First Vice President Technology — Åsa
I studied Computer Science at university and started working as a Java Developer in Stockholm 20 years ago. I really love the problem-solving part of working with development and tech.
I was working in the telecom industry when one of my managers moved on to gaming and recruited me into an online gaming operator in Sweden. I discovered that I really liked working with tech products/games as what you build is the core product of the company. It is really cool to be part of shipping something to the market and getting immediate feedback from the players!
I run the Game Platform department within our technology organization. The game platform is used by all the game teams here at King and handles billions of game transactions every day. We’re like a force multiplier where we make cool features and services available to all game teams across our organization.
You feel very proud when you see people on the bus, train, airplane absorbed by any of our games and know that their experience is made possible by all the amazing work being done inside King. It’s a really creative environment where anyone can try their ideas in a Hackathon or suggest them in their teams.
Game Artist –Sandra da Cruz Martins
I’m from the Netherlands and have been active in the game industry for over five years now. I’ve always loved drawing, and the support of my family and friends encouraged me to pursue a career in the arts eventually.
I was initially interested in animation until I found a Game Design & Development study. Back then I thought I couldn’t be a game designer because I never played shooters and the like, but I attended a talk after my parent’s gentle reminder that I have never let go of my GameBoy since I was a kid.
I learned all about the actual work that goes into creating experiences for a player, in any genre and platform possible. I found out game art is approaching artwork in an entirely different way than I was used to. Now I’m a game artist for Candy Crush Saga, one of the world’s biggest mobile games!
The first thing the speaker said was, “you don’t have to be a hardcore gamer to be a game designer”.
My primary purpose is helping players have fun. I really enjoy creating new content, to boost the players and keep them engaged. I spend a lot of time drawing characters, environments, layouts — and a lot of candy, of course! These assets are all put together in dedicated software so the job can be pretty technical too. As an added perk, artists at King are also involved with game design and testing. I get to work with people from all kinds of disciplines.
I feel like this open and diverse working environment at King shines through in our design methods. For example, what has been great about creating characters is that we think of a narrative we want a character to embody, which in turn allows us to steer away from stereotypes. We try to make all our art match the quirky style of the game, which is a daily challenge — but also creates a fun pallet for the players to see. We want it to be everybody’s gaming Kingdom.
