Through a new collaboration with painter Issa Salliander co-founder of the gaming studio 10 Chambers, Oscar JT Holm, is gunning to become a pioneer in in-brand game design. The studio’s newest heist game, Den of Wolves, will be the first to incorporate art that can be bought by a player. Although, luxury brands have turned to games to attract clientele Louis Vuitton and UNIQLO have partnered with Riot Games’ League of Legends on prestige skins (cosmetic downloads that donät affect gameplay) in 2019 and 2021. Or Marc Jacobs and Valentino outfits are available in Nintendo’s popular social simulation game Animal Crossing. Bringing fine art to gaming is new. With Den of Wolves incorporation of masks donning Salliander’s painting the partnership will be bringing the art market to the video game sphere for the first time.
Holm was involved in the popular Terminator Salvation (2009) and Avalon (2011) before co-founding his game studio 10 Chambers together with Ulf Andersson who is known for Terminator Salvation (2009) and Payday (2013). 10 Chambers made waves with its horror survival game GTFO. Still in production, Den of Wolves trailer premiered at The Game Awards in Los Angeles in 2023 and, as is common with games, the studio has not shared a launch date but judging by the energy at their latest pre-launch event in Stockholm prospective players are eagerly awaiting its release. Salliander flew in from Mexico City, where she lives, for the festivities. Holm’s interest in bringing art to gaming is also personal, he is an avid art collector. The two Swedes, Holm and Salliander, are childhood friends, and before Holm collected her work they connected through their shared interest in pop culture and art. Cultbytes caught up with them in between pre-launch events.
Oscar, you worked as an employee at a game studio before branching out to create your own. What led you to find 10 Chambers?
OH: I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life, so I’ve moved between jobs and opportunities. Now I’m back in a gaming studio, but I haven’t branched out alone. I got to know Ulf Andersson many years ago, as I was one of the partners in the Terminator franchise, and he worked on the game. It wasn’t our proudest game: we had a shoestring budget and a short timeline, so we had to make it work as much as possible with what we had. But it strengthened our friendship, so when the company was created as a collective with nin3 people, I jumped at the chance to work with Ulf again.
Issa, you worked closely with the game studio—filled with creatives—are there similarities between being an artist and developing games?
IS: Absolutely. I’ve been interested in game aesthetics for some time and have been thinking about it more prominently since Oscar showed me GTFO—10 Chamber’s first game—art a few years back. It’s about storytelling.
Are you living your gaming dream yet?
OH: Absolutely! I love the people I work with and the business we are in. Making and marketing games is incredible, and there are so many untapped opportunities to explore.
IS: If given the chance, I’d probably be a prolific gamer, but painting takes up a lot of my time. All of my time.
Oscar, how long have you collected art, and what is in your collection?
OH: Art has always been close to my heart. I grew up with art and literature as part of everyday life, as my whole family on my mother’s side is involved in art in one way or another. My mother and her father worked on the Antique Roadshow for over 15 years each – a popular Swedish TV show where they travel the country to find and value appraised books, print maps, and more. One of my sisters is a photographer, and my other sister is in charge of intake and home appraisals at Auktionsverket, one of the leading Auction Houses in Sweden. Many of my relatives going back generations were painters. You could say art is in my blood!
My collection is varied. I collect anything from street art to cubistic and contemporary art, but I also collect photographic art, prints, and maps. Of course, I have paintings by Issa Salliander but also artists like Banksy, Sandy Skoglund, Albert Watson, Isaac Grünewald, Faile, Hush, Miss Bugs, Mr Brainwash, and Gustavo Abascal, to name a few.
Although it makes sense for a gamer to like art, I do not know many that collect! Do you know others? And how do we get more onboard?
OH: We have many great artists in the gaming industry, and it’s becoming increasingly common for people to collect art. Many people in our company have been collecting or have recently started to collect as well, so I think people are getting more interested in it.
What is your vision for how the incorporation of the artwork in Den of Wolves will be a—dare I say—game-changer?
IS: The game is still in production and various ideas are flying about. Conceptually using masks whilst robbing the paintings sounds like fun to me. Mirroring is freak psychology.
OH: Building games is hard and takes a lot of time, so exactly how Issa’s masks will look and execute in the game—you’ll have to wait a while to see. But I can’t wait to rob something wearing one of her masks. We’re also already working with, and looking for more, artists in many different spaces to make Den of Wolves look and play uniquely.
Issa, did you make this series for the game especially or had you already started working on it before the commission? What special considerations did you have to ideate works that would be present in both the digital and physical spheres? Did this change your process? And, how?
IS: This series is made especially for Den of Wolves, I titled each work ‘xxx in The Den of Wolves’ to indicate the series. The brief I had was pretty simple, this is what the game is about and what it looks like now knock yourself out. My work rides a similar wave of light and dark storytelling to that of a heist game. The challenge came in the sense that in terms of fine art painting, we’re now adding a potential fourth denominator – the user. I adapted my style of painting slightly and used more glazing rather than heaving De Kooning style layers on playful bits, which I would normally enjoy. However, it produced a form of development in my work which I’ll happily bring forward.
This collab might go down in game history. Do you want to say anything about the current or potential relationship between art and gaming?
IS: Since this is the first collaboration of its kind, I’d say that some in the art world are extremely excited and understand the future potential in this market, whereas some stalwarts think AI is the new thing. I believe they’ll come around. This is akin to David Bowie being a great pioneer using video games for his art, music, and cameos in the 90s, so definitely history.
I like that tie in! I also remember in the early aughts when there was fear that video games would breed violence and destroy the minds of young men. Today, gaming is a multibillion-dollar industry fostering the next generation of literally everything. Games are already a venue for fashion in some games, players can buy designer ‘fits for their avatars with kickbacks to the fashion houses. What other potentialities of industry overlap does gaming have?
OH: For Den of Wolves, I run Operations, Marketing, and Communications with my close colleagues. Because of my deep experience in Marketing and Branding, I’ve been in charge of the creative process of in-game brands, which has been a really fun process to be a part of. There are endless amounts of potential. We’re creating in-game brands and we have hundreds of those already, along with brand bibles. We have the option to mix it up with real brands when we feel like it as well, which means that we have the potential to collaborate with large blue chip companies and global brands that people recognize on multiple continents.
In your opinion, what is too much?
OH: For me, it’s never too much. I do think though that in gaming, too much can be when games take advantage of players. The player experience is super important for us, and finding a good balance can be challenging. Marketing-wise, the possibilities are endless, with an almost infinite amount of potential collaborations. We’ve only just begun scratching the surface of the future.
If you would like to share any dates about the launch or opportunities to play the game before release, please do.
I don’t even know those myself yet, but we want to achieve good quality and player experience, so you’ll just have to be patient. You can’t hurry a game, it has to take it’s time.
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