One of the panel discussions during Creative Conference.
On Wednesday, Arctic Game and Nordsken hosted the Creative Connect conference at Sara kulturhus in Skellefteå. The event offered a full day of lectures, panels and discussions about the future of games, film and cross-disciplinary creativity.
– Creative Connect is about showing that Skellefteå has a vibrant creative industry. Many initiatives have started here, and we want to reconnect, strengthen collaborations and look ahead together, says Tim Leinert, business developer at Arctic Game.
One of the speakers was Johan Pilestedt, one of the founders of Arrowhead Game Studios, a game development studio founded in 2008 in Skellefteå. He previously served as CEO but stepped down in 2024 to focus more on the creative side of the game Helldivers 2.
Arrowhead's founders were all students at Luleå University of Technology’s campus in Skellefteå.
– We received support from the Samme's Foundation to develop our first game, for which we’re extremely grateful, says Johan.
In 2011, the studio released Magicka, followed by The Showdown Effect. These were followed by Gauntlet in 2014 and the hit game Helldivers in 2015, which sold millions of copies.
Johan Pilestedt was previously CEO of Arrowhead but chose to step aside in 2024 to focus more on the creative side of the game Helldivers 2.
At the conference, Johan shared the long road leading to the release of Helldivers 2 on February 8, 2024.
– It took us seven years, eleven months and 26 days of hard work, he says.
Helldivers 2 has been a massive success. The game has sold more than 15 million copies and has around 2.5 million active players every week. It has become one of the most successful video games ever produced in Sweden, now generating several billion kronor in revenue.
One of the characters in Helldivers.
– We had no idea there would be so much interest in the game. We had scaled our servers for 150,000 users, but on launch day we had 750,000, says Johan.
This led to major technical issues, as players struggled to connect to the servers.
– It took us two weeks to sort it out, and it was tough.
"There needs to be infrastructure in place for this industry to grow further," says Björn Flintberg.
The journey with Helldivers wasn’t easy for the developers from Skellefteå, who moved the company to Stockholm after completing their studies.
– Overnight, we grew from 15 to 40 employees. We believed in a flat hierarchy, but it created a lot of uncertainty in the organisation.
He describes it as a journey “from hell and back”.
– We learned the hard way that you need solid structures to create stability in an organisation.
Adam Kline, Try New Things, was the conference's moderator.
Another speaker was Björn Flintberg, a researcher at the RISE research institute. He stressed the need for a national strategy for the games industry and called for more investment to support its growth.
– In Sweden, the games industry is managed regionally or municipally. I’d like to see the issue raised at a national level—both for the industry's sake and so the rest of society can benefit from its potential, he says.
Björn also pointed out that there’s a lack of financial support for early-stage game studios.
– The industry needs infrastructure in place to grow further. That infrastructure already exists in most other EU countries.
"Many initiatives have started here, and we want to reconnect, strengthen collaborations and look ahead together," says Tim Leinert.
RISE studies show that game companies want access to incubators and a strong local or regional organisation to support and connect the industry.
– Up here in the north, Arctic Game plays that role as a unifying force, Björn concludes.