Game Habitat as an organization turns 10 years, while our coworking space for game developers, DevHub, turns 5 years. In connection with the anniversaries, we have adopted a new vision for the coming years, with an increased focus on equality, diversity and inclusion.
Game Habitat was founded in 2013 by representatives of the game studios in southern Sweden. The aim was for the organization to accelerate the growth of the region’s game development industry, this is still its mission. Over the past 10 years, the regional industry has grown rapidly, and today, the region with Malmö at the forefront, is home to one of the world’s foremost game development clusters, known for its high-quality and innovative games, but currently, perhaps, also for developing some of the world’s biggest games, based on brands such as Star Wars, Avatar, and James Bond.
– A lot has happened during Game Habitat’s and DevHub’s first 10 and 5 years respectively. When we started, there were only about 450 game developers in the region, these days we recurrently host events for the region’s game developers with more participants than that. Our coworking space DevHub has also grown significantly, from a few companies at the start, to now being, as far as we know, the world’s largest coworking space dedicated to game studios, says Peter Lübeck, CEO at Game Habitat.
Game Habitat works with several industry-wide issues, and one issue that the region’s game studios have strongly expressed that they want to focus more on in the coming years, is equality, diversity and inclusion. Game Habitat have therefore internally developed a new vision, which focuses on this particular area. As a next step, the new vision will be discussed with regional partners – game studios, academia, and public organizations.
– In many areas, south Sweden is already one of the industry leaders globally, and there are many reasons why we as a region could take the lead also in issues regarding diversity. Concretely, the new vision means, for example, that we will further increase the opportunities for women and other underrepresented groups to take up employment in the industry, that we will support the growth of game studios led specifically by women, and that we will increase our collaboration with the region’s game studios to create an even better and more inclusive environment in the studios as well as the industry overall, says Peter Lübeck, CEO at Game Habitat.
The dual anniversaries and the new vision are celebrated with a big party for the entire game development industry, and anyone else who are interested to join, in Malmö on September 13 – over 900 people have signed up to attend!
Game Habitat and DevHub – milestones
- 2013: Game Habitat is founded on October 8, and a working board is elected
- 2014: A survey to map the regional game development industry is conducted, showing 532 game developers working in the region
- 2015: Game Habitat’s first employee is hired, the organization get public funding for the first time, and starts regular community meetings for everyone in the regional game development industry
- 2017: The team doubles, as Game Habitat hires its second employee
- 2018: Game Habitat founds the game development dedicated coworking space DevHub in central Malmö on September 3
- 2019: Game Habitat’s biggest community meetings attract more than 400 game developers for the first time
- 2020: DevHub is operating at full capacity for the first time, with ca 25 game studios and 150 game developers in the house – as far as is known, it’s the world’s largest dedicated game development coworking space
- 2022: A new survey to map the regional game development industry is conducted, showing 1515 game developers and 120 game companies working in the region, Game Habitat and the game development industry in Malmö receives the city of Malmö’s award Malmö Ambassador of the year at Malmö Business Gala
- 2023: Game Habitat and DevHub turns 10 and 5 years respectively, the organization grows to eight employees, and the board adopts a new vision with increased focus on diversity, equality and inclusion