Sybo CEO believes gaming can foster social change and empathy | Mathias Nørvig

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Subway Surfers hit the astounding number of four billion downloads since its launch as an endless runner mobile game in 2012. The title from Sybo was the most downloaded mobile game of 2022.

Copenhagen, Denmark-based Sybo has been generating new updates and content for the game the whole time to keep its global community going, said Mathias Gredal Nørvig, CEO of Sybo, in an interview with me during the Game Developers Conference.

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Nørvig said that Subway Surfers has become a kind of platform for street culture, and it has a wide reach to the young people of the world. And the company believes it should use that reach to evangelize good causes such as fighting climate change and promoting sustainability, Nørvig said.

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He said Sybo, which was acquired in 2022 by Miniclip for an undisclosed amount, is working on ways to expand the Subway Surfers intellectual property.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: Did you keep track of how long it took to get to the next billion, 3 billion to 4 billion?

Mathias Nørvig: I’d have to look back at our announcements. After COVID my sense of time was stolen. I can get back to you on that. We’ve kept the traction we gained during COVID in terms of downloads, though.

GamesBeat: Does it feel like it’s been accelerating, or in some ways decelerating because it’s getting older?

Nørvig: I remember back when we had between a half