Fare-thee-well

For the better part of the four years we, who were to become Arrowhead GS, struggled to break through the veil of the games industry and successively crafted a studio with clear values, goals and characteristics. And this Friday, one of those founding fathers: Robin Cederholm, Executive Vice President of Arrowhead GS left the company to pursue other ventures in life. To this occasion I would like to tell the story of how Robin got involved in Arrowhead…

Back in 07/08 when, at the time, Team Arrowhead worked on the 2D prototype of Magicka all of the founders studied in the northern parts of Sweden: Skellefteå, a small town with little more than 35.000 inhabitants, but not only did we constantly work on our little dream project, we also were involved in several of the univerity activities like running the  student pub and taking care of the student reception. During this time I got to know Robin Cederholm, a student of economy which became a dear friend of mine.

Robin opens his fare-thee-well present

Later, after we had won Swedish Game Awards with this prototype we realized that we were much in need of someone to handle fincances, certain legal aspects and aid in business development. Robin was the ideal candidate as not only was he a student of economy, but also an avid gamer with a thrist for adventure; and thus the (at the time) five of us founded Arrowhead Game Studios with what little money we had.

Later on, Robin’s tasks moved from only taking care of administration, economy and business to getting hands dirty in the development parts of the company – infact he made himself vital through extensive scripting work on the original campaign, and as project leader and designer that worked very close to Robin I am willing to say his work was a momentous one; Doing over 85% of the scripting of the entire original Magicka campaign.

Robin’s Showdown Style Business Card; when everybody else is someone, he is just himself.

Afterwards his die-hard attitude and the willingness to get things done earned Robin the position of full time producer, overseeing the full internal production of Magicka: Vietnam and Magicka: The Stars are Rig- I mean Left. as well as the external production of titles Magicka: Other Side of the Coin and Magicka: WOOT.

Not only did Robin bring to Arrowhead hard work, but he also brought the goal of providing all employees with as good benefits as possible, to reinforce our flat structure and  the humble yet daring attitude of the studio.