I listened to Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus “Notch” Persson and the Game that Changed Everything as an audiobook (could be cut in half). I hadn’t realized that the Swedish computer game industry was so huge. The authors say that about 22 percent of computer game revenue in Europe goes to Swedish companies, mostly located in one neighborhood in Stockholm, despite the country having less than 2 percent of Europe’s population.
What do folks think accounts for this? The long winters? It doesn’t seem to be favorable tax treatment. A Swedish gaming success would be taxed at the capital gains rate of 30 percent, higher than some other European countries and the U.S. (an American would pay 20 percent federal tax, another 4 percent Obamacare tax, and then another 13 percent in California, but the average combined rate across all states is 28.6 percent).
This is great!