Lars Lindblom is project manager at Arctic Gamelab, which is an umbrella organization for gaming companies in Norrbotten and Västerbotten. According to him, things are going as well now as before before corona for the gaming industry in northern Sweden.
- If you look at the gaming market globally, the demand for games has risen quite significantly due to the corona, says Lars Lindblom.
He says that the gaming industry in northern Sweden has grown very much and that there are about 70 gaming companies in Norrbotten and Västerbotten.
- Today, there are about 200 professional game developers in Umeå, 150 in Skellefteå and about 50 up in Norrbotten, mainly in Boden. In recent years, it has really exploded.
Great demand for game developers drives training
- We are up to a pace of one game a month that is released in Västerbotten and Norrbotten together and then it still takes a couple, three years to make a game, Lindblom continues.
On the educational front, the demand for game developers has been marked. This autumn, several new game trainings will start, especially in Skellefteå and Boden and according to Lars Lindblom, the places are already full.
- The big thing in our investment now here in Norr- and Västerbotten is on the education side, to make sure that we get more game developers. With the sharp increase in the gaming industry and the number of employees, it will be very exciting in the coming years to see what we get for gaming successes, he says.
Hear the Umeå - based gaming company Zordix's CEO talk about how the industry has handled the corona pandemic in the clip above!