GAME DESIGNERS from Sweden

Top 3

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Swedish Game Designers of all time. This list of famous Swedish Game Designers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Markus Persson (b. 1979)

With an HPI of 59.42, Markus Persson is the most famous Swedish Game Designer.  His biography has been translated into 50 different languages on wikipedia.

Markus Alexej Persson ( PEER-sən, Swedish: [ˈmǎrːkɵs ˈpæ̌ːʂɔn] ; born 1 June 1979), also known as Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is the creator of Minecraft, which is the best-selling video game in history. He founded the video game development company Mojang Studios in 2009. Persson began developing video games at an early age. His commercial success began after he published an early version of Minecraft in 2009. Prior to the game's official retail release in 2011, it had sold over ten million copies. After this point Persson stood down as the lead designer and transferred his creative authority to Jens Bergensten. In September 2014 Persson announced on his personal website that he had concluded he "[didn't have the connection to his fans he thought he had]", that he had "become a symbol", and that he did not wish to be responsible for Mojang's increasingly large operation. He left Mojang in November of that year, selling his company to Microsoft reportedly for US$2.5 billion. The acquisition made Persson a billionaire. Since 2016 several of Persson's posts on Twitter regarding homosexuality, race, and transgender-rights issues have caused public controversies. In 2019 Persson's tweets were censured by Microsoft, who subsequently removed mentions of his name from Minecraft (excluding one instance in the game's end credits) and did not invite him to the game's tenth anniversary celebration. In 2015 he co-founded a separate game studio called Rubberbrain, which was relaunched in 2024 as Bitshift Entertainment.

2. Jens Bergensten (b. 1979)

With an HPI of 39.88, Jens Bergensten is the 2nd most famous Swedish Game Designer.  His biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Jens Peder Bergensten (born 18 May 1979), known professionally as Jeb, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is best known as the lead designer of Minecraft, and is the chief creative officer of Mojang Studios. In 2013, he, along with Minecraft creator Markus Persson, was named as one of Time's 100 most influential people in the world. As an employee of Mojang Studios, he had been co-developing Minecraft with Persson since 2010, became the lead designer in 2011, and assumed full control in 2014, when Persson left the company after its acquisition.

3. Johan Andersson (b. 1974)

With an HPI of 33.47, Johan Andersson is the 3rd most famous Swedish Game Designer.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Johan Andersson is a Swedish video game designer and studio manager for Paradox Tinto, a Barcelona-based division of Paradox Interactive.