- Some 700+ million people around the world play Swedish-made games, said Per Strömbäck,  spokesperson for the Swedish Game Industry, as members of the SCCE gathered for an interesting Business Breakfast at the Swedish Embassy, Thursday 9 April.

- The Swedish game industry is indeed booming. In 2013 there were 170 companies in the trade, compared to 117 in 2011. Their turnover reached 6.546 mSEK and profits totaled 2.483 mSEK in 2013 compared to 2.317 and 128 mSEK respectively in 2011. And the number of employees in the Swedish game industry increased from 1.512 persons in 2011 to 2.534 in 2013, continued Per.

- The secret recipe behind the boom is a set of success factors. Our long and dark winters, inspiring players to put on a game, is one of them. As Sweden is a small market in a global perspective, game developers focused on the international market from the very beginning. Swedes' capability to work in teams - in this trade the interaction between the skills and talents of artists, programmers, designers and many more - made the game development and distribution process effective and productive.

- Furthermore, the technological development and the availability of player interfaces, including PC, Mac, consoles and smart phones, have improved tremendously over the years. Looking at the game "Pong" from 1972 and comparing it with "Virtual Tennis 4" from 2013 gives a good picture of the development.

- Sweden's game success has not passed unnoticed on the international scene. Last year, Microsoft bought Mojang AB, the company behind the game hit "Minecraft", for 2,5 billion USD!

- As I said earlier, some 700+ million people around the world play Swedish-made games. All of them are not coming to Dreamhack, the world's largest game festival, but an impressive 26.672 persons visited this winter's edition in Jönköping, Sweden, concluded Per.

On behalf of the SCCE Supervisory Board, I would like to thank Per Strömbäck for a very interesting and insightful presentation. My sincere thanks also go to Ambassador Anders Ljunggren and Councellor Anne Duse for taking the initiative to and inviting SCCE to this Business Breakfast at the Swedish Embassy in Tallinn.

Sincerely,

Kristiina Sikk

SCCE Ombudsman

Link to Tallinn GAMEDEV DAYS: http://gamedev.ee/                                                                   

Link to the Swedish Game Industry: http://www.dataspelsbranschen.se/                                

Link to the Estonian Game Industry: http://igda.ee/