Sweden in general seems to have way more good game dev companies than most countries, especially most of similar size. I kinda wonder why.
I actually looked into this, part of the explanation is that in the 80s, Sweden entered a public/private partnership to subsidize the purchase of home computers, which otherwise would have been prohibitively expensive. This helped create a relatively wide local consumer base for software entertainment as well as have a jump start on computer literacy and software development.
This is the real explanation. Couple that with a push in the late 90s/early 2000s to roll out high-speed unmetered internet in the form of ADSL and later fiber.
It’s cold outside a lot of the time.
i knew all that “touch grass” bullshit was counterproductive
I remember listening to a NPR Planet Money podcast that said Iceland has the most published authors per capita.
Also cold.
Also it’s really expensive to do anything. The way we want is incentivized to find some way to supplement their income.
Finland also has a disproportionate amount of highly successful games compared to the population. I guess one theory is that good social safety nets make it more feasible for people to take a risk starting an indie game studio that might not yield any money for years instead of working for a big corporation for a guaranteed paycheck.
Quebec also has a disproportionate amount of successful games for similar circumstances. Video game salaries are pretty well subsidized (although it was originally only meant to encourage Ubisoft to open a studio then other companies joined or got created so they kept it). The current government is threatening that though. That’s on top of socialized healthcare, low electricity cost, and the Canadian Media Fund but those all apply to the rest of Canada as well.
Quick list on top of my head: Indies: Outlast, Dead by Daylight, The Messenger, Spiritfarer, Ultimate Chicken Horse, Fez… AAA: Deus Ex, R6 Siege, For Honor, some of the better Assassin’s Creed and Farcry, Batman Arkham Origins
Valheim and Satisfactory are masterclass. GOAT simulator is good for 6 year olds. Raft was kind of dull be entertaining with multiplayer. V Rising I didn’t really care for, but haven’t played since it was first available on Steam
Valheim was amazing. But it’s faltered so badly in the past 2 years that I’m just sad. Very sad.
I bought it the very day it came out for no real reason and fell in love with it. Put about 500 hours in it before any updates happened. Played a little since then but those higher tier biomes are pretty brutal. Gonna wait until it’s 1.0 before jumping in again. Best $20 ever
Same boat here my friend.
1000+ hours, lots of intricate builds. Post Ashlands has been miserable.
With all that, still the best $20 I’ve ever spent in 43 years of gaming.
Ah man you’re my age. Check out UFO 50. Second best ~$20 ($25) I’ve spent
Or I could just play some sweet Master of Magic (DOS version)… a game so beloved it’s still getting actively modded some 30 years later!
I have such a ridiculous backlog to play. Such guilt.
I remember that game with the purple box. When I was 13 I worked in a computer store and remember thinking the box was pretty cool.
I played it finally around 2010 but kind of bounced off since I had no idea what I was doing lol. I can see why it still has a following like HOMM
It defined a genre. And had some pretty advanced concepts for the time (the first game I played with right-click help pop-ups).
It’s still being worked on, mostly via Caster of Magic. The ‘reboot’ is OK, but a bit too slavish in copying the UI issues.
Did it falter?
While I disagree with how long they’re been in early access especially when other games are in early access and doing it better… The updates were still pretty impressive. The new biomes were pretty interesting.
They’ve gotten progressively more poorly thought out though.
Mistlands is glorious, but so fogged in as to be essentially invisible. I resorted to a mod to increase the value of the wisp.
Ashlands is just a brutal, unfun grind. Not hard, just relentless especially with endless pop-in of enemies. Not to mention even more horrendous performance… 20fps on a very high end system is abysmal (rtx 4090, nvme drive, etc).
I love survival games but both my partner and I hated Raft.
Valheim is one of the best survival games ever. Love it.
Survival games are my jam. Colony builders and Chivalry 2 otherwise.
What are your favorite survivals? If I went with a top 3 it would probably be Icarus, Valheim and 7D2D
I’m absolutely terrible at Chivalry 2 but I have to admit, I don’t mind. It’s just fun running around with so many other people.
I was really bad. So bad that I only played archery and even got archery class over level 30. My brother always tops the leaderboards and he came over one day and showed me how to play. Basically, make sure you’re in third person and we use either the battle axe or executioners axe. I’m now regularly at the top of the boards.
If you ever want to join up with us let me know. We do the 40 man mixed
Never played Icarus, will look into it!
Palworld was surprisingly fun. I think Valheim is actually my number one, followed by Enshrouded.
Palworld is a lot of fun. Much different than a lot of survivals since I was never into Pokémon. Enshrouded I played on release for a little bit. Gonna sound weird but I the building turned me off a bit and the combat i felt a little awkward. I know a lot of people love it so it’s like a me thing.
Icarus is really cool. I refunded it initially because I felt it was janky but they have released an update every single week since launch. Picked it up again at the start of summer and I have like 300+ hours in it. It’s so good.
V rising is different from when it first came out in terms of how some mechanics work like tracking bosses
Powers and spells are way different on how you unlock them tho and for the better
It’s been a while but I remember I was annoyed with something to do with having to find blood. I know that’s really stupid considering it’s a vampire game. Also the top down view i have a hard time with these days since I played so much Diablo 1+2 back in the day
My first ever international business trip (in the late 90s) was to Skovde, and that was for software development reasons. So the town has a long history for it.
It’s a nice place too with very nice people.
That’s incredible that they evolved.
A lot of American cities that were becoming software dev hubs in the 90s ended up crashing or worse, fintech.
I didn’t really get the point of Goat Simulator. But the other games easily hooked me for 50 to 100+ hours. And they are all excellent coop games.
It wasn’t for me, either, but I’m fairly certain the point of Goat Simulator is that there isn’t one.
the point of goat simulator was that it was a three-week goof project the Sanctum devs had fun with to celebrate good sales before they got to work on the sequel.
then it funded the development of Satisfactory.
I loved Goat Simulator for its absurdity and silliness. It had a lot of content and stuff to explore as well, embedding cultural references and humor.
I love the idea of a silly game like Goat Simulator being embedded in the street.
I honestly thought it was just an asset flip that turned out to be kind of funny and so was tolerated I didn’t realize that it was made by the same people that made Satisfactory.
It’s all you said, but it’s also a product of it’s time. Iirc when it release there was an increasing amount of simulator games, and goat simulator pokes fun to all of those while having tons of silly references to the contemporary things.
The successors don’t have much of s point to me tbh.
The second game (goat simulator 3) is actually a ton of fun to play with friends. It has couch co-op! Which is amazing nowadays.
It’s a silly asset dump that has incredible depth!
Deep Rock Galactic??
Ghost Ship Games is Danish.
Yes, but Coffee Stain is Swedish, and they’re the publisher. Maybe they can get a sign that’s half the dimensions of the others…?
it says “games that was made in the city”
