foundation created Tidsvåg
– a virtual celebration of games and women’s
achievements in the industry.
• Wings was founded in 2018 and invests in indie
games by teams in which women and people of mar-
ginalized genders hold key company positions.
• GEM, Game Empowernment Movement, started
operations in southern Sweden in 2021 as a local initi-
ative to support gender equality and inclusion culture
in the games industry.
• DONNA is an interest group based at Skövde Univer-
sity that has worked for the past ten years on gender
issues in game development, work that has been
hailed as learning examples of how to work with
gender mainstreaming at colleges and universities. In
2021, the mini-conference DONNA DAY was arranged
for the fifth time in connection with the Sweden
Game Conference.
Some key figures
• 22 companies consist of at least 50% female employ-
ees, compared to 31 last year. The largest of these is
Star Stable with 73 women employed
• 70 companies have a higher proportion of women
than average, with at least 22% female employees;
in total they have revenues of EUR 1.4 billion
• 108 companies with more than one employee consist
of only men, the largest of these companies has 23
employees
Sharkmob – Bloodhunt
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

20 LARGEST COMPANIES
More companies are expanding. Seven companies have revenues
exceeding EUR 100 million and 15 companies had over 100
employees. Around half of the companies report profit, 49
companies have profits of over EUR 1 million and 86 companies
have more than ten employees.
Largest companies
Something We Made – TOEM

21
CompanyRevenue MEUR 2020
1 Embracer Group 861
2 King 447
3 Mojang 428
4 Stillfront Group 381
5 Paradox 171
6 G5 Entertainment 129
7 EA DICE 121
8 Ubisoft Sweden 68
9 Avalanche Studios Group 59
10 Toca Boca 55
CompanyEmployees in Sweden 2020
1 Ubisoft Sverige 741
2 EA Dice 714
3 King 693
4 Paradox 431
5 Avalanche Studios Group 376*
6 Embracer Group 286*
7 Goodbye Kansas Group 196
8 Sharkmob 156*
9 Star Stable Entertainment 143
10 Embark Studios AB 138
In addition to the list above, Thunderful Group should be mentioned, which in 2020
had sales of M EUR 294, but where most of the revenue came from the distribution.
*Number of employees on 31 December 2020. Sharkmob employed an average of
124 people during the year, and in September 2021 had 240 employees in Malmö.
Embracer’s key figures are from March 31, 2021.
Revenue in EUR million
Number of Employees in Sweden
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

22 BUSINESS GROUPS AND THE STOCK EXCHANGE
Business Groups
and the Stock Exchange
This is reflected in market capitalisation,
where Karlstad-based Embracer Group in
spring 2021 became the highest valued game
company in Europe. This report’s Game De
–
veloper Map illustrates where Swedish game
companies are acquiring studios around the
world.
The business groups in this report have
changed over the years. Goodbye Kansas has
existed in various forms and different corpo-
rate structures, and since 2019 the company
has been listed as Goodbye Kansas Group on
First North Stockholm. The company is also
active in film production and
VFX , but the as-
sessment for this year’s report has been that
the games part is a significant business for
the company, and their annual report states
that 2/3 of the revenue at the end of 2020,
including the
VFX production, was in game
related projects. Other business groups, such as Embrac –
er and Stillfront, have a large part of their
operations outside of Sweden. Together, the
two companies own a significant part of the
German games industry.
THQ Nordic, Koch
Media and Goodgame are three examples of
Swedish owned game companies in Germany.
In this report revenue is reported on group
basis as the parent companies are listed in
Sweden and have their registered office here.
The proportion of employees is published by
studio and country.
A new business group is Thunderful Group.
Formed by the merger of Gothenburg game studios Image & Form and Zoink, they later
merged with Nintendo distributor Bergsala
and went public in December 2020. A signifi
–
cant 95% share of Thunderful Group’s reve –
nue is attributed to Thunderful Distribution,
which includes the operations of Bergsala,
Nordic Game Supply and Amo Toys, while
the other part of the business, Thunderful
Games, that develops and publishes games,
is a smaller but growing share. In the case of
Thunderful Group, we have broken out and
included the part of the business related to
game development, i.e. 156 million in sales
and 136 employees in Thunderful Games. In
total, the Group had sales of almost 300 M
EUR in 2020.
Listed companies
19 Swedish game companies are listed on
the stock market, 14 of which were listed in
the last 5 years. 5 of the companies had a
turnover in excess of 1 billion SEK in 2020. The
stock market table also includes Thunderful
Group, a game development company, but
where a large part of the turnover is from the
division that distributes Nintendo’s games in
the Nordic region. Together, the listed companies had reve-
nues of EUR 2 billion in 2020, almost double
the total from last year. The total market capitalization for the listed
Swedish game companies in December 2020
was EUR 10,7 billion.
A change that has taken place in the Swedish games industry in recent
years that more and more business groups with a Swedish parent
company and subsidiaries abroad have gained market share and
retained their parent companies with a registered office in Sweden.

23
CompanyYear of (first) listningListed on Revenue 2020 MEUR
Starbreeze AB 2000Nasdaq Stockholm 11
G5 Entertainment AB 2006Nasdaq Stockholm 129
Star Vault AB 2007Nordic SME –
Safe Lane Gaming AB 2010Nordic SME 0,6
Stillfront Group AB 2015First North Stockholm 381
Embracer Group AB 2016First North Stockholm 861
Paradox Interactive AB 2016First North Stockholm 171
Jumpgate AB 2016Nordic SME 1,4
Gold Town Games AB 2016Nordic SME 1
Enad Global 7 AB 2017First North Stockholm 54
MAG Interactive AB 2017First North Stockholm 21
Goodbye Kansas Group AB 2017First North Stockholm 15
Qiiwi Games AB 2017Nasdaq First North Growth Market 10
Beyond frames
Entertainment AB 2018
Spotlight Stock Market 1,2
Zordix AB 2018Nordic SME 0,9
Adventure Box
Technology AB 2019
First North Stockholm 0
Thunderful Group AB 2020First North Stockholm 291
Sozap AB 2021Nasdaq First North Growth Market 1
Wicket Gaming AB 2021Spotlight Stock Market 0
Kavalri Games – Equestrian the Game
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

24
THE INDUSTRY VOICE
MARTIN LINDELL
Game historian and Senior Advisor at Embracer Group
What was Sweden’s first commercial game success? – Christer Medin developed the game Stone Sling
for Philips Videopac, which was released back in 1981.
Shortly thereafter, Peter Inser started the company In-
tron, which, in addition to other software development,
employed six people to make games for Philips, among
others.
But what did it really look like, were there any
women who developed games in the 80s? – Kajsa Söderström was the first female published
game developer in Sweden. Her game Agent 999
was listed in the magazine Allt om hemdatorer in
1984. Before that, Elsa Karin Boestad-Nilsson and her
colleagues, among others Ulla Jismark, made war sim-
ulators and turn-based strategy games for the defense
department in the 1950s and 1960s, but they were not
entertain ment games.
How did society really view the game pioneers of
the time, did they get any recognition? – The daily press had the most amusing headlines
such as “video games during working hours with the
manager’s approval” when SvD wrote about Intron in
1984. Newspapers such as Allt om hemdatorer and
Joystick noted when games were developed by Swedes,
but it left no lasting impressions. It was probably only
with Digital Illusions (
DICE ) and their diary in Datormag –
azin in the early 1990s that game developers gained a
little more stardom.
THE INDUSTRY VOICE
Agent 999 by Kajsa Söderström, from Allt om
hemdatorer issue 9, 1984
Cover to Stone Sling, developed to Philips
Videopac by Christer Medin
Article from Svenska Dagbladet, December
14th 1984, Headline: “Video Games during
working hours with the managers approval”

25
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

26 GAME DEVELOPER MAP – SWEDEN
The table below shows the largest regions ranked by number
of employees and number of companies. Although the
majority of the employees are based in the capital, there
are a higher number of companies outside the capital.
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8 9
10 11
13 14
16
21 20
15
17 18
19
12
Game Developer Map – Sweden
Some Stockholm companies, for example King, Avalanche
Studios Group, Paradox Interactive and
DICE , have offic –
es in more than one part of the country. Malmoe-based
Massive also has offices in Stockholm and Karlstad-based
Embracer Group owns several studios around the
country. Worth noting is that only employees of limited
companies are included, and that it is the number of full-
time employees stated in the annual reports. The actual
number of people working in games development in the
respective regions is therefore significantly higher.
Note that the numbers below include game studios
that started in 2021.
Region Number of Studios Number of employees
CAPITAL 310 4 244
WEST 105 613
SOUTH 98 1 237
NORTH 77 297
Rest of the country 95 229
Total 685 6 620
CAPITAL includes Stockholm, Uppsala and Söderman-
land.
WEST includes Västra Götaland and Halland,
SOUTH includes Skåne and Blekinge, and NOR T H
includes Norrbotten, Västerbotten and Västernorrland.
As far as possible, employees at local offices are report-
ed under respective location.
The purpose of the map is to illustrate as much as
possible where in the country there is game develop
–
ment and which companies are behind it. Therefore we
have used studio names rather than company names
when such information has been available. For the same
reason, to the greatest extent, there are not administra
–
tive divisions of studios on the map. Italicized names are
companies in forms other than limited liability com
–
panies and added manually. Is your company missing
from the map? Please contact us with description.

27
NORRBOTTEN  1
Boden
5 Fortress AB
921 Studios AB
Cafiend AB
House of How Games Sweden AB
Nethash AB
TNTX in Boden AB
Wanderword i Sverige AB
Frozen Waffle
Haparanda
Tiny Lady
Luleå
Bazooka Game Studios AB
Blamorama Games
October8 AB
RDY Arena AB
Stormraven AB
Virtual Light VR AB
Pixadome HB
Piteå
Aurora Punks AB
Baldheads Creative AB
Digital Awakening AB
Frozen North Studios AB
Lucky Star Creative Agency
VÄSTERBOTTEN  2
Skellefteå
Boxplay Skellefteå AB
Creative Crowd AB
Cubetopia AB
DANIEL LEHTO AB Eloso Digital AB
Flat Tail Studios AB
Frigol IT & Media AB
Goat Mountain Development AB
Gold Town Games
Grand Pike AB
Lazer Wolf Studios AB
Limit Break Studio
Mindforce Game Lab AB
Natural User Interface Technolo-
gies AB
Nirah Studios
Nordsken Handlingskraft AB
North Kingdom
Strangewood Studios AB
Tales To Be Told Sweden AB
Tarvalley, Aktiebolag
Technique Program i Skellefteå
Triolith Games AB
Vavel Games AB
Vorto Gaming
White Warlock AB
Yalts AB
Arctic Beard Studio HB
Limit Break
Tap Your Feet
Umeå
Bruno Janvier Software AB
Cassius Creative AB
COLDWOOD INTERACTIVE AB
David Marquardt Studios AB
Frostspektrum Interactive AB
Level Eight AB
Morningdew Media AB
Musikmedel Future Vision AB
nostop horses AB
ORYX SIMULATIONS
Skyturns AB
Slice Start Software Solutions AB
Source Empire AB
The Fine Arc Nordic AB
Turborilla AB
TWO 58 PRODUCTIONS AB
Zordix
OddGames Umeå
VÄSTERNORRLAND  3
Härnösand
Setup Control Aktiebolag
Örnsköldsvik
BITZUM AB
Sundsvall
A bit ago AB
AtomicElbow AB
Caeiro AB
Corncrow Games AB
Good Decision AB
Grey Tower AB
KONUNGER GAMES AB
Molntuss Spel AB
Nbrigade Music
R&P Games AB
Saber Interactive Sweden
Sideline Labs AB
SideQuest Sweden AB SPACELOOM STUDIOS AB
Neozoo Creative
JÄMTLAND 4
Åre
Hindelid Development AB
GÄVLEBORG  5
Gävle
Early Morning Studio AB
DALARNA  6
Borlänge
Quiz Anytime AB
Zoikum Games Aktiebolag
Falun
Aktiebolaget Adit Studios
Deadghost Interactive AB
Giron Software AB
Kolesterol Cät Interactive AB
MEGAFRONT AB
North Concept ArtStudio AB
Tension Onsite Sport AB
TENSION technology AB
The New Branch AB
Hedemora
Clifftop Games AB
Killmonday Games AB
Leksand
HJO Creations Leksand
Säter
Twoorb Studios AB
REGION UPPSALA 7
Enköping
Yoger Games AB
Håbo
aMASE AB
Knivsta
Studio Knick-Knack AB
Uppsala
Aegik AB
Bad Yolk Games AB
Chizu AB
Disir productions AB
Doctor Entertainment AB
Epic Games Sweden Scanning AB
Frojo Apps AB
GAME-HOSTING GH AB
Javxa
MachineGames Sweden AB
Matematikspel i Uppsala Aktie-
bolag Neon Giant AB
Nexile AB
Night Node AB
PikkoTekk AB
Red Cabin Games AB
RLG AB
Semiwork Studios AB
VisualDreams
Wicket Gaming AB
YemSoft AB
Teotl Studios
VÄSTMANLAND 8
Köping
LS Entertainment AB
VÄRMLAND 9
Karlstad
Agera Games AB
Clear River Games AB
Coastalbyte AB
Embracer Group AB
Forgebyte Studio AB
Gerado AB
Insanto Studios AB
Mirage Game Studios AB
Nuttery Entertainment AB
Plucky Bytes AB
QL Holding AB
Kil
Philisophic Games Sweden
REGION ÖREBRO 10
Degerfors
ORBMIT Productions AB
Nora
Toasty Leaf AB
Örebro
Elder Grounds AB
LOY D Studios AB
Shemshem Studio AB
vibynary Aktiebolag
SÖDERMANLAND  11
Eskilstuna
AppsAlliance AB
DVapps AB
Todys Games AB
Tree branch
Nyköping
SOZAP
Sysiac games AB
Continues on the next page
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

28 GAME DEVELOPER MAP – SWEDEN
REGION STOCKHOLM  1 2
Botkyrka
Beadhead Games AB
Stringent Ljud AB
Danderyd
Peppy Pals AB
Planeshift Interactive AB
Solvarg AB
Ekerö
chillbro studios AB
Playstack AB
Haninge
Gamatron AB
Horror Generation AB
Pretty Fly Games AB
Rain of Reflections AB
Huddinge
Bearded Ladies
Frosty Elk AB
Moon Mode AB
Razzleberries AB
Typosaurus AB
Järfälla
Farewell games AB
Merrybrain AB
Unleash the Giraffe AB
Lidingö
Bridgeside AB
Eight Lives AB
Envar Entertainment AB
PIXEL TALES AB
Right Nice Games AB
GD Studio
Nacka
2Play Studios AB
Colin Lane Games AB
LeadTurn Gaming AB
Liquid Swords AB
Mentalytics AB
Norrtälje
Argent Realms AB
Space Plunge AB
Roaring Kittens Handelsbolag
Sigtuna
Polygrade Holding AB
Svantech Studios AB
Usurpator AB
Södertälje
Diffident Games AB
JN Interactive AB
Sollentuna
Ullbors Illustrations AB
Shining Gate Software Solna
Christian Nordgren AB
Frozen Dev AB
FunGI AB
Jona Marklund AB
Kaj Forell Video Game Brand AB
Sharcoal Studios AB
Solutions Skövde AB
TRB Studio AB
Life Games Handelsbolag
Stockholm stad
10 Chambers
10 Chambers AB
A Small Game AB
Above Entertainment AB
Acegikmo AB
Adventure Box Technology AB
Aktiebolaget Fula Fisken
Ampd AB
Amplifier Game Invest AB
Antler Interactive AB
Apprope AB
Arcmill AB
Arrowhead Game Studios AB
art by rens AB
Avalanche Studios Group
Axolot Games AB
Barnacles Studio AB
Battlecamp AB
Beyond Frames Entertainment
AB (publ)
Blackfox Studios
Blastronaut AB
Bodbacka:Boom AB
Book of travel AB
Checheza AB
Chief Rebel AB
Chuffy Puffy Games AB
Coffee Stain
Cold Pixel AB
Collecting Smiles AB
Coocoolo AB
Cortopia AB
Cosmico AB
Crackshell AB
Creation Zero Point Holding AB
Deeznuts AB
Define Reality AB
Defold
Devm Games AB
Diax Game AB
Digital Exception Sthlm AB
Doomlord Interactive AB
DorDor AB
E A Dice
Ekvall Games Sweden AB
Eldring Games AB
Elias Software AB
Embark Studios AB
Enad Global 7 AB
ExoCorp AB
EXP Studios AB
Expansive Worlds
Experiment 101 AB
Fablebit AB
Fall Damage Studio AB
Fast Travel Games AB
Fatshark
F E O Media Holding AB Filimundus AB
FJRD Interactive
Flarie AB
Flashe Gaming Group AB
Friend Factory AB
FunRock Development AB
Future of Retail AB
G5 Entertainment AB
Gameloom AB
Gamersgate AB
Gamescan Stockholm Studios AB
Ghetto Blaster AB
Gleechi AB
Glorious Games Group AB
Goodbye Kansas
GraphN AB
Grindstone Interactive AB
Gro Play Digital AB
Happi Studios AB
Hatrabbit AB
Hazelight
HE L G Group AB
HVNT Entertainment AB
Hyperspeed Entertainment AB
JO Johansson Film & L Lindbom AB
Kavalri Games AB
Kickflip Digital AB
King
Landfall Games AB
Legendo Entertainment AB
Lekis AB
LERP AB
Level Stars AB
Light & Dark Arts AB
Like a Boss Games AB
Linbasta AB
Lionbite AB
LIQUID MEDIA AB
Maadwalk Games AB
MAG Interactive AB
Mibi Games AB
Midjiwan AB
Might and Delight AB
Mimerse AB
Miso Games AB
Mojang AB
Motvind Studios AB
MuddyPixel AB
Mudpike AB
Mutate AB
Nadasoft AB
NAG Studios AB
Neat Corporation
Neuston AB
NFG Nordic Forest Games AB
Northplay Holding AB
Odd Raven Studios AB
Osivvi AB
Other Games AB
Oxeye Game Studio AB
P Studios AB
Palabit AB
Paradox Development Studio AB
Paradox Interactive AB
Petter Bergmar AB
Photon Forge AB
PLAYCOM GAME DESIGN AB
Playtrigger Games AB
Plotagon Production AB
Polarbit AB Pronoia AB
Psychogenic AB
Pusselbit Games AB
Quel Solaar AB
Questadore AB
Rainbow Road AB
RAKETSPEL INTERAKTIVA

PRODUKTIONER AB
Raw Fury AB
Really Interactive AB
Red Cup Games AB
Refold AB
Regius Group AB
Reset Media AB
Resolution Games AB
Ride & Crash AB
Ringtail Interactive AB
Rock A Role Games AB
Rovio Sweden AB
Rowil AB
Rymdfall AB
Safe Lane Gaming AB (publ)
Scion Studios AB
Shelter Games AB
Simway AB
Sleeper Cell AB
Snowprint Studios AB
Spelkraft Sthlm AB
STAR STABLE ENTERTAINMENT AB
Starbreeze
Stillfront Group AB
Strawberry Hill AB
Stroboskop AB
Stumpysquid AB
Sunhammer AB
Svartskägg AB
Systemic Reaction AB
TALAWA GAMES AB
The Gang Sweden AB
Thriving Ventures AB
Tiger & Kiwi AB
Toadman Interactive AB
Toca Boca AB
Tomorroworld AB
Toppluva AB
Trail Games AB
TROISDIM AKTIEBOLAG
TwifySoft AB
Unity Technologies Sweden AB
Valiant Game Studio AB
Villa Gorilla AB
vingar interaktiva AB
Vinternatt Studio AB
Virtual Brains AB
Visiontrick Media AB
Warm Kitten AB
Wayfare Studio AB
Westre Games AB
Wild Games AB
Wilnyl Games AB
Wonderscope AB
wrlds creations AB
Xpert Eleven AB
Zenz VR AB
Defender Studios
Hörberg Productions
Nifflas Games
Ryggio Handelsbolag
Superposition Games
Unordinal AB
Continued from previous page

29
Sundbyberg
KEP Games AB
Täby
Delayed Again AB
Frojo Investment AB
NIALBE AB
Omnizens Games AB
Polyregular Studios AB
Tealbit AB
Warpzone Studios AB
Handelsbolaget Seatribe
Tyresö
Sista Potatis AB
Spelagon AB
Pixols Tyresö
Upplands Väsby
Dinomite Games AB
Fredaikis AB
RobTop Games AB
Upplands-Bro
Bambino Games AB
Freshly Squeezed AB
Vallentuna
Pixeldiet Entertainment AB
Värmdö
Good Night Brave Warrior AB
IMGNRY International AB
Massive Shapes AB
Spelkultur i Sverige AB ÖSTERGÖTLAND 13
Linköping
Aftnareld AB
Appelsin Apps AB
Avokodo Studios AB
Beartwigs AB
Catalope Games AB
Graewolv AB
Incredible Concepts of Sweden AB
Irrbloss AB
Landell Games AB
Laxbeam AB
Lurkware AB
Lutra Interactive AB
Martin Magni AB
Miltonic Games AB
overflow Aktiebolag
Pixleon AB
Power Challenge AB
Simplygon Studios
Therese Kristoffer Publishing AB
VISIARC Inclusive Design AB
Worldshapers AB
Zero Index AB
Holm Computing
SetShape Studio
Solid Core
Sparris Studio
Wavebots
Motala
Campcreation AB
Code Club AB Friendly Fire AB
Norrköping
AmberWing AB
Correcture Games AB
Dimfrost Studio AB
FeWes AB
Gamesclub International AB
GOES International AB
Molndust Interactive AB
Perpetuum Media Sverige AB
Pugstorm AB
Skyfox Interactive AB
Sutur AB
Caspian Interactive
Silkworm
VÄSTRA GÖTALAND 14
Ale
Wishful Whale AB
Alingsås
Alega & Qiiwi Learning AB
Qiiwi Games AB
Bollebygd
Rockheart Studios AB
Borås
Gigantic Duck AB
Falköping
Cosmic Picnic Falk Animation Studio
Gothenburg
1337 Game Design AB
Atvis AB
Box Dragon AB
Bulbsort AB
Carry Castle AB
Craft Animations and Entertain-
ment AB
Creative AI Nordic AB
Creative Vault AB
Dennaton Games
Devkittens AB
Elden Pixels AB
Epic Games Sweden AB
Friendbase AB
Fully Multiplayer AB
Greenblade Studios AB
Hello There
Hiber AB
Humla Games AB
Insert Coin AB
int3 software AB
ius innovation AB
just some games AB
Kirikoro Studios AB
Lavapotion AB
MindArk
Neckbolt AB
Outbreak Studios AB
Pax6 Games AB
Playcentric Studios AB
Continues on the next page
Fatshark – Darktide
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

30 GAME DEVELOPER MAP – SWEDEN
Räven Aktiebolag
Retroid Interactive AB
River End Games AB
Skill2Win Studios AB
SkyGoblin AB
SteelRaven7 AB
Thunderful Group
Thunderful: Image & Form
Thunderful: Zoink
Winteractive AB
Wishfully Studios AB
YCJ Y Games AB
Zcooly AB
Faravid Interactive
Skygoblin
Warcry Interactive
Götene
VaragtP Studios AB
Kungälv
Dreamon Studios AB
Lidköping
Black Tundra Productions AB
Pixel Pointer Studios AB
Mark
EXTRALIVES AB
Mellerud
Vovoid Media Technologies AB
Mölndal
E Games Invest Nordic AB
Heyman Atelje & Verkstad AB
Continued from previous page Itatake AB
nornware AB
Pathos Interactive AB
Munkedal
Coilworks AB
Skövde
Angry Demon Studio AB
Babloon Studios AB
Brimstone Games AB
Designlayout EGU AB
DoubleMoose Games AB
Flamebait AB
FRAME BREAK AB
Green Tile Digital AB
Iron Gate AB
Knackelibang Productions AB
Let it roll AB
Ludosity AB
Nattland Interactive AB
Nørdlight Games AB
Palindrome Interactive AB
Pieces Interactive AB
Piktiv AB
PocApp Studios AB
Redbeet Interactive AB
Sandspire Interactive AB
Sonigon AB
Stunlock Studios AB
Subfrost Interactive AB
Sunscale Studios AB
Thunderful: Skövde
Whirlybird Games AB
Small friend games
Stenungsund
Ace Maddox AB Tanum
Tenstar
Trollhättan
ActiveQuiz Europe AB
Easy Trigger AB
Vänersborg
Virtuverse AB
REGION JÖNKÖPING 15
Jönköping
Brandywise AB
Cuddle Monster AB
PrettyByte AB
Radical Sunset AB
Tranås
Head Coach Games AB
HALLAND 16
Halmstad
Erik Svedäng AB
Kungsbacka
Nifly Apps AB
Oganon interactive AB
Snojken AB
KRONOBERG 17
Älmhult
Inntq AB Alvesta
Wadonk AB
Tingsryd
Spelkollektivet Sweden AB
Växjö
Mabozo AB
Universal Learning Games ULG AB
Wildcore AB
REGION KALMAR 18
Kalmar
CJ Pedagog Handelsbolag
Nybro
Deadly Serious Media Sweden AB
JMBM AB
GOTLAND 19
Eat Create Sleep AB
Jumpgate AB
Pixel Ferrets AB
Storm Potion AB
Tableflip Entertainment AB
BetterBuilt Studio
Bloodberry Games
Power of Two Games Handelsbolag
BLEKINGE 20
Karlshamn
Dreamwalker Studios AB
Angry Demon – Gory Cuddly Carnage

31
Swedish game companies
around the globe
Several game companies have expanded inter-
nationally. In Game Developer Index 2020, there
were 39 Swedish-owned game studios around
the world. In 2020, that figure grew to 126, and
the number of Swedish companies with sub-
sidiaries abroad has more than doubled.
In total, there are studios across 38 countries in five
continents. 21 companies are located in the US, and
84 studios are located in Europe, of which 20 are
based in Germany. Sweden is the largest source of
investment for German companies in recent years.
The company with largest business outside of Swe-
den in 2020 was Embracer Group, which through
its various branches has 69 studios in more than 40
countries. Embracer is closely followed by Stillfront
with 25 studios in 16 countries. Other companies
with a subsidaries abroad are G5, Paradox, Goodbye
Kansas, MAG Interactive, EG7, Starbreeze, Sozap,
Thunderful, Zordix, Jumpgate and Qiiwi. Included in
the map are also Avalanche New York & Liverpool,
Sharkmob London and Dice LA, studios with a for-
eign corporate parent company. In total, Swedish-owned game companies
employed 7,177 people outside of Sweden. 24% of
these were women. The increase of studios and employees on site in
Sweden is largely driven by organic growth, while
the growth abroad is largely acquisition-driven,
although several of the individual studios outside of
Sweden also increased in size. The locations of where Swedish corporations
expand abroad largely depends on where there
exist game studios that have performed well in the
past. In some cases, there are economic reasons for
the establishment. For example, Canada has a long
history of generous tax rules for creative companies,
and several other geographic regions use financial
incentives to attract investments from foreign com-
panies. To some extent, location may also be decid-
ed on cultural connections, for example, employees
or founders with backgrounds in specific countries.
The vast majority of Swedish-owned studios around
the world are in countries with pay grades compara-
ble to, or higher, than Sweden.
Levall Games AB
Mana Brigade AB
Noumenon Games AB
Prasius Entertainment AB
Pretty Ugly AB
Redgrim AB
Something We Made AB
Thunderful: The Station
Okay Games
Karlskrona
Blackdrop Interactive AB
Loophole Interactive AB
Macaroni Studios AB
Shatterplay Studio AB
Suffocated AB
Svavelstickan AB
Ronneby
Activout AB
Nodbrim Interactive AB
SKÅNE 21
Ängelholm
PMAbit AB
Burlöv
Spiddekauga Games AB
Eslöv
Digital kittens AB
Pastille AB
Triassic Games AB
Helsingborg
Localize Direct AB
Monsuta AB
Pixelbite AB
Kävlinge
Dengu AB
Kristianstad
JE Software Aktiebolag
Landskrona
KFH Graphics AB
Urban Binary AB
Lund
Abcde Entertainment AB
Illwinter Game Design AB
Junno Labs AB
Malmö
Apoapsis Studios AB
Art in Heart AB
ayeWARE AB
Coherence Sweden AB
Cross Reality International AB
DeadToast Entertainment AB
Divine Robot AB
Dunderbit AB
Echo Entertainment AB
Ernst & Borg Arkitektur AB
Frictional Games AB
Frogsong Studios AB
Icehelm AB Illusion Labs AB
IO Interactive AB
Learning Loop Sweden AB
LERIPA AB
Longhand Electric AB
Luau AB
Mediocre AB
Multiscription AB
nevsram AB
Nordic Game Resources AB
Nordic Game Ventures i Malmö AB
Not My Jeans AB
On the Outskirts AB
Oskar Stålberg AB
Plausible Concept AB
ProCloud Media Invest AB
Richard Meredith AB
Robertson Nordic Partners AB
Rubycone AB
Section 9 Interactive AB
Senri AB
Sharkmob AB
She Was Such a Good Horse AB
Simogo AB
Southend Interactive AB
Star Vault AB
Stjärnstoft Studios AB
SWEDISH GAME DEVELOPMENT AB
Tales & Dice AB
Tarsier Studios
The Sleeping Machine AB
Transmuted Games AB
Tuxedo Labs AB
Ubisoft Entertainment Sweden AB
VisionPunk AB
VoDoo Studios
Vreski AB
webbfarbror AB
WhyKev AB
Dancing Devils
Fused Lizard Handelsbolag
Gameflame
Newnorth Technology
Nutty Games
Peakpoint Consulting
Pixel Shade
Transcenders
Simrishamn
JLJ Productions AB
Skurup
Spelmakare Jens Nilsson AB
Staffanstorp
Straw hat games AB
Svedala
Binary Peak AB
Tomelilla
Pixilated Production AB
Vellinge
Impact Unified AB
Primary Hive AB
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

32 GAME DEVELOPER MAP – GLOBAL
Below is a map of Swedish-owned
game studios in the world, as
well as foreign-owned studios
that are subsidiaries of Swedish
game studios.
ASIA 1
Japan
Goodgames, Stillfront
Philippines
Goodbye Kansas Manilla
Viet Nam
SHFT, Stillfront
India
Moonfrog, Stillfront
U.A.E
Babil Games, Stillfront
Jordan
Babil Games, Stillfront
Russia
G5, Kaliningrad
G5, Moscow
G5, Cheesboksary
Artplant Russia, EG7
Saber Interactive, Embracer
EUROPE 2
Belarus
Saber Interactive, Embracer
Belgium
Appeal Studios, Embracer
Bosnia
Gate21, Embracer
Bulgaria
Snapshot Games, Embracer
Imperia Online, Stillfront
Decca Games Bulgaria, Embracer
Cyprus
Easybrain, Embracer Milligames / WeAreQiiwi Inter-
national
Finland
Bugbear Entertainment, Embracer
Iceflake Studios, Paradox
Goodbye Kansas
France
Voxler, Embracer
Playrion Game Studios, Paradox
Starbreeze
Ireland
eRepublik, Stillfront
Italy
Milestone, Embracer
Destiny Bit, Embracer
34 Big Things, Embracer
Croatia
Nanobit, Stillfront
Malta
G5
Dorado Games, Stillfront
4A Games, Embracer
Netherlands
Triumph Studios, Paradox
Vertigo Games, Embracer
Norway
Misc Games, Embracer
Artplant Norge, EG7
Austria
Rare Earth, Embracer
Pow Wow Entertainment,

Embracer
Purple Lamp, Embracer
THQ Nordic, Embracer
Poland
Flying Wild Hog, Embracer
Game Developer Map – Global
Portugal
Saber Interactive, Embracer
Romania
eRepublik, Stillfront
Quantic Lab, Embracer
Serbia
Sozap Doo, Sozap
Madhead Games, Embracer
Goodbye Kansas
Slovakia
Nine Rocks Games, Embracer
Spain
Nine Rocks Games, Embracer
Saber Interactive, Embracer
Akimia Interactive, Embracer
Paradox Tinto
Starbreeze
Vermila Studios, Embracer
Everguild, Stillfront
Czech Republic
Ashborne Games, Embracer
Warhorse, Embracer
Germany
Toadman Berlin, EG7
DECA, Embracer
Deca Games Berlin, Embracer
Snowprint Berlin
Sandbox Interactive, Stillfront
Piranha Bytes, Embracer KAIKO, Embracer
Handygames, Embracer
Deep Silver FishLabs, Embracer
Tivola Games, Jumpgate
Bytro Labs, Stillfront
Goodgames, Stillfront
Playa Games, Stillfront
Deep Silver, Embracer
Ravenscourt, Embracer
Grimlore Games, Embracer
Black Forest Games, Embracer
Massive Miniteam, Embracer
Goodbye Kansas
OFM Studios, Stillfront
UK
MAG Brighton
3
4

33
Avalanche Liverpool
Sharkmob London
Everguild, Stillfront
Silent Games, Embracer
Antimatter Games, EG7
Soldout, EG7
Goodbye Kansas
Thunderful Sunderland
Ukraine
G5 Kharkov
4A Games, Embracer
G5 Lvov
Hungary
Zen Studios, Embracer
Invictus Games, Zordix NORTH AMERICA 3
Canada
New World Interactive, Embracer
Rainbow Studios, Embracer
Gearbox Entertainment, Embracer
A Thinking Ape, Embracer
IUGO, Embracer
Kixeye, Stillfront
Big Blue Bubble, EG7
Piranha Games, EG7
United States
Aspyr, Embracer
Gunfire Games, Embracer
C77, Embracer
Paradox Tectonic Deep Silver Voilition, Embracer
New World Interactive, Embracer
Saber Interactive, Embracer
DICE LA
Starbreeze
Simutronics, Stillfront
Candywriter, Stillfront
Avalanche New York
Rainbow Studios, Embracer
G5 San Fransisco
Super Free Games, Stillfront
Paradox Seattle
Gearbox Entertainment, Embracer
Kixeye, Stillfront
Storm8, Stillfront
Big Blue Bubble, EG7
Daybreak Games, EG7 Petrol, EG7
Goodbye Kansas
SOUTH AMERICA 4
Argentina
Nimble Giant Entertainment,
Embracer
OCEANIEN 5
Australia
Kixeye, Stillfront
MachineCell, Stillfront
1
2
5
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

34 INVESTMENTS & ACQUISITIONS
Investments and acquisitions have come to play an increasingly
greater role in the Swedish games market in the last few years.
Investments & acquisitions
Although no single deal has topped the EUR
5.9 billion price tag of mobile games devel-
oper King, purchased by Activision Blizzard
in 2016, there have been several transactions
valued over EUR 100 million. What has been
consistent in recent years is that it is Swed –
ish companies that have been the investing
part, and in the few cases during recent years
where a foreign company finances game
development in Sweden, it has mostly been
investments and not acquisitions. 4 acquisitions in 2020 had a value over EUR
100 million. The largest transaction was when
Embracer Group bought US studio Saber
Interactive in a deal worth USD 525 million,
closely followed by Stillfront’s acquisition of
US studio Storm 8 and Croatian studio Nano-
bit, as well as Embracer’s acquisition of Polish
studio Flying Wild Hog. During 2020, a total of 44 known deals that
included Swedish companies took place,
compared to 46 transactions in 2019. Three
foreign companies have had financial inter-
ests in Swedish studios. American Microsoft
acquired Zenimax during the year, which
means that Uppsala studio MachineGames,
perhaps best known for the latest critically
acclaimed Wolfenstein games, now belongs
to the Microsoft family. In addition, Chinese
Tencent made an investment in 10 Chambers,
and Finnish Supercell invested 10 million in
Wild Games. Just over half of all acquisitions in 2020 have
been in game companies in other Europe- an countries, mostly in the UK, Germany
and Austria. 10 deals were in Swedish game
companies, one of the more notable was that
Nintendo distributor Bergsala is now part
of the game company Thunderful Group.
Bublar Group acquired Goodbye Kansas and
changed its name to the latter. Karlshamn
based The Station and Skövde based Guru
Games became part of Thunderful, and MAG
Interactive acquired Apprope. In 2021, Embracer Group acquired Amer-
ican Gearbox in a deal worth up to USD 1.3
billion, which is the largest single transaction
to date where a Swedish company has been
the buyer. Many investments in the games industry
are made in new issues, but a significant
secondary was Altor’s acquisition of Raw Fury
from Nordisk Games in 2021.
Frogsong Studios
– D-Corp

35
Seller Country Buyer/Investor Country
10 chambers collective Sweden Tencent China
34 Big Things Italy Embracer Group (Saber interactive) Sweden
4A Games Malta Embracer Group (Saber interactive) Sweden
A Thinking Ape Canada Embracer Group (DECA Games) Sweden
Apprope Sweden MAG Interactive Sweden
Bergsala Sweden Thunderful Sweden
Candywriter United States Stillfront Sweden
Coatsink Software England Thunderful Group Sweden
Coffee Stain North Sweden Embracer Group (Coffee Stain Holding) Sweden
Daybreak Games United States EG7 Sweden
DECA Games Germany Embracer Group Sweden
DestinyBit Italy Amplifier Game Invest Sweden
Everguild Limited Spain Stillfront Sweden
Flying Wild Hog Poland Embracer Group (Koch Media) Sweden
Goodbye Kansas Sweden Bublar Group Sweden
Guru Games Sweden Thunderful Sweden
Hutch Games UK MTG Sweden
Ice Flake Studios Finland Paradox Interactive Sweden
Invictus Hungary Zordix Sweden
IUGO Mobile Entertainment Canada Embracer Group (DECA Games) Sweden
MachineGames/Zenimax Sweden/United States Microsoft United States
Mad Head Games Serbia Embracer Group (Saber interactive) Sweden
Moon Mode Sweden Beyond Frames Sweden
Nanobit Croatia Stillfront Sweden
New world interactive United States/Canada Embracer Group (Saber interactive) Sweden
Nimble Giant Argentina Embracer Group (Saber interactive) Sweden
Palindrome Interactive Sweden Embracer Group (Amplifier Game Invest) Sweden
Playrion Game Studio France Paradox Interactive Sweden
Pow wow entertainment Austria Embracer Group (THQ Nordic) Sweden
Purple Lamp Studios Austria Embracer Group (THQ Nordic) Sweden
Quantic Lab Romania Embracer Group Sweden
Rare earth games Austria Embracer Group (Amplifier Game Invest) Sweden
Saber Interactive United States Embracer Sweden
Sandbox Interactive Germany Stillfront Sweden
Sandbox Strategies United States Embracer Group (Saber interactive) Sweden
Silent Games UK Embracer Group (AmplifierGame Invest) Sweden
Snapshot Games Bulgaria Embracer Group (Saber interactive) Sweden
Sola Media Germany Embracer Group (Koch Media) Sweden
Storm8 United States Stillfront Sweden
Super Free Games United States Stillfront Sweden
The Station Interactive Sweden Thunderful Group Sweden
Vermila Spain Embracer Group (Amplifier Game Invest) Sweden
Wild Games Sweden Supercell Finland
Zen Studios Hungary Embracer Group (Saber interactive) Sweden
Investments & acquisitions 2020
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

36 SIX BILLION DOWNLOADS
Global Games
Market 2021,
Graphics by
Newzoo
Our estimate based on downloads is that every fourth person in the world
has played a game created in Sweden. In total, Swedish-developed games
have been downloaded nearly six billion times, and large Swedish games
top the download and sales lists regularly.
Six billion downloads
Most popular are King’s Candy Crush series,
which has been downloaded four billion
times, followed by Minecraft, Granny & Slen –
dria from DVLoper and Robbery Bob from
Level 8. The Toca games, Battlefield, QuizDuel
and Stardoll are other examples of game
series loved by a lot of players. The world market for games is strong and
the forecast is growth. Players are driving
growth at the companies, and despite the
lack of semiconductors, the new generation
consoles (Playstation 5 and Xbox Series S/X)
have sold more than the last. The Swedish
game development companies together have
a broad profile and develop games in almost
all genres and for all established platforms,
which is a great strength, and makes develop-
ment continue to be stable. In August 2021, the European trade associ-
ation ISFE, Interactive Software Federation of
Europe, published a survey of the European
games market, based on data from the major
countries of France, the United Kingdom,
Spain and Germany. Here is a selection of
the results. A complementary picture of the games
market can be seen in which translations
are made. Helsingborg-based LocalizeDirect
translates games played all over the world,
and which languages are used the most gives
an indication of where the markets are large
and growing. At the company, the fastest
growing languages for translation are Viet-
namese, Thai, Hindi, Tagalog and Arabic.
German11,8% Other20,3%
Polish3%
Korean6,8%
Japanese7,1%
Italian
Top 10 languages for game localization7,6%
Russian8,1%
Spanish (EU)8,6%
French (EU)11,1%
Brazilian Portuguese8,5%
Simplified Chinese7,2%
The chart illustrates the distribution of the most popular game localization languages in\
terms of the word count. In total, LocalizeDirect’s data pool includes 45 languages © LocalizeDirect | Game Localization Report 2021 | www.localizedirect.com The full report is avail-
able for download on
localizedirect.com

37
Girls who play video games are
3×
The infographic comes from ISFE and
is based on GameTrack data from
IPSOS MORI, on behalf of ISFE.
AMONG VIDEO GAME PLAYERS
32 years old
is the average age of a female player
Women represent
53% of all mobile and
tablet video game players
more likely to pursue
a STEM career
than girls who don’t
47% of European video game players are

women
WOMEN & VIDEO GAMES(up from 45%
in 2019)
56m women play across these markets
60%
54% 49% 25.9 yrs
32.4 yrs 29.6 yrs Play on smartphone
or tablet
Play on console
Play on PC
Average player age
AMONG VIDEO GAME PLAYERS
EUROPEAN VIDEO GAME PLAYER
WHO WE ARE
EUROPEAN MARKETS
50% of the population
aged 6-64
play video games
68% 79%
vs 84% in 2019
vs 74% in 2019vs 59% in 2019vs 46% in 2019 vs 31% in 2019
vs 73% in 2019 72% 60% 43% 31%
6-10 11-14 15-2425-34 35-4445-64
SHARE OF VIDEO GAME PLAYERS BY AGE GROUP
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

38 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND NATIONAL COLLABORATIONS
In a growing industry, the need for regional support and engagement as
well as cooperation with higher education and the local economy is clear.
In the last few years, several regions have focused on game development
and local enterprise, often thanks to local enthusiasts. These drives create
new companies and employment in the country as a whole.
Entrepreneurship and
national collaborations
Arctic Game Lab is one of Sweden’s fastest growing
game clusters, and it is based in Västerbotten and Norr-
botten. With a common platform for the development
of new game studios, establishments, training, meeting
places and investments in Norrbotten and Västerbot-
ten, the cluster has become a base for successful game
creation in northern Sweden. This is also evident in the
growth in the region, with 30% more companies and
(241) more employees compared to 2019. A major edu –
cational initiative in the region has led to more courses
being started, and there are now 14 game educations
spread across different professions at college/universi-
ty, folk high school and YH, Higher Vocational Educa-
tion, with a total of 600 students in autumn 2021. The
region’s first game incubator, NEXT, started in Boden. Unfortunately, Nordsken and the associated Arctic
Game Week had to be cancelled in 2020 due to the

pandemic, but are planned as hybrid events in 2021. In Västernorrland, a brand-new cluster has been
built – Game
ON Mid Sweden – based in Sundsvall and
Kramfors. It is a project financed by the European Fund
for Regional Development together with Region Väster –
norrland, as well as the municipalities of Sundsvall and
Kramfors. During the year, the project has carried out
several activities such as network meetings, workshops
with established industry players, lectures in collabo-
ration with NTI Gymnasiet and a Skill Up Program to
educate people interested in entering the industry. In
autumn 2021, Hola Folkhögskola in Kramfors will start a
new course in game development. Since its opening in August 2017, East Sweden Game
has built an ambitious community in Östergötland, and in 2021 the third round of the ESG Accelerator was
conducted, a series of lectures with experts and guests
with the goal of the participants going from hobby

developers to game entrepreneurs. In the autumn of
2020, East Sweden Game started its own game course
together with Valla Folkhögskola, Valla Game Educa-
tion. During the year, a collaboration with the podcast
Spelskaparna was also initiated and has released
several interviews with people from the industry. In
2021, Linköping Game Week is planned for the first time,
including LIU Game Conference, Winter Game Jam,
Atomic Café (arcade game weekend) and bar events
at Kappa Bar. Visby is home to one of Sweden’s oldest games
courses run by Uppsala University Campus Gotland.
Alumni from the training are among the founders of
the game companies Nexile, Neat Corp, Toadman
Interactive, Enad Global 7, Redbeet Interactive and
Pixel Ferrets. The incubator Science Park Gotland has
also run the game-related project over the years. One
example is Game Camps, an international collabora-
tion project that gave game developers from Sweden,
Finland, Estonia and Latvia an opportunity to learn
about the games industry. The main purpose of the
project was to provide participants with knowledge of
the games industry and arrange game jams that would
lead to new companies and business opportunities.
Game Camps engaged nearly 300 participants and 10
new cross-border companies were formed, an example
Continues on the next spread

39
THE INDUSTRY VOICE
PATTY TOLEDO
Game ON Mid Sweden
Hi Patty, you have a long international
career in creative industries, and you
moved to Sundsvall to start up the game
cluster Game
ON Mid Sweden just before
the pandemic. What has been the most
challenging, the hardest and the most fun
during the year? – The hardest part has been to get the
companies and politicians and entities to
understand each other and improve the
communication between them. The most
fun has been to develop a new initiative, and
to enable foreigners who have lived in the
region for many years to be included and be
part of the community.
What’s best about the games industry in
Västernorrland? – That it is a blank canvas, we have the tal-
ents and the education and all the ingredients
you need and it’s now a great adventure to be
part of painting a new picture. And I’m trying
to get our region and the teams to be interna-
tional from the start.
What are you looking forward to when/if
life goes back to normal? – I’m looking forward to being able to meet
and discuss things live again. To be able
to network again, as it’s very important in
games, being such a small industry.
What has been most surprising during
the year working with the Swedish games
industry, from your expat point of view? –I was very surprised at how bureaucratic
Sweden is. Reporting and administration
around the project has been much more
extensive than a similar project would have
been in in Finland for example. On the
positive side, the games industry has been
very open and interested in collaboration and
there have not been many closed doors. –I’ve also learned that if you need anything
Swedish or Nordic people will probably say
yes if you ask them. They are keen to help,
but you need to make the first move.
Hiber – Hiber World Insert Coin – Chronicles of the blue sphere
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

40 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND NATIONAL COLLABORATIONS
of commercial success is the game Death & Taxes by
Placeholder Gameworks. Additional release expected
from the project is Birds With Feelings by Birdpals. In between Oslo and Stockholm, is The Great Journey,
the Karlstad Hub for game development. Supported by
Embracer Group, the hub currently has several teams
and studios in development, some in the accelerator
and two studios in Fasttrack, with the opportunity to
finance 9 months of game development using
CSN .
The Great Journey also offers a range of events and ac-
tivities, such as Friday Stories, a presentation and Q&A
session with industry profiles sharing their experiences.
Together with Futuregames, the hub offers courses in
games; more expected during the autumn 2022. Falun has the prestigious PlayGroundSquad game
training, which has been teaching students Game
Graphics, Game Programming and Game Design for
more than 20 years. During the year, a record number
of students applied for the training. Here, the games in-
dustry works closely with the more traditional Swedish
industries such as paper, steel and hospitality with how
digitalization, games and knowledge from the games
industry can be utilized to develop and become more
attractive for future workers, for example. During the
year, a new company with a focus on the traditional
sports world also started. Stockholm got its first game incubator in 2017, when
Sting introduced Sting Game, which has three startups
in its incubator program. As a complement to Sting
Game there is a co-working space at Embassy House
and regular meet-ups. Partners of Sting are Goodbye
Kansas, Resolution Games and Paradox Interactive. The Game Incubator has run a successful incubator
program for game developers in Skövde since 2004
and since 2016 they can also be found in Gothenburg.
The incubator has produced over 100 companies and
is a strong contributing factor to the western parts of
Sweden becoming fertile ground for game compa-
nies. In the business park, companies such as PocApp,
Coffeestain Studios, Stunlock Studios, Flamebait, Pieces
Interactive, Redbeet Interactive and Ludosity can be
found, with titles such as Goat Simulator, Satisfactory,
Battlerite, Castle Cats, Passpartout, Raft, Slap City and
Valheim. Based in Skövde, the project Sweden Game
Continued from previous spread
Arena focuses on export drives at game fairs and
international conventions. Also, in Skövde, the Sweden
Game Conference is held in October every year, with
speakers from all over the world. In southern Sweden, Gameport have a long history
running a successful business incubator in Karlshamn,
part of Blekinge Business Incubator. In Malmö, the local
association Game Habitat is working in collaboration
with Region Skåne and Malmö City to grow the local
game community. The success of the work can be seen
in both the number of employees and the number of
new companies established in the region. Game Hab-
itat opened a coworking space in 2018, Game Habitat
DevHub, and it has survived the pandemic and reached
full capacity in 2020. Gothenburg company Thunderful
opened a Malmö studio in 2020 and industry veterans
started new companies such as She Was Such a Good
Horse and Section 9 Interactive in 2021. In 2020, Game
Habitat also started
GASS , Game Accelerate South
Sweden, a game accelerator with support from the
European Regional Development Fund, as well as
GEM ,
a network for women in the games industry, in 2021.
Together with games companies in the region, Game
Habitat runs the GameSwe project, language training
for game developers and introduction to the country.
PocApp Studios Dungeon Dogs – Idle Hero RPG

41
Cov id -19
The pandemic has affected Sweden and the world in
many ways. Many industries have been hit hard, people
have become ill, and many have lost their jobs.
The video game industry, along with other
home entertainment industries, has been
spared the biggest financial consequences,
and many companies have seen an increase
in sales. As the world closed down, more
people worked and studied from home,
and restrictions made many other activities
impossible, leading to more people embrac-
ing the world of games. Gaming has also
been a way to socialize and hold on to a social
life where it has not been possible to meet
in person. Many players rediscovered older
online games, such as Among Us or now
Swedish-owned Everquest. For the companies behind the games, the
restrictions have led to new ways of working.
Most employees at games companies in the
country have worked remotely during the
year, which has been a major transition for
the entire industry. Game development is a
team effort, and the challenges have been
many, ranging from finding new ways to work
and communicate, but also how to plan work
remotely and manage increased sick leave,
while making sure of a good working environ-
ment and physical and mental health for all
employees. In some cases, the pandemic has affected
the schedule for game releases, and some
delays have been communicated. Many of the
major events planned during the year have
been cancelled, such as the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and Dreamhack
in Jönköping. Other events, such as Nordic
Game Conference and Gamescom, have been
completely digital during the year as well as
in 2021. Another impact has been the launch of the
ninth-generation game consoles at the end of
the year, but the global shortage of semicon-
ductors and the deteriorating economy of
households have slowed the shift. A special initiative during the year has been
Games to Hospital Heroes/Vården får spel,
a project together with the Danish and UK in-
dustry where hospital staff received donated
game codes.
“As the world closed down, more
people worked and studied from
home, and restrictions made many
other ac tivities impossible, leading
to more people embracing the
world of games. Gaming has also
been a way to socialize and hold
on to a social life where it has not
been possible to meet in person.”
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

42 GAMES INDUSTRY IN EUROPE
In August 2021, the European Game Developers Federation (EGDF)
released an industry report on game development in Europe. It is a
compilation of several European industry reports and therefore has
some backlog in results. Data in this year’s report comes from 2019, and
for some countries it is based on estimates from the respective industry
associations. The full report and methodology are available on egdf.eu
Games industry in Europe
Studios across Europe
Belgium
BulgariaDenmark FinlandFranceGreece Ireland ItalyLatviaLithuania Netherlands NorwayPolandPortugal Romania SerbiaSlovakia SloveniaSpain DEV SwedenCzechiaGermany
2018 2019
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
Total turnover by country, MEUR 2018
2019
0
3 500
3 000
2 500
2 000
1 500
1 000 500
Belgium
BulgariaDenmark FinlandFranceGreece Ireland ItalyLatviaLithuania Netherlands NorwayPolandPortugal Romania SerbiaSlovakia SloveniaSpain DEV SwedenCzechiaGermany

43
Systemic Reaction – Second ExtinctionDinomite Games – Go Fight Fantastic
20182019
0
12 000
9 000
6 000
3 000
Belgium BulgariaDenmark FinlandFranceGreece Ireland ItalyLatviaLithuania Netherlands NorwayPolandPortugal Romania SerbiaSlovakia SloveniaSpain DEV SwedenCzechiaGermany
Share of Women in the industry by country 2018 2019
0 % 
100 %
80 %
60 %
40 %
20 %
Belgium BulgariaDenmark FinlandFranceGreece Ireland ItalyLatviaLithuania Netherlands NorwayPolandPortugal Romania SerbiaSlovakia SloveniaSpain DEV SwedenCzechiaGermany
Employees by country
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

44 PUBLIC INVESTMENTS IN THE EU
Guest chapter by Thierry Baujard and Hugo Derivry from SpielFabrique.
Research based on interviews and data collection for The Gaming
Public Fund Guide, developed in collaboration with Media Desk
Denmark & Italy. The complete guide and a search tool for public
funding opportunities in Europe is available via SpielFabrique.eu
from 15 November 2021.
Public investments in the EU
Interest in the video game industry has recently in –
creased among the European authorities. The Corona
crisis has highlighted an innovative and growing sector,
accelerating this process. The video game industry is not
yet mature and requires a high amount of investments
to support the growth of small independent studios.
Different public policies emerged in European countries
to support the local ecosystem. However, they usually
differ in terms of strategy, funding size (50M€ for France
and Germany, 1M€ for Spain), funding terms. Those
differences usually depend on the ministry the public
structure is attached to. Also, comparing European
countries highlight a high disparity in term seniority.
While a few countries have supported the video game
industry for more than 20 years and propose different
types of support (France, Germany, UK), the majority
started recently (e.g. Spain, Italy, Croatia in 2021).
Public Funding Overview
Each country has its own strategy and specificities, but
they can usually be split into 2 main groups:
• Cultural focus: Most of the public funds supporting
the video game industry come from the national
ministry of culture. The primary objectives are usually
to support the promotion of the national culture at
an international level and protect the Intellectual
Property (IP).
• Commercial focus: Few sponsors have a purely
commercial focus. They usually focus on attracting
ambitious projects and support the international
development of domestic companies. Best examples
in Europe would be Business Finland and BPI France.
They invest directly in the companies instead of
specific projects.
Numerous financing tools are proposed across Europe,
though not in all countries.
• Subsidies & Loans: The most common funding
opportunity that video game studios have access
to. Either as a grant (usually with constraints, such
as obligations to hire interns, etc.) or a reimburs-
able loan (funds are recovered based on the video
game’s earnings). This is widely used by small and
medium independent studios that don’t have access
to other financing sources to produce their first
video games.
• Tax Rebate: Another way to support the video game
industry is to offer a tax reduction on projects. Widely
used in France, other countries have expressed their
interest to develop the same offer, such as Ireland,
Italy and Greece. In contrast to subsidies and loans,
tax rebates are applicable to all kind of studios,
helping smaller ones to generate cash for internal

45
European public funding overview,
according to information publicly
shared and information from
Creative Desks in 2021. It only gives
a visual idea of the public support
and is likely to evolve.
development and attracting international ones with a
strong incentive.
• Studio Investment (Equity): Only a few countries pro-
pose a public equity investment offer, as they usually
focus on being the first funding sources to attract
private financiers for the expansion stages.
• Guarantees: Public structures sometimes offer guar-
antees on loans for traditional banks.
• Acceleration Program: In addition to financing, accel-
eration programs are run in several places, with the
aim of professionalizing smaller game studios. These
often need help with financial issues, strategy and
internationalization. Therefore, in some countries,
programs for studios or new students are offered to
support them in further company development.
To sum up, a large majority of the public funding focuses
on video games projects. More specifically, they mainly
invest in the production phase. Though, it is also com
–
mon to see support on the conception and prototype
phases, such as IP creation (generally grants). Some
public structures also finance the marketing/sales part
to boost the promotion of the video game at an inter
–
national level. Public funding is often the first funding
opportunity available for game development companies.
Despite all these initiatives, a growing industry
requires a wide variety of offers, covering all stages
of company development. However, except in the
Northern countries, there is a lack of specialized private
financiers in the rest of Europe. Most of the traditional
banks and investors consider the video game industry
as too risky or not interesting enough to develop a
specialized offer for this market.
Coproduction, an alternative funding offer
Independent European studios also face another
major issue. Thousands of games are released every
day on the different platforms. The market is global
and European studios are in direct competition with
American and Asian AAA productions. They must make
better games with a lower budget, making it very hard
to create enough advantages to achieve a sustainable
growth. Public funding helps on the first stages only
and private alternatives are not sufficiently sustainable.
Therefore, other opportunities must be found. One of
them could be coproduction. Coproduction is widely used in the audio-visual
industry but is rare in video games production (aside
from large international studios). It does, however, offer
many benefits, such as sharing expertise, better access
to other markets, and most importantly, finding financ –
ing in other countries, making it possible to produce a
higher quality game.
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

46 THREATS AND CHALLENGES
Threats and challenges
In the course of the year, Swedish game developers have increased
both revenues and number of employees, but there are many
threats to the positive developments and these need to be dealt
with to enable growth to continue and in order to prevent the
Swedish industry from falling behind the rest of the world.
Recruitment
In 2020, 539 people were employed in Sweden, but
there continues to be a huge demand for competence
and it is clear that recruiting within Sweden is not
enough to secure growth. Every year, significantly fewer
game developers graduate than are employed. The in-
dustry is recruiting abroad to a high degree and it is of-
ten difficult for new arrivals to find accommodation and
receive a work permit. Several game developers have
been affected by so-called competence deportations,
i.e. withdrawn work permits due to for example admin-
istrative errors by previous employers. Long processing
times for both issue and renewal of work permits lead
to insecurities in the job market and to employees re-
jecting Swedish employers in favor of countries where
the process is simpler and more predictable. Other
practical obstacles, such as employees not being able to
travel whilst waiting for permits, is another hindrance.
The work within the industry towards diversity and
equality has meant that more women have been em-
ployed and has created an increased recruitment base,
but this work needs to continue. Further training of
existing staff is also important in order for the industry
to thrive.
Work environment
A clear challenge is the working environment. The
industry as a whole works to constantly improve
working conditions but does not always fully succeed. Game development is a creative industry where many
people who work in it also have the games as their
main interest. There is a professional pride in making
good and entertaining games, and as in any creative
industry, there is a drive to always make your creation
a little better. Sometimes it goes to excess, and the game indus –
try is not spared from occasional poor leadership,
corporate culture and problems in the workplace,
which we are constantly striving to improve. During
the year, there have been reports of abuse in Swedish
workplaces, something that stakeholders have taken
seriously and are working on. At the same time, there
are challenges with many young people, clashes with
employees from different backgrounds in an interna-
tional environment, and creative projects where many
strong wills need to coexist. The games industry is also
largely a consumer-close industry, where contact with
players can have a major impact on product develop-
ment, which comes with both benefits and challenges.
Financing
The access to capital has improved but looking at the
investments in the Swedish market, just like in previous
years, a clear majority are by established companies.
The flow of new capital is limited, and not least in early
stages, it is remarkably difficult to find funding. This
particularly punishes smaller companies without a
strong, existing network and it is threatening to hinder
innovation and diversity long-term. In competing

47
countries such as the United States, Canada, United
Kingdom and Finland, there are long established financ –
ing structures, tax relief and other forms of support to
give start-ups a boost in international competition. For
Swedish companies, the absence of such measures
means a restriction on trade in practice. Within the
industry, there is a need for further increased business
competency, especially in small and newly formed
companies. In order to retain value-creating capital and rights in
the country, a regulatory framework is needed that is
able to handle global competition, and where Swedish
companies of all sizes have the potential to gain new
market shares.
Digital Market
The European Community is working extensively to
simplify the digital market, and essentially it is an
ambitious project, also benefiting the Swedish compa-
nies selling games to consumers all over the world. But
there is a lack of understanding of how games work,
and game developers are often impacted by rules made
for tackling problems in other industries, or where spe-
cific large companies have abused their position. The
proposal of a digital tax is one such example, potential-
ly having a devastating impact on smaller developers.
The game companies are often also squeezed between
the dominating platforms, trademark infringement and
licensing abuse. The copyright reform leaves a lot to be
desired in these areas, some of which could possibly be addressed in the domestic implementation of EU
directives. Illegal competition in the form of unauthorized
distribution, trademark infringements, clone apps, data
theft, fake users, copied keys or other factors can also
pose concrete risks and barriers to growth. The illegal
market of third-party operators selling game content
is a hard-to-reach problem as operators often operate
online and are based in countries outside of interna-
tional agreements.
Sustainability
A majority of the population of Europe is gamers of
some description, and with that comes a responsibil –
ity for how games and game development affect the
environment and climate. The shift to digital distribu –
tion leaves a smaller climate footprint than physical
games, but running servers and hardware still has an
impact. Online games on servers, where the game is
run on local software, is more energy efficient than for
example video streaming, but the cloud gaming of the
future requires more access to renewable energy to be
sustainable long-term.
Aftnareld – Coridden
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

48 METHODOLOGY
This report is a compilation of annual reports from the Swedish
Companies Registration Office’s Business Register supplemented
by data from Statistics Sweden’s business register.
Methodology
The report maps and compiles annual reports from
limited companies that have game development,
publishing or specialized subcontracting functions as a
major part of their operation. Examples of subcontrac-
tors: Elias Software (adaptive audio engine), Localize-
Direct (location/ translation of games) and a large part
of Goodbye Kansas’ VFX business. Companies focusing
on poker, gambling or casino games are not included in
the selection.
As of this year’s report, data has been collected from
Statistics Sweden on all limited companies (aktiebolag)
registered under NACE code 58.210 – Publishing of com
–
puter games. As of April 26, 2021, there were 579 active
companies under this code. From this list, we did a man
–
ual review and excluded 170 companies as they have
been shown to have main activities in other industries,
mostly casino games or other software development.
In addition to companies registered under NACE
58.210, we have manually identified 247 companies that
belong to the game industry, but are registered under
other NACE codes, mainly 62.010 – Computer Program –
ming. The largest company in this category is EA Dice. In
2020, these 247 companies together had a turnover of
800 million EUR and had 2,248 employees in Sweden. Retailers or pure distributors, such as the Swedish
office of Bandai Namco, are also not included, despite
their importance to the industry. The data also does not
include companies with e-sports as a main focus, such
as Dreamhack or individual e-sports professionals. The main part of the report concerns limited compa-
nies. A small review of other forms of business can be found under the chapter on the number of companies.
Several companies have broken financial years. For
these, the most recent available annual report has been
used and for the larger companies reconciliation has
been made for the number of employees in December
2020 to get as up-to-date a picture as possible of the
total industry. One consequence of this is that Em-
bracer Group is one year ahead of EA Dice and Ubisoft
Sweden, which should be noted when reading the list of
largest companies.
In isolated cases, as in the case of newly formed and
reconstituted companies, the annual report has covered
a longer period than 12 months. In these cases, data for
full years have been used as far as possible. In the re
–
port, this concerns only a handful of smaller companies.
Data from Statistics Sweden’s business register were
collected on 28 May 2021 and include key data from 2020.
The method has several shortcomings. There may be
more companies that should be included in the report
but are missing because we do not know about them.
Manual selection opens up to mistakes, and there is
a grey area of companies that are difficult to assess.
The strength of the method is that the documentation
collected is auditor-reviewed and public through the
publication of the National Authority. The manual se-
lection allows us to ensure that all major companies are
included, and the report will be more representative for
the industry regardless of NACE code. For companies that registered zero turnover and no
employees in Statistics Sweden’s business register, the
annual report has not been collected from Swedish

49
Companies Registration Office. In 2020 this concerned
85 companies. Data on the number of employees and
gender distribution have been supplemented from
Statistics Sweden reports when available. In some cases, the annual report has been submit-
ted late in the year, which is often a recurring pattern.
In these cases, the annual report for the last year is
presented. In total there were 121 companies whose annual
accounts have not yet been registered at the time of
publication of this report, which means that the figures
presented for these companies are from 2019. The total
revenue of these companies in 2019 was around 1% of
the total revenue for the industry, which means that the
impact on the overall report is very small. The largest
company this concerns is Epic Games. The companies’ group accounts have been used, as
far as such have been issued and as far as the main
group activities relate to game development. Two reports have been used as a basis for compari-
son data in Europe. One is ISFE & EGDF Key Facts 2021,
which is mainly based on a study commissioned by ISFE
made by the research institute ISPOS MORI. The second
is the 2019 European Video Game Industry Insights Re-
port from EGDF based on national industry reports; for
Sweden the data source is last year’s game developer
index. Both of these reports were published in August
2021 and are available to download and read in full on
isfe.eu and egdf.eu respectively. More details about the selection and method of the
key figures can be found in each chapter.
Turborilla
– Mad Skills
Motocross 3
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

50 GLOSSARY
Glossary
AAA: A popular term for elaborate
games with big budgets and large
staff numbers, produced for larger
screens. Usually released by the
biggest publishers in the industry
and to a full price point.
AI: Artificial Intelligence – in simple
forms it controls characters in a
game with path finding and flow
charts. More modern AI with meth-
ods such as machine learning in
neural networks is a growing area
within video games.
Alpha: Signifies the phase in soft-
ware development when the prod-
uct is ready for software testing.
AR/Augmented Reality: Direct or
indirect viewing of a physical envi-
ronment, with elements augmented
(or complemented) by computer
generated sensory input (audio,
video, graphics or GPS data).
Beta: The phase following alpha. It
is often during this phase that the
software is available for consum-
er testing for people outside the
development team. These external
testers are called beta testers.
Casual games: Games of the sim-
pler kind. They often have minimal storylines, shorter learning curves
and are designed to be played in
short bursts.
Cloud gaming: Also known as
gaming on demand, a type of
online game that allows streaming
of a game hosted by the servers
of the operator or developer.
This means a game can be played
without the need for a console or
optimal computer performance,
as all calculations are carried out
elsewhere.
Core: A term used to describe
games made for more self-aware
players or “gamers”.
CPM: Cost per mille, cost of a thou –
sand advertisement impressions.
Crossplay: Enabling a game to be
played simultaneously on different
platforms.
Crowdfunding: Financing of a
project through donations or
pre-orders from interested custom-
ers. In recent years this has been
expressed through various web
platforms that collect their financial
support for various projects from
interested private individuals or
companies. Crowdsourcing:
Outsourcing to an
undefined group of people, rather
than paid employees.
DAU: Daily Active Users; the

number of unique users per day.
Digital distribution: Sales of digital
software through digital channels.
DLC: Downloadable content;

downloadable add-ons for video
games, often on a smaller scale
than classic “expansions”.
Early Access: Games released for
sale in an early development phase
before the official launch.
Freemium: Collective term for a
business model where the prod-
uct or service is offered free, but
where the player has the possibility
to unlock advanced functions and

virtual objects or bypass waiting
times, by means of micro transac-
tions.
Free-to-play/free2play: Games
that offer the user to play the
game free in its basic version,
but where the income is instead

generated through adverts, or the
option to unlock the full version
for a fee.

51
Game jam: Brief event where

developers meet and create games
together during a limited time,

often with a particular aim or
theme.
In-app purchase: A purchase
made in an app or game, rather
than externally or through a linked
payment system. The goods pur-
chased usually consist of new runs,
equipment, experience points or
subscription services.
Indie: from “independent”. A
prefix characterizing games from

independent. developers, usually of
the smaller kind, with few involved
in the development process.
IP: Intellectual Property, the imma-
terial rights of the company, often
used in the video game industry to
describe a concept, trademark or
anything within the framework.
MARPPU: Monthly Average Reve-
nue Per Paying User
MARPU: Monthly Average Revenue
Per User
MAU: Monthly Active Users; the
number of unique users over 30
days. Middleware:
Software used to
develop games. Middleware acts
as a “glue” between two existing
software components.
Micro payments: A transaction
involving smaller sums, carried out
online. There are different defini –
tions of the amount of money they
can consist of, but in the games
business the term is used to de-
scribe payment of for example DLC
and in-app purchases.
Outsourcing: To hire external
personnel and specific competence
from other companies. Production
tasks for other companies.
Premium: Business model where
the player pays full price for the
game by buying a copy or license
from start.
Retail: Games sold in a retail store.
Serious games: Games with a
principal purpose other than enter-
tainment. It can refer to simulators,
exercise games, learning games,
rehabilitation games or commercial
games, so called advergames.
Social games: Collective term for
social network games. Soft launch:
To launch a game in
certain markets to evaluate engage-
ment.
Streaming: Direct playback of
digital material simultaneously
transmitted via the internet.
Studio: Game development com-
pany or a division within a game
development company, e.g. at
another location
Virtual goods/items: Term refer-
ring to virtual objects, such as those
existing in video games in the form
of puzzle pieces, weapons or other
items.
VR/Virtual Reality: A way of
being visually enclosed in a game
experience, often with the help of a
goggle-like accessory.
GAME DEVELOPER INDEX 2021

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