{"id":21187,"date":"2025-12-12T13:37:36","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T12:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/12\/if-we-build-it-they-will-come-skovde-the-tiny-town-powering-up-swedens-video-game-boom\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T13:37:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T12:37:36","slug":"if-we-build-it-they-will-come-skovde-the-tiny-town-powering-up-swedens-video-game-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/12\/if-we-build-it-they-will-come-skovde-the-tiny-town-powering-up-swedens-video-game-boom\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018If we build it, they will come\u2019: Sk\u00f6vde, the tiny town powering up Sweden\u2019s video game boom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It started with a goat. Now \u2013 via a degree for developers and an incubator for startups \u2013 the tiny city is churning out world-famous video game hits. What is the secret of its success?<\/p>\n<p>On 26 March 2014, a trailer for a video game appeared on YouTube. The first thing the viewer sees is a closeup of a goat lying on the ground, its tongue out, its eyes open. Behind it is a man on fire, running backwards in slow motion towards a house. Interspersed with these images is footage of the goat being repeatedly run over by a car. In the main shot, the goat, now appearing backwards as well, flies up into the first-floor window of a house, repairing the glass it smashed on its way down. It hurtles through another window and back to an exploding petrol station, where we assume its journey must have started.<\/p>\n<p>This wordless, strangely moving video \u2013 a knowing parody of the trailer for a zombie survival game called Dead Island \u2013 was for a curious game called Goat Simulator. The game was, unsurprisingly, the first to ever put the\u00a0player into the hooves of a goat, who must enact as much wanton destruction as possible. It was also the first massive hit to come out of a small city in Sweden by the name of Sk\u00f6vde.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/games\/2025\/dec\/12\/skovde-sweden-video-games-goat-simulator-valheim-v-rising\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/0f20904d05a4c6912a7bec7c9ea43a524b1b781a\/0_0_2953_2362\/master\/2953.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=f45f7bf894d0e858aaf4191447c1dba6\" title=\"\u2018If we build it, they will come\u2019: Sk\u00f6vde, the tiny town powering up Sweden\u2019s video game boom\" \/>It started with a goat. Now \u2013 via a degree for developers and an incubator for startups \u2013 the tiny city is churning out world-famous video game hits. What is the secret of its success?<br \/>\nOn 26 March 2014, a trailer for a video game appeared on YouTube. The first thing the viewer sees is a closeup of a goat lying on the ground, its tongue out, its eyes open. Behind it is a man on fire, running backwards in slow motion towards a house. Interspersed with these images is footage of the goat being repeatedly run over by a car. In the main shot, the goat, now appearing backwards as well, flies up into the first-floor window of a house, repairing the glass it smashed on its way down. It hurtles through another window and back to an exploding petrol station, where we assume its journey must have started.<br \/>\nThis wordless, strangely moving video \u2013 a knowing parody of the trailer for a zombie survival game called Dead Island \u2013 was for a curious game called Goat Simulator. The game was, unsurprisingly, the first to ever put the\u00a0player into the hooves of a goat, who must enact as much wanton destruction as possible. It was also the first massive hit to come out of a small city in Sweden by the name of Sk\u00f6vde. Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It started with a goat. Now \u2013 via a degree for developers and an incubator for startups \u2013 the tiny city is churning out world-famous video game hits. What is the secret of its success? On 26 March 2014, a trailer for a video game appeared on YouTube. The first thing the viewer sees is &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/12\/if-we-build-it-they-will-come-skovde-the-tiny-town-powering-up-swedens-video-game-boom\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">\u2018If we build it, they will come\u2019: Sk\u00f6vde, the tiny town powering up Sweden\u2019s video game boom<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":21188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21187"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}