She is the norm breaker who became a manager at a gaming company in Canada at the age of 23 and has worked on one of Sweden's biggest cultural exports, the game Battlefield. Now Fia Tjernberg wants to make the gaming industry more friendly and welcoming to all. She and her partner are also launching their own gaming initiative in Umeå. 

Being a norm breaker and going your own way takes courage, determination and stubbornness. Thankfully, these are some of Fia Tjernberg's qualities that have taken her far in the hitherto male-dominated gaming industry. However, the road ahead hasn't been easy, and based on the experience she's gained, she wants to make a difference in the industry. The experience also started early. Her interest in games and programming began at the age of five, when her mother gave her an Atari computer. 

I was given a big box of floppy disks and software to explore. My parents were great about letting me try and do it myself, and there hasn't been a year since that I haven't been interested in gaming. But there have been different types of games and sometimes it's been more about making the games than playing them," says Fia. 

She enjoyed creating experiences through programming and throughout her childhood, games and creation were a major interest. When it came time to make her high school choice, Fia told the syo counsellor that she wanted to work with computers, make art and tell stories. Syon replied that it wasn't possible, that you couldn't combine all three and that she could only choose one of the subjects. The result was technical high school, which Fia basically just did her duty. But her interest in games remained strong, although it was not easy to be a girl in a world dominated by boys. She wasn't invited to LAN meetings and even a teacher of CSS programming asked if she had gone to the wrong classroom. She got the feeling that she didn't belong and stubbornness sprouted.  

Funcom

After high school, Fia moved from Njurunda to Stockholm, partly to escape the choices available in Sundsvall but also because she wanted to study further but didn't really know what. While working at an internet café, she realised that she wanted to work in video game production, something she didn't even think was a job. She started studying computer science at Stockholm University, a new course specialising in game development. It was Fia, another girl and almost a hundred guys who took the course. In the beginning, some people told her straight out that she didn't belong there, but after a year she started to get into the community and then it dropped off. When she finished her training, she applied for a job at Funcom in Oslo to work on the game Anarchy Online. During the job interview, it turned out that she knew more about the details of the game than the interviewers. She was hired. 

Many of us were hired at the same time and the whole gang quickly became friends, it was great fun! It's something I've taken with me and when we hire in the future, we'll hire more people at the same time instead of hiring one person at a time. You get a special relationship with those who start at the same time as you and you get a good start as an employee," explains Fia.

After some time, the company was supposed to move to Montreal, but instead of moving to Canada, Fia decided to move back home to Stockholm, but continued to work for Funcom remotely. It was a challenge to work remotely before the pandemic, with colleagues who were in a different time zone. After a while she felt isolated and lonely in her job, so when the head of the game project was leaving and she was asked to take over, she accepted. At the age of 23, she packed her bags and moved to Montreal to become the head of Funcom.  

I was really thrown into that world and it was a bit scary. I'm an introvert so it was a challenge but I learned a lot," says Fia.  

Time at DICE

After a few years in Canada, she returned to Stockholm again. This time to work on one of Sweden's main cultural exports, the game Battlefield, produced by DICE. 

When I moved back to Sweden, they were about to go into production with Battlefield 4 and needed someone in between programming and design, which suited me very well," says Fia.  

Her expertise is broad. She knows a lot about programming, storytelling and drawing, but she is not a specialist in any of these skills. Something creators sometimes mistakenly have low self-confidence about, not being an expert in a specific skill. 

It is a preconceived notion that a specialist is better than a generalist. We must learn to celebrate both. It's important that there are people with breadth to link and bridge the gap between specialists, and who's to say that you can't become an expert in several areas over time if you just have an open mind," says Fia. 

She describes working on Battlefield as a fun time. They focused a lot on teamwork and doing things together, but in the end she chose to leave to do something she can relate to more.  

It was weird doing war games, even though it was a lot of fun. I had played Battlefield a lot as a kid so I had a strong connection to the game, but it still didn't feel like something I could relate to. So when a seed was planted to start something of my own, I quit. Now I want to focus on something I can relate to more myself," says Fia.

Launches Wayfinder Games

Fia describes the gaming industry as huge and great fun, but also says that there are downsides, just like in other industries.

You can get addicted to anything, you can feel passion for anything. But when an interest becomes very passionate, not only positive things come out of it. That's why gambling companies need to think about how they express themselves when hiring. What kind of person do you want to attract and hire, Fia argues. It's not fun to work for a company that has a tough jargon or expects you to live to produce games. It attracts a certain type of person and that's not conducive to those with families, women who have had a hard time getting into the industry, non-binary people as well, or for that matter other people who can't identify with the stereotypical developer.  

Now Fia and her partner Dennis Brännvall are launching something brand new with friends Adam Clark and Manne Ederyd in a joint venture. When hiring for their venture, this is something they will think about, how they express themselves and the type of people they want to hire. The company and venture is called Wayfinder Games and they will be based in Umeå.  

Wayfinder Games is an independent game studio that creates compelling, community-driven role-playing games for players around the world. The team currently consists of gaming industry veterans with a wealth of experience from best-selling titles on both console and PC, including Star Wars Battlefront, Battlefield, Angry Birds 2, Star Stable, Anarchy Online and Minecraft.  

Our employees have all been involved in creating amazing games over the past decade and we are incredibly proud to bring together a team with so much experience and talent," says Fia Tjernberg, CEO of Wayfinder Games. Our mission is to make Wayfinder Games a wonderful values-driven workplace, and together with our dedicated partners, we are committed to continuing to redefine how we collaborate in a completely remote work environment. 

Currently the team consists of 18 experienced developers and they plan to continue hiring through 2023, with terms that take the games industry forward towards a more sustainable future; permanent options for remote working, fixed salary increases and meeting-free afternoons for focus time and flexibility. They are clear that they will always strive to be at the forefront of a healthier industry, for everyone. 

Get in touch with Fia and Wayfinder Games

hello@wayfindergames.se
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Text: Maria Persson