Daan(25)

After studying Game Development at HAN University in Nijmegen, I worked two years at a small indie studio. Fun, but the salary was meager and growth opportunities limited. Stockholm is known as the gaming capital of Europe — Mojang (Minecraft), DICE (Battlefield), King (Candy Crush), Paradox Interactive — all Swedish. When King was looking for a junior developer, I seized my chance.

Swedish labor law is a dream for employees. I have twenty-five vacation days per year, plus semesterdagar that my employer pays on top of salary as holiday allowance. The work week is forty hours, but in practice nobody works more. At five o'clock the office is empty. The crunch culture that plagues the game industry elsewhere barely exists here, partly thanks to strong unions like Unionen.

Folkbokföring at Skatteverket was crucial. With my personnummer I could register for the bostadskö of Stockholm city, but the wait time is twenty years. I now live in an andrahandslägenhet in Södermalm that I found through a colleague. Rent is 11,000 SEK — expensive, but I earn well and the city is worth it.

The gaming community in Stockholm is tight-knit. There are monthly meetups at Spelplan, the Swedish game industry association. Nordic Game Conference in Malmö is a yearly highlight. I've built more contacts in one year in Stockholm than in five years in the Netherlands. The Swedish game industry is the third largest in the world per capita — you can tell from the ecosystem.

What surprised me is the social safety net. The a-kassa (unemployment insurance) costs only 150 SEK per month and covers eighty percent of your salary if you become unemployed. Försäkringskassan arranges sick pay from day fourteen — your employer pays the first thirteen days. And if I ever have children, I'm entitled to 480 days of föräldraledighet (parental leave). In the game industry, which is notorious for poor working conditions, Sweden is an oasis.

My advice to Dutch gamers and developers: look at Stockholm. Studios are always looking for talent, working conditions are excellent, and the city buzzes with creativity. The only downside is the housing market — start the bostadskö as early as possible. And learn Swedish, even though everyone at the office speaks English. It opens doors you don't expect.