Dice have now decided to create a new studio, Ghost in the center of Gothenburg. Here development of new games for the Need for Speed series will take place. The goal is to be as reputable as Dice.

The responsibility for the studio was fell to Marcus Nilsson, who had been working for Dice since 2002 and been a part of Dice’s former manager and the recent EA- “hot shot” Patrick Söderlund’s immediate workgroup.

The choice was not a coincidence. Nilsson himself worked at the former Dice Gothenburg office before it moved to Stockholm eight years ago. He also led the development of Need for Speed shift and it’s a Need for Speed game that the new studio will develop.

– It is both exciting and difficult to create a new game while building up a new studio. We are building a game of very high quality while we at the same time, building our own corporate culture. It’s a challenge, but we have all the right pieces to succeed.

Recently they decided on a new name, Ghost. – We didn’t want to be simply EA Gothenburg; we wanted to have our own identity. It was tricky to come up with a good name. Finally we arranged an internal competition, the one who won got an Ipad3. We received 250 suggestions and we fell for Ghost.

65 people already work at Ghost, in the spring it will be 85, enough to build the next Need for speed.

– Yes we will get very far with that, but we will also work with external consultants and other studios, it’s a lot of little things that could be done outside of our own studio walls. That’s the way all larger developers work. Hopefully we can find developers to work with locally; geographical proximity is always an advantage.

Ghost’s entrance changes the Gothenburg game scene that has been surprisingly weak when it comes to larger game development. There are a few companies that make mobile- and indie games, but larger development studios have been absent. Since Dice closed in 2004, however both Grin and Simbin used to have larger studios here, but one went bankrupt and the other one closed down and moved.

– The basic strategy for establishing a studio in Gothenburg was basically because there are a lot of talented people here who do not want to live in Stockholm. If you want to work with them, you have to be here. And it has proved to be right. Looking at the experience we have an awesome group here with the first people we hired. And we would never had gotten a hold of them in Stockholm, says Nilsson.

That Gothenburg is located about an hour’s flying time closer to England is also an advantage, both for the success in attracting British developers and because that the other EA studio that makes Need for Speed ​games, Criterion, is there.

Ghost is part of what is called Games at EA. It’s the business that Patrick Söderlund has responsibility for, and therefore Ghost is under his responsibility. Nevertheless a new Dice is nothing Marcus has an interest in building.

– I’ll bring a lot of Dice attitude to game development. Dice also have a culture where everyone can say what they think and have opinions, I want to have that here as well. But we’ll be our own; we will build Ghost and make games of high quality in our own way.

Source : www.idg.se
Translated by Ghost Games

Behind the modest almost unnoticeable entrance in the center of town you’ll find Gothenburg’s new game studio. 

At Ghost, which is owned by gaming giant Electronic Arts around 65 people are working full time, with something that they are hoping to be the next big car racing game. 

- We are making a driving game where you drive around and do crazy things while also playing with your friends, often through online functionality, says Marcus Nilsson, executive producer of Ghost games. 

Games are costly to develop

Much has happened since the computer games Super Mario and Space invaders. The TV- and computer games industry has completely exploded and to develop a big game today can cost over (SEK) 200 million. According to the Computer games industry trade organization, there were 4.4 million games sold only in Sweden, with a value of more than (SEK) 1.4 billion in 2011.And this is only taking into account the major platforms: Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox and PC. Games for smartphones and tablets are not included in this statistic, but those platforms are also gaining ground. 

Double number of jobs

And with money comes jobs. Employment in the industry has increased dramatically from 812 people 2006 to 1512 people last year. And Ghost has plans to see that number rise even more.

- Right now we are probably around 65 people and we still are about to employ until we are about 85-90 people here, says Marcus Nilsson. In this office right now we have four people working full-time with recruitment. We chose Gothenburg because we knew that there were very good game developers here.

Games are becoming a part of our everyday lives. According to the Interactive Software Federation of Europe, about 62 percent of Swedes are playing some sort of electronic game whether it is through the computer, console or mobile. And all the indications points toward that this is a cultural phenomenon that is here to stay.

The younger generation has grown up with games in a different way. It’s no different that young people go home and play a game, as well as go home and listen to music, says Marcus Nilsson.

Anders Ekwing

Marcus took Battlefield to Playstation and Xbox. They have now sold over 50 million copies and are being called one of the biggest Swedish culture exports ever! Now he is back in Gothenburg to build up a new game studio and attract game developers from the entire world.