Lau Korsgaard

In an article in GamesIndustry.Biz, Sophie McEvoy dig into why the games industry in Sweden is still growing. (despite the harsh climate we’ve experienced globally in recent years) “Swedish developers are feeling somewhat optimistic as the local development scene continues to experience rapid growth.” She writes after talking to Per Strömbäck, spokesperson at Dataspelsbranschen / Swedish Games Industry, Oskar Wolontis, COO at Hazelight Studios and Christian Lövstedt, general manager at Midjiwan AB - Polytopia Strömbäck notes that “while there are fewer vacancies at the moment due to the current global economic turmoil, there aren't as many layoffs as in some other places, and the industry here is still growing. The number of people working in the industry having grown from 2,500 to 8,500 people in the last decade” This success has not come without challenges however For Midjiwan, recruiting locally has been challenging because "the demand for talented game developers far exceeds supply" Christian states "As a smaller studio, we face extra difficulties in attracting the best local talent since people tend to gravitate towards the bigger studios, believing it's safer (which is incorrect in our case)." Oskar agrees, "The interest in investing in the Swedish game development industry in recent years has been higher than the local talent pool can reasonably support," he explains. The good news for Swedish game developers is that remote has opened up the possibility to utilize a much larger and global talent pool to support continued growth. From my experience working with providing Swedish studios with senior global talent for 3 years now, I can say that our Swedish work culture, success rate and innovation spirit has not gone unnoticed by developers globally. People want to work with Swedish studios. And now it’s easier than ever. The Swedish games industry is growing, and with our great reputation we have a unique opportunity to leverage the power of remote to continue getting more hit titles out. Remote work in games has so many benefits in my humble opinion The studios get a smoother production with fast access to the right people The developer get to work on games they are passionate about The talent is developed and kept within gaming Increased diversity benefits productivity While it may not be for all and for all situations, it sure has a lot of upsides for those who can make it work.

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🌟 Did you know the game "Valheim" began as a passion project by two Swedish developers, Richard Svensson and Henrik Törnqvist? They started working on the game in their spare time after their regular jobs. Richard began the development alone around 2017, driven by his fascination with Norse mythology and survival games, and later teamed up with Henrik. Together, they laid the foundations for what would become Valheim. They formed the indie game studio Iron Gate Studio, which remained a small team even as the game gained traction. Their approach focused on engaging with the community from the very beginning, sharing updates, gathering feedback, and building a supportive fan base long before the game was officially released. Their dedication paid off when Valheim launched in early access on Steam in February 2021. The game quickly gained popularity due to its unique blend of survival mechanics, cooperative gameplay, and immersive Viking-themed world. Despite the limited size of their team, Valheim achieved impressive sales, reaching over 1 million copies sold within a few weeks of release. This success story highlights the power of community engagement and the potential for small indie teams to make a significant impact in the gaming industry. 🌟 And guess what? You can do that too, even if you don't know a thing about coding or creating video games right now! If you're in love with video games and want to turn that passion into a career, I’m creating an educational program just for you. In this program, I'll cover the technical skills and strategies to help you achieve your game development goals. But first, I want to chat with you! Your insights will help shape a program tailored to your needs. Let's make your game dev dreams a reality! Book your meeting through my Calendly link here. 🚀 https://lnkd.in/gPYJeadb #GameDev #IndieDev #Valheim #GameDevelopment #IndieGames #DreamBig #GameDesign #GamerLife #GameCreator #FollowYourDreams

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Don’t design in Klaviyo. Why not? It’s a very sound decision considering the design will end up in Klaviyo. You might as well start there, right? I think this logic might lead to more wasted time and lower quality. We rarely get the design right on the first try. Design is full of iterations, and it comes from many places: internal feedback, client feedback, changes in the length of the body copy, product images—you name it. So, it’s better to progress with tools that allow you to maneuver with agility. If you were asked to build a statue, would you start with marble right away? Probably not; it’s easier to try a few things with clay or sketches. The same logic applies here. Even though Klaviyo is super convenient to use, it limits you a lot in terms of speed and ability to explore. Once you’ve spent 10 minutes nailing the basics, it prevents you from trying better layout ideas. I use tools like Figma or Sketch. They allow you to make quick changes. This way, you can try multiple things, get the design signed off by your team and clients, and only then build everything in Klaviyo. #klaviyo #emailmarketing #ecommerce

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Troubling news from last night, with Fragbite having filed for bankruptcy for its internal development studio Fall Damage. The Swedish development team had been working on Alara Prime, a free-to-play four-vs-four shooter that was aiming to release this year. However, the studio struggled to sign a publisher for the game. To those impacted, please find a comprehensive list of resources, below: 🥇First, Discipline Games Jobs Resources: Over the past weeks I have created 9 (at time of writing) Games Jobs Resources to find jobs in a wide range of disciplines: 🎨 Art, Animation, VFX and UI This resource contains around 1,300 jobs worldwide across all links. Link: https://lnkd.in/eXgEEUAA ⚙ Engineering and Programming This resource lists just over 2,100 jobs worldwide across all links. Link: https://lnkd.in/eAufG7q4 🕹 Quality Assurance This resource lists over 440 QA jobs worldwide. Link: https://lnkd.in/e6YwwJeS 📑 Game Production This resource lists around 360 jobs worldwide. Link: https://lnkd.in/eE8QgeDq 📢 Marketing & Community This resource lists around 380 jobs worldwide. Link: https://lnkd.in/dc-PVb3h 🎶 Audio and Sound Design This resource lists around 180 jobs worldwide. Link: https://lnkd.in/dU8t6Esq 📠 Studio Support, HR, Recruitment and BizDev This resource lists around 300 jobs worldwide. Link: https://lnkd.in/dMdWv4xN ⚙ IT This resource lists around 100 jobs worldwide. Link: https://lnkd.in/df7d-KkR 🎮 Game Design This resource lists around 600 jobs worldwide. Link: https://lnkd.in/d2kKaw95 🥈 Second, the Ultimate list of Video Games Career Resources: This should be your one-stop shop for all information. My dear friend Amir Satvat maintains these documents, he is a legend for doing this - please check them out: https://amirsatvat.com/ 🥉 Third, If you have worked in publishing, please message me. I am looking for quite a few roles right now! ⬅ 🎖 Finally, do not give up. Ever. No matter how dark things may look right now, I KNOW you will get through this, you have got this! 👊 Remember you are not alone. If you need help, advice, or even an ear to listen, we're here for you. Always! ➡ A request to my community, please can I ask you to repost this post to your colleagues and friends, so that we can get as many into jobs as possible! And please comment if you or your studio are currently hiring - let's help each other! Much love ❤️ #layoffs #gamesindustry #jobsingames #falldamage

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2nd Book Progress – First week of onbirding   In the last few days, I started my first week at Rovio Stockholm. I met some familiar faces, lots of new faces, and encountered generally a very positive and friendly vibe. By the way, that is our studio manager, Johannes Mang :) Due to this, progress has been a bit slower than usual. Also, I ran into a slight problem with my last two scenes which I discovered after finishing them. They took place in the office and a bar. However, at that time the pandemic just began, so I had to rewrite them a bit to take that into account. Next, after all the political powerplay, producer Angelo returns to tactical development of the game, discussing with Simone, the Lead Level Designer, about the resistance of her team to start working on content while the mechanics are still in flux. Her team just hates the fact that the work they are going to do will not end up in the final game. Angelo is getting comments like this: "Because I don't know the dimensions of buildings or structures, I can't allocate appropriate space for them on the map." "Since I don't know how quickly resources are consumed, I can't balance the distribution of resource spots effectively." "Since I don't know the maximum number of units that can be present, I can't scale the map appropriately." All true. And yet, they have to create maps in order to figure those things out. In this phase, it inevitably means that those early maps will not end up in the final game. Angelo notices the team’s misconception - they behave as if they are in production, trying to create player value. But in reality, they are in conception trying to gain knowledge instead. Sometimes, it is also hard for teams (not only leadership) to understand the difference.   #gamedesignimpossible #writing #gamedevelopment #gamedesign   In case you want to check out the first book in the meantime: https://lnkd.in/g8Ff4ECg

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As promised, here's another small look into our thesis game project: Verify Your Humanity🤖 In the clip, you can see our two-player setup in Unreal Engine 5, ready for them to control the same avatar - and me desperately trying to test it on my own😅 In Verify Your Humanity, two players must co-operate to solve strange puzzles to prove their humanity, very much inspired by CAPTCHA! Felix Möller and me will be posting once in a while when there are interesting things to show, so keep an eye out 👀🤘 #gamedevelopment #multiplayer #thesis #UnrealEngine #ITU

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