The Development of the Swedish Game Industry - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 130

in the 1990s to larger and more professional multidivisional fi rms in the
2000s. One of the driving forces behind this could be linked to the techno-
logical development. The industry has faced a spectacular change in tech-
nology connected to the continued fulfi lment of Moore's law. Games are
one of the kinds of software that really push the limits of the law. Few other
consumer programs will use so much processing power and storage capac-
ity as games, and this will by itself create a demand for faster computers.
The companies have had to transform through expansion and specializa-
tion to be able to follow and explore the new technical possibilities.
There seems to be a tendency towards increased market coordination
(modularity) within the industry (Baldwin 2008; Hoetker 2006; Langlois
2003, 377-378). There seems to be two dif erent developing tendencies
within the Swedish industry.
The fi rst is that game developers can choose to buy middleware modules
available on the market, such as game engines or physics engines. These mod-
ules have become more advanced with the rapid technical development.
Larger Swedish companies have historically invested in their own tech-
nology for example own game engines. Two examples are DICE, who has
the Frostbite engine, and Starbreeze with its Starbreeze engine. Both have
had around fi fteen people that develop and adjust the engine for every dif-
ferent game. This is a cost that few companies can justify and it is not likely
that newly established game developers have the resources to develop a new
modern game engine or do similar technical investments. Even the bigger
companies have problems keeping up with the development. DICE has, for
example, used the Unreal engine 3 from Epic for the game Mirrors Edge ,
because it was too time consuming to adjust the engine to all their dif er-
ent games. Starbreeze will use the Unreal engine for a future game project
(Starbreeze 2011).
The second tendency is the possibility to buy production capacity
through outsourcing, especially concerning graphics. Specialized compa-
nies within Sweden, but also in low-wage countries in Eastern Europe and
Asia, of er services directed towards the game industry. Game developers
have, for instance, the possibility of ordering a bulk of 3-D objects from
these companies. An example of this is Swedish companies who are of ering
motion capture facilities. The motion capture technology has evolved rap-
idly during the last ten years and it is no longer rational for every company
to have their own facility. Game developers will also outsource parts of
their game development. Looking closely through the credit list of Battle-
fi eld Bad Company 2 one can see that DICE, for example, hired Coldwood
to work on some part of the game.
The two tendencies, buying middleware and outsourcing, make it some-
what dii cult to follow the game development industry over time. Pro-
duction moves from the game developing companies into new subsectors
within the industry. New types of companies have emerged within Sweden,
but it seems likely that Swedish game developers will use the products and