Arctic Game Dev 2025 – A Cross-border Success

Through a partnership with Agora Gaming Partners, this year’s Arctic Game Dev built upon past learnings to deliver a truly multi-international event that aimed to foster cross-border collaborations, while engaging industry talent with expert insights, B2B networking, and a healthy dose of project pitching/ showcasing!

A range of talks, workshops and panels were on the agenda, covering all topics from Boss Fight Design (Marie Mejerwall) to a deep-dive of lessons learnt from Hell Diver 2’s live services (Linda Tiger). Dimitra Papacosta (CRG) also led a community management workshop that covered the importance of traction, market validation and research in ensuring the success of a game launch.

Undeniably, one of the highlights from our speaking roster was Jason Della Rocca’s boot camp on “Inception Publishing”.  

Jason has had an illustrious career in the gaming world, including acting as the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) in Montreal. Jason broke down his definition of Inception Publishing, advocating that:

…game developers need to presumptively start their own publishing/marketing efforts from the earliest stages of a project in order to build up evidence that their game will be successful (eg, trailer views, wishlists, Discord subs, demo play time, etc). 

Only once that kind of market validation and traction is built up, does it open the door to funding, partnerships, platform deals, showcase invites, Kickstarter, etc, etc.

Indie developers take note! Speaking of which, plenty of budding indie developers took to the convention’s pitching and showcase sessions to gather interest/ support for their games. Sarah York of Panda Cat Games, even made the trip from the UK to pitch her game, Spirits of Heartwood:

As a UK-based studio, it was an amazing experience to travel and visit Umeå. It was great to see a thriving community, be inspired by amazing projects, meet friendly and talented game devs and expand our network outside of the UK.

It’s rare to find an event that brings together publishers, investors and developers together so effectively in a more intimate-sized event and it provided some great opportunities for us.

We even saw the debut of a new game, created by a veteran team (former Coldwood Interactive) that worked on the Unravel franchise. 

Co-founder Linus Adolfsson kindly shared some details on the title:

We wanted to return to the 2.5D platforming genre and make a fun engaging game in the visual spirit of Unravel. It’s called Dew.

Calling themselves “MVRX”,  short for mavericks, the Umeå team impressed the audience with their visually stunning nature scenes. And given that the game is still in an early state, the team was understandably taken aback by the positive feedback. Linus had this to say:

The response was overwhelmingly positive! We got enough assurance that we’re on the right track, so we aim to continue the production.

For many though, it was a highlight to see the shoe on the other foot, when the publishers took to the stage to pitch their services and portfolios. It’s not something you see every day. Talent scouts from studios like Team17 Digital, 505 Games and Kwalee were pulled out of their comfort zones to run through what they could offer to developers. What proved most interesting, though, was statistics on how many games were being signed and from what source. 

As it turns out, former contacts and event meetups still prove most successful for winning over publishers, so it’s very much a “who you know game”. However, social media posts are still heavily scouted by publisher representatives, so you never know who might be looking!

To offer a dedicated space for women, trans, and non-binary individuals, a Female Meetup was also arranged by Pernilla Lindmark and Linda Lundgren as a free side event to the conference. It featured inspiring talks from Lili Zang, Delia Zadius and Bibbi Wikman (Playcap) who all did a fantastic job of sharing insights into investments, funding, venture capital, and strategies for building successful businesses and manoeuvring the games industry space.

Lili Zang even utilised The Art of War from Sun Tsu, an ancient Chinese philosopher, to detail what characteristics investors might be looking for when investing in female founders. She compared the Scandinavian scene favourably to the Asian gaming industry, where there are still plenty of prejudices against women and minority figures, but remains confident it will change in the future.

Hind Toufga, also raised awareness towards the #TWOPERCENT movement, highlighting how Women entrepreneurs in Europe receive only 2 % or less of venture capital funding. 

The internationality of the event was not lost on the attendees either, with many remarking how fantastic it was to have so many eyes on the North. Futuregames also enjoyed warm first-time in-person meetups between its Polish department and the local teachers. Piotr Matecki, head of Futuregames Warsaw gamedev school, left the event full of hope for the North:

I see opportunities everywhere… I believe the North has something unique to offer – a combination of nature, lifestyle, regional support, driven and talented developers, and gamedev education on a high level. I think it is a fertile soil to build gamedev ecosystem. We will be happy to support it as Futuregames.

Piotr, was far from the only one to be so supportive of the local scene. Jason Della Rocca also shared some kind words:

In general, Sweden has an awesome depth of game development talent. It’s always amazing to see so many great studios and the quality of games being produced. This is true of the “Arctic” cluster, with some wonderfully talented studios braving the harsher northern conditions to make cool games!

Lili Zang also talked favourably about the games being exhibited, arguing that “the overall quality is higher than a lot of “major” events”.

Beyond the convention, further networking took place over a lovely dinner at the P5 restaurant using 100 % local ingredients and at an afterparty hosted by Crypto Rogue Games (CRG). Their further friendships were made and contacts solidified.

All in all, the Arctic Game Dev 25 was well-received and hopefully great things come out of it. Thanks to Andreas Waleij from Arctic Game Umeå, plus Pontus Mahler, Mateusz Osiński and Tidus Wong from Agora Gaming Partners for orchestrating this event. 

A big thank you is also due to the dedicated volunteer team led by Beatrice Vester consisting of emerging local talent from Futuregames and Umeå University – Mido Kalash, Seth Renberg Byström, Domas Prokofjovas, Johan Rosenhed, Hugo Nykvist, Leo Stoltz, Isak Dalberg, and Max Hjertberg.

We also want to thank our sponsors for the event: Invest in Skåne, Kinda Brave Entertainment, Crypto Rogue Games AB, Turborilla, Acino Game Solutions, RankOne Global, Umeå Kommun, Kibix Workspace, Futuregames, U&Me Hotel, P5 Möten, Utbildningar & Event i Umeå, and Z-Profil.

And most importantly – thank you to all attendees! We hope you left the event with new insights, inspiration and valuable connections. See you next time!

// Written by Harry Heath