Northern Sweden aims to become a ‘more interesting society’ by making | Pocket Gamer.biz
At the annual Global top round (GTR) conference last week, this year held in Luleå, Swedish Lapland, we heard from the city’s deputy mayor, Fredrik Hansson, CEO of Luleå Business Region Rickard Lundmark and Arctic Games Daniel Wilen about their vision of a gaming hub in the region.
There is a plan for the region to become a world-leading business region with gaming at its core. The strategy is to attract companies to come and base themselves in and around Luleå, Sweden’s 25th largest city, as well as provide a support network for those already in the area.
The main industry in northern Sweden today comes from steel and mining, but the need to make adjustments with regard to climate change is at the forefront of development in the country. The traditional industries have had to change their values, move to green production methods, and especially in this region, huge investments have been made in carbon neutrality, new infrastructure and housing for expected growth. A few years ago, an the whole town (Kiruna) was moved 3 km to prevent it from sinking into the ground towards mining-related subsidence, create a denser city center with a greater focus on sustainability, green and blue infrastructure, pedestrians and public transport, which proves the Swedish government’s commitment to the cause.
The gaming industry is the key
One of the biggest challenges to overcome to reach this “business hub” status is skills attraction, as northern Sweden (and further Lapland) is not the first choice for people to migrate to – geographic location and climate are the most important factors. But the gaming industry is one of the key sectors targeted by the local government, which sees its huge potential to bring in new talent and income to the region. Their plan is to create a huge local movement that will attract people there.
Fredrik Hansson, deputy mayor of Luleå, is clearly passionate about his mission. He knows that to grow as a city, people need to move in, and he wants to encourage diversity – most people living in the area currently work in traditional industries, but Hanson is aware of the value of the creative industries and what they can bring to the city, and does everything in his power to attract them.
This brings us on to Arctic Gamean organization that works “to create a strategic platform for the gaming industry in northern Sweden; with business development, investment support, gaming training and events to build a strong gaming community” and is now northern Europe’s fastest growing gaming cluster.
Daniel Wilen from Arctic Game gave a passionate talk about the ongoing changes in the gaming industry and the need for a northern hub. His guiding principle was that “nothing spurs innovation like a good crisis” which he backed up with the example of the post-World War II labor shortage that brought women into factories and was the catalyst for fundamental changes in industry.
Home grown talent
He explained that when the crisis started in Sweden, they tried to implement growth strategies but suffered from what he called “brain drain” – the mass flight of domestic talent to other regions or countries with established creative industries. They soon realized that it was necessary to create a hub in the region to prevent talent from taking their earning potential elsewhere – thus Arctic Game was born.
In 2015 it comprised just a handful of companies, and now there are 75 studios and 800 game students involved across the region. There are three pillars to the Arctic Game strategy:
- Ecosystem – the gaming community, places and faces
- Education – talent and careers
- Network – providing coaching and capital
The idea is to create a gaming region that can be marketed worldwide, and that will be seen and heard outside of its own nation. Wilen refers to it as the “sustainable gaming industry klondike” and believes that by partnering with people in the region and growing the industry through an incubator initiative, this can be achieved. They also create “game villages”, by taking small villages with a population of about 600 inhabitants, finding the empty buildings and moving into businesses (Mind Detonator as an example) in order to revitalize the area and create hubs for the satellite industry, to form a comprehensive network.
This they believe will make the region attractive to investors, and they are well aware that there are millions of dollars available to the gaming industry right now – it’s just a matter of being seen as worth investing. He aims to create a “more interesting job market and also a more interesting community” in the area, driven by gaming. It seems with such a strong wind in the sails, there is little doubt that we will be seeing a lot more talent pouring out of Lapland in the not too distant future.
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