If you didn’t attend the Sweden Game Conference 2015 in Skövde, Sweden, back in October, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Sweden Game Arena, the organizers of the event, has recently launched the SGC Vault, a video series of exclusive recorded content and talks from their 2015 event.
After the successful 2015 event, with over 300 guests and 33 renowned speakers from five continents and 26 countries, Sweden Game Arena has now launched the free game development resource; SGC Vault.
The SGC Vault opened October 27, with three talks from the 2015 conference, and will be updated regularly. All talks and exclusive content can be viewed on Sweden Game Arena’s YouTube channel and is announced to be available free of charge. The channel will eventually feature all lectures, according to the SGA, but also exclusive content and interviews.
The topics include everything from game design, production, sound design, as well as game marketing and publishing. These are valuable insights for anyone remotely interested in the inner workings of game development, but the SGC Vault promises more and announces a three times larger venue at Sweden Game Conference 2016, from October 20th to October 23th 2016.
“Our planning actually started before SGC 2015 had ended! I want to take the opportunity to push for the new dates as SGC 2016 will be held from October 20 to 23. As a result of an increasing interest, both local and international we are moving SGC 2016 to Arena Skövde and in addition we are adding an Expo that will run during the conference and over the weekend. In the weekend we open up for the public and will run the e-sport finals of locally held tournaments and also have an open Game jam so the visitors can get really close to game development.”, says Magnus Ling, Senior VP of Sweden Game Arena.
Sweden Game Arena is an carefully engineered ecosystem for the acceleration of the game industry in Game City Skövde and the region of West Sweden.
Sweden Game Arena is a regular ‘Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters’, with talented people walking its grounds each day. There are more than 500 talents in the Game Development Degree Programs at the University of Skövde, more than 40 researchers and lecturers, about 300 employees in more than 50 game companies, as well as a number of business developers. All of this made possible by having the Municipality, the University, and local start-ups of Skövde get together to create something truly unique.
Because of globalization, we can easily interact with like-minded individuals on opposite ends of the earth. We might even be headed towards a global gaming culture, where developers are no longer limited by geography, but by the games themselves. The SGC Vault will present interesting industry insights for the global market, as well as the emerging markets such as China, Japan and India.
“By arranging SGC we wish to contribute to the serious discussion about computer games in Sweden. Computer games are important fields of business as well as research and education. SGC aims to create an arena/event for research/education and practice to meet, to learn from each other, to start new collaboration and new business relations.”, says Magnus Ling.
Magnus Ling further explains to NordicGameBits how the concept of the SGA came to life, and how the town of Skövde previously was home to the automobile industry, before it became a heaven of knowledge and game development techniques from all over the world.
Since 2002, when education within games development started to show promise, to 2004 where their first game was hatched, the municipality has stayed committed to the University’s vision. And their support to the games industry in Skövde accelerated in 2007.
In 2012-13 all three partners of the fairly young collaboration applied for national funding from Vinnova, an investment company with the very purpose of stimulating collaboration between municipalities and universities. When the regional funding came through in 2014, Sweden Game Arena was born:
“Without any funding we (the consortium of Gothia Innovation and the University of Skövde) have been working with a higher mission and vision in sight and since 2004 our vision has been to start and grow an industry that can be a counterpart to the huge local automotive plants. We also discovered that our gaming industry works as a counter force to urbanization, people are actually moving to Skövde from all over Sweden and Europe for that matter.”, Magnus Ling explains, and continues:
“Since the first company launch in 2004 we rapidly decided to cut some corners and learn from what this industry state as a successful way of doing business. What we found out was that this industry actually meets all over the world in a nomadic way. And if you plan to take a piece of the action you have to be a part of that nomadic trail. So funding the start-ups so that they display their work on GDC in San Francisco, Gamescom in Cologne, PAX East etc was crucial.”
“We also recognized that you need specific help when it comes to the legal issues. The start-ups and the deal flow have other mechanics as well. Huge teams (rather than small team as in general ICT) that are creative and passion driven. No skills or experience from running your own company demanded extra biz dev skills. The teams also required different and more powerful workstations with even more expensive and powerful software. Well, the list of things that we did in order to setup this fantastic venue was and still is A LOT!”, says Magnus Ling.
The circle of life becomes ever so visible in endeavors like these. Sweden holds entrepreneurship in high regard. Maybe it’s a Nordic intuition for innovation and optimization, or it could be a global awakening, in terms of business and start-ups. Whether it be a grand and global vision, or local evolution of ingenuity, Skövde has taken remnants of a forgotten industrial and military age, and ushered in a revitalization through vision and cooperation.
“Yes, there is a long tradition in Sweden when it comes to entrepreneurship and Skövde is no exception to that. Even though the industry in Skövde for quite some time has been dominated by a couple of large companies such as Volvo, Cementa and Rockwool there has always been quite a few smaller companies within different fields.”
“The most Swedish way about this collaboration and arena is that we do this for a greater cause, in building a legacy that can employ the future citizens of Skövde and Sweden. We do this under a non-profit umbrella that actually support the start-ups more or less for free, we don´t take any equity even though we provide funding. Our return on investment is measured upon jobs created and business started.”, says Magnus Ling.
“A curious note is that Skövde’s first industry was a brick oven, that today over 150 years later plays a major role in building new ventures and start-ups in Gothia Science Park in an industry no one ever had heard of 15 years ago.”, Magnus Ling concludes.
Denmark’s largest games industry conference for Nordic game developers returns on December 7th to discuss the future of business in the games industry. The lineup of speakers includes as Ex-King Tommy Palm, Christine Thaarup, Steffen of Betadwarf, and many many more!
Tickets are limited and can be booked here.