When you hear of a “gaming city,” your mind might wander to places like Los Angeles or Tokyo. The former is known to be filled with high-profile companies like Activision Blizzard and Naughty Dog, while the latter has the gamers’ mecca, Akihabara. Well, the city of Skövde, Sweden, may not be a household name in the gaming world like those glamorous locations. But its latest initiative, the Skövde Walk of Game, is going to put it on the map.
Who would have thought that this small city with a population of 57,463 people, produced 5 critically acclaimed games with millions of copies sold worldwide? To honor these locally-grown blockbusters, the Skövde local government installed commemorative plaques in the city streets, adorned with the titles of these surprise hits. Some of which you should already be familiar with:
| Game | Developer/Publisher | Release Year | Achievements |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goat Simulator | Coffee Stain Studios/Coffee Stain Publishing | 2014 | Over 2.5 million copies sold and made more than $12 million revenue by 2016 |
| Raft | Redbeet Interactive/Axolot Games | 2022 | Estimated to have sold over 13 million copies on Steam |
| Satisfactory | Coffee Stain Studios/Coffee Stain Publishing | 2024 | Sold over 5.5 million copies during early access |
| V Rising | Stunlock Studios | 2024 | Estimated to have sold more than 4 million units by April 2024, 3.9 million copies during early access |
| Valheim | Iron Gate/Coffee Stain Publishing | 2021 | Sold 10 million copies by April 2022 |
These plaques mark a unique recognition for the city’s developers, who have brought their original ideas to life within the 7.84 square miles wide region. According to the city’s website, the criteria for the games to be induced in the Skövde Walk of Game are:
- The game has to at least reach 3 million copies sold, or in the case of freeware, at least 15 million downloads.
- The majority of the game must be developed in Skövde. Around 50% of development hours have to be spent in the city before release.
- The game must be the developer’s original idea and intellectual property, not a licensed game or an adaptation.
As written above, more than half of Skövde Walk of Game titles were published by Coffee Stain. According to Zahhibb, a Reddit user, Coffee Stain has grown to be quite a local powerhouse in Sweden. The company now owns several development teams in various cities, including Malmö and Stockholm. Who knows what other viral hits the team will launch sometime soon?
Another Reddit user, Philbaoge, chimed in. Saying that Skövde University’s video game program was seen as a failed attempt to bring people to ‘a small town where nobody wants to live.’ “I think they have proven their critics wrong by now,” they added.
For now, you might only heard Skövde from this article, and has yet to rival gaming hubs like Los Angeles or Tokyo. But the games featured in Skövde Walk of Game prove that anyone anywhere can leave their mark on the global gaming scene.
