Overview

Biography

Tom Söderlund is a game producer, game designer, and entrepreneur, most known for the augmented reality game Ghostwire and the location-based game BotFighters.

He is currently managing the games studio A Different Game as well as the exercising/gaming company Zyked. He is also producing strategy games at the PC game publisher Paradox Interactive.

In 2000 he co-founded the games studio It's Alive, and has managed games publishing at Oberon Media and Synergenix/Blaze, as well as games production at Daydream.

Born with a creative itch, Tom created his first game at age eleven on his Commodore 64. Today, he's working to redefine the games industry, and is striving to become the world's greatest game creator. His main interest is in emerging game formats, such as pervasive games, alternate reality games, proximity games, and serious games.

He has an MSc in Business Administration from the Stockholm School of Economics.

Skills Summary

• Experienced: 10 years experience of game production, game design, product management, and running game companies. Experience from mobile, casual, multiplayer, 3D, first person action/adventure, massively multiplayer (MMOG), and pervasive games.
• Creative: can design games, work processes, user interfaces, or new businesses. Enjoys problem-solving and breaking new ground.
• Diversified: knows design, technology, arts, sound, and management.
• Business-minded: knows pitching, selling, marketing, publishing, financing games, and working with intellectual property.
• Leader: can set visions, inspire, and lead teams into doing divine deeds. Experience of starting, financing, and running small/medium-sized enterprises.

Professional Goal

I want to become the World's Greatest Game Creator. These are still the early days of the games industry, with game platforms converging and games reaching new audiences. I want to help shape computer games into a true mass medium.

Work Experience

July 2007 - (present)	Creative Director and CEO, A Different Game (www.adifferentgame.com) A Different Game is the studio behind the award-winning game Ghostwire. We focus on innovative, social games for a new wider gaming audience. The primary platforms are the web, downloadable content for consoles, and hand-held devices. We believe in games that are intertwined with real life through new smart user interfaces. - New games, for a new audience.
August 2007 - (present)	Founder and CEO, Zyked (www.zyked.com) Zyked aims to make sports and exercising more fun by adding gameplay and community features. The first Zyked product is an innovative internet- and mobile service available at www.zyked.com.
November 2006 - July 2007	Mobile Business Development & Publishing at Oberon Media, Europe (www.oberon-media.com) In November, Blaze was acquired by Oberon Media - the leading global provider of casual games solutions. Oberon distributes games to all the top online gaming sites including sites for MSN Games, Pogo.com, France Telecom, and AOL ICQ. I worked with business development with European carriers (e.g. Telefónica Spain, Orange Spain, O2 UK), while still managing some publishing activities.
May 2005 - November 2006	Head of Games Publishing, Blaze (www.blaze.com) Mobile games publisher (formerly Kayak/Synergenix) with offices in US and Europe. I was part of the European management team, working with publishing strategy, product portfolio, licensing issues, and 3rd-party development. Also working hands-on as producer on selected projects, including (see also my games portfolio): The Da Vinci Code (www.blaze.com/dvc/) licensed from Sony Pictures. Overseeing all the DVC products outside the US, and producing two of the titles hands-on (Da Vinci Code 3D and Light Puzzle). Lock 'n Load 2 (www.blazeentertainment.se/locknload2), a genre-defining mobile first-person shooter, taking 3D mobile gaming to the next level.
July 2004 - May 2005	Executive Game Producer, Daydream (www.daydream.se) Mobile games publisher, results of the merger of Carbello, It's Alive, and Rezet. I was part of the management team, shaping Daydream's publishing strategy and product portfolio, acting as product manager and project manager for several game titles, including (see also my games portfolio): BotFighters 2 (www.botfighters.com): the world's first location-based game (read more under "It's Alive" below). IPerG research project (www.pervasive-gaming.org): a four-year EU-funded research project on pervasive gaming, involving Daydream, Sony, Nokia, Blast Theory, Fraunhofer Institute, SICS, Interactive Institute, Gotland University, University of Nottingham, and University of Tampere. A music adventure game for a major phone manufacturer.
January 2001 - July 2004	Executive Game Producer and Game Designer, It's Alive (www.itsalive.com) Games studio focusing on pervasive gaming. I was part of the management team, responsible for game design of new games, and product management for the game during its complete life cycle. Executive producer of the following games (see also my games portfolio): BotFighters (www.botfighters.com): the world's first location-based game, a location-based mobile massively multiplayer game, with SMS/J2ME/Web interfaces. The game has so far been launched in five countries, and received the Prix Ars Electronica "Award of Distinction" in 2002. Supafly: a location-based mobile MMORPG with a "soap opera" theme, aimed at casual gamers. Spaceport: a wireless multiplayer game demonstrating "proximity gaming" on the Symbian platform. Vampires: a 3G location-based mobile MMORPG with J2ME interface, for operator 3. X-Fire: mobile action game tied to TV format, for Channel 4 UK. Special Forces: action game with TV component, for TV producer Endemol. Matrix game platform: The game engine that was It's Alive's underlying technology for all games.
February 2000 - January 2001	Co-founder and CEO, It's Alive (www.itsalive.com) I co-founded the games start-up It's Alive together with three partners, and managed the company as CEO for the first year of operations. Played an important role in acquiring finance, hiring personnel and getting the first customers. Developed and launched the world's first location-based game, "BotFighters".
June 1999 - August 1999	Assisting Project Manager, Channell Communications (New York City) Worked with project management, graphic design and web application development. Clients included Chase Manhattan Bank and Merrill Lynch.
February 1999 - April 1999	Competitive analysis for startup, eDesk Analyzed competitors and business environment factors for web startup eDesk.
October 1998 - March 1999	Brand analysis and valuation, Brand Management (www.bmn.se) Working with brand related issues, especially regarding the financial value of a brand and developing models for brand valuation.
May 1996 - August 1997	IT Manager, Modern Times Group (MTG) (www.mtg.se) Operational IT management for Airtime, the TV channels TV3, TV6, ZTV, and radio channels Radio Rix and Power Hit Radio. Responsible for purchases, budgeting and managing the IT support staff. One of the major tasks was to lead a project of upgrading the entire IT platform and implementing a new sales support system in Airtime, TV3, TV6, and ZTV in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.
June 1995 - February 2000	My First Startup Started own consulting company, Tom Söderlund Kommunikation, with IT and design consulting as specialty.

Games Portfolio

For a full list of the games I have worked on, see my games portfolio.

Education

August 1997 - June 2003	Stockholm School of Economics ("Handelshögskolan") Master of Science in Business Administration. Major in Entrepreneurship, published master thesis "Improved Decision-Making in Start-ups".
September 2003	Interactive Narratives Master Class Graduate course at DSV, Royal Institute of Technology.
September 1996	Vendator Institutet Basic management training.

Languages

• Swedish, mother tongue.
• English, fluent.
• French, medium.
• Spanish, basics.
• Japanese, basics.

Other Assignments and Skills

August 2003 - (present)	A Different Game Founder and editor of A Different Game (www.differentgame.org), a website on alternative game design in computer games.
October 2004 - (present)	Svenska Datorspelinstitutet (SDSI) Co-founder of "Swedish Computer Games Institute" (Svenska Datorspelinstitutet, www.sdsi.se), working to promote games as culture and mass medium.
May 2002 - October 2002	Script writer and director of movie "Nåt Saknas", an independent movie production (www.differentgame.org/dubbladrakar/).
August 1999 - February 2000	bin·aire Founder and main editor of bin·aire, an online art gallery and forum (www.binaire.org, now closed).

Speaker

Experienced speaker from various industry events. You can find some examples here: www.differentgame.org/publications/.

Arts

• Design and image processing with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, and Corel Draw.
• Animation and video editing with Final Cut Express, Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Director.
• 3D modelling, texturing, animation with Blender, 3ds Max, LightWave 3D, Poser, Swift 3D.
• Music and sound production with Ableton Live, Audacity, Sound Forge, ACID, Fruity Loops, Cakewalk, Goldwave.
• Filming and editing with DV equipment, including lighting and sound recording.
• Still photography, indoor and outdoors, digital or with negative or positive film, in colour or black-and-white, with small format and medium format cameras.

Technology

• Game Engines: Unity, Irrlicht, Source (Half-Life 2), Quake, Doom, Macromedia Flash.
• Device Platforms: Apple iPhone, J2ME, Symbian, BREW, mophun, Flash, Macintosh OS X, Windows.
• Programming Languages: Java (J2SE, J2ME, some J2EE), Objective-C, C, C++, JavaScript, ActionScript (Flash) 2 and 3, Ruby, Python, Processing, Visual Basic, Basic, Pascal.
• Development Tools: Eclipse, Xcode, Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Visual Basic, Borland JBuilder, Ant.
• Web Development: Ruby on Rails, JSP, ASP, Ajax, JavaScript, Macromedia Flash, HTML/DHTML/XHTML/XML, Apache, Tomcat, MS Internet Information Server.
• Web Content Management: Drupal, Joomla.
• Project Management & Revision Control: Pivotal Tracker, Basecamp, Unfuddle, Microsoft Project, Dovico Track-IT, Fog Creek FogBugz, Bugzilla, Subversion.
• Office Tools: expert user of MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, FrontPage).
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tool customization: Salesforce.com, Caesar.
• Databases: standard SQL, MySQL, SQLite, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Exchange.
• Operating Systems: Macintosh OS X, Microsoft Windows 3.1/95/98/NT/2000/XP/Vista, Linux, SCO-Unix, Novell Netware/Intranetware.

References

References from the gaming, media, and technology sectors, available upon request. This document was updated 2010-01-31.