Swedish games industry grew by 80% this year

Fresh statistics about the Swedish games industry shows the sector grew by almost 80 per cent in the last 12 months.

The data has been presented to attendees at today’s Invest in Games conference, with Rovio general manager Oskar Burman posting the highlights to his Twitter feed.

"Pretty astonishing," he said of the 80 per cent growth. "This on top of stellar growth last year."

A lot of the revenue growth has been attributed to Mojang and the continued success of Minecraft, as well as Candy Crush Saga firm King starting to account for more of its revenues in Sweden.

The number of games studios in Sweden also grew over the last 12 months, up 17 per cent to 170, while the Swedish games industry’s headcount grew by almost 30 per cent.

The number of women employed by the industry grew by 38 per cent, which Burman deemed as "great growth, but was can do even better here".

Almost none of the Swedish developers have female CEOs or general managers.

"We need to open up for more female leaders," Burman wrote. "And yeah, I guess I’m part of the problem."