When enough is enough

Horse games have actually been big since the 90’s, yet they are rarely discussed in neither games media nor among games collectors. Thomas Sunhede, Retro Games Advisor at Embracer, dives into the Games Archive and tries to understand why this is.

With eight million copies sold, the Viking survival game Valheim is one of this year’s great success stories in the games industry. This is the story of how it all started and where it’s going from here. Meet Iron Gate studio founder Henrik Törnqvist, community manager Lisa Kolfjord and publisher Sebastian Badylak of Coffee Stain Studios.

Content warning: This video contains discussions about mental health and suicide. Jace Varlet is a popular community manager at Coffee Stain Studios, reaching thousands each week in his streams. But once the camera is off, another reality awaits. Jace suffers from bipolar II disorder, a chronic mental illness, characterized by periods of severe depression and hypomania.

Once again we sent game historian Martin Lindell into the secret vault, where Embracer Group’s growing game collection is stored. This time he found something really rare – a tabletop arcade machine called Adventure Vision, from 1982.

Koch Media became part of Embracer Group in 2018, and everything has been grand. There’s just one tiny problem that seems hard to resolve. How do you pronounce Koch? CEO Klemens Kundratitz knows all the ways to say it, and what not to say.

”It’s a mixture of excitement and horror”, says Lisa Kolfjord. Late last year she was hired as a 3D artist and community manager by a small indie studio, developing their first game. The game was called Valheim. When it was released in February, Valheim became a huge hit, with millions of players. As the person in charge of such a big player community, Lisa Kolfjord’s working life has changed. A lot.

A story of a lonely coffee machine, a bank vault, something that looks like a prison courtyard, and having really bad timing when renting new office spaces.

What do you do when you are a brilliant game developer who just wants to make the games of your dreams, but really don’t want to have to deal with the business side of things? Well, you could do what Mattias Kylén did.

Deep down in a secret vault, Embracer Group’s growing game collection is stored at the moment. But we have early access, and game historian Martin Lindell has picked out a selection of classics from the archive, to show us. We’ll soon be back with more stories from the collection.

Developing a game is hard under the best of circumstances, but how do you cope when a pandemic strikes unexpectedly? Producer Michele Caletti knows all about it.

Nathalie, Hannah and Anna grew up as nerdy girls, not really finding their place in the world. Not until they realized that making games was actually a job. And that they were good at it.

Include, share and encourage. It’s not that complicated to be a middle aged senior game developer and still be a nice person online. Henrik Jonsson even received an award for his demeanor, and he has some simple advice.

Per-Arne Lundberg wanted to help students start their own game studios. The idea was to take care of all the boring stuff for them, and let them focus on the creative part. It started small, but today it has blossomed into Amplifier Game Invest.

Stephanie was not allowed to play video games growing up, but she’s making up for it now. She has both a great career in the games industry and a full sleeve to show for it.

Kicki Wallje Lund left home when she was fifteen. Her parents told her she would never make it on her own. That was 50 years ago and Kick-Ass Kicki is still proving them wrong, every day.

Does the world need another video game with nazis? Jörg Friedrich and Paintbucket Games think so. Their game tells a story we have never played before.

Anthony Moss is not a man who allows circumstances to dictate his life. That’s why, at 57, he’s restarting his career in selling games, as well as tap-dancing while fencing.

He sold his first video games from his parents’ house in the ’80s. In the ’90s he started Austrias first video games company. Then he met a most annoying Swedish businessman. Twice.

Normally, Michael Paeck, executive producer at THQ Nordic in Vienna, travels at least ten days a month. It’s a natural consequence of him working with five game studios in four different countries. With the outbreak of Covid-19, this all changed. All five of the studios have solved their specific working situations in different ways. For example, one of the studios created a virtual office on Discord, complete with work stations and a kitchen to hang out in.

When the pandemic struck ”the Silicon Prairie” in the American Midwest, Deep Silver Volition managed to adapt quickly. The first obstacle was practical – arranging for the studio’s 200 employees to work from home. It soon became clear to James Torbit, General Manager at the studio, that there were also big challenges of a more human nature.