Learnings from the Finnish Game Industry

The motivation behind our research was the rapid growth and business wins of world-class Finnish game companies, like Supercell, as well as the success of other game companies in Finland. In particular, Supercell's growth is something that has not been heard of before and this raised the interest to research what game companies have been doing right. Supercell is not the only Finnish success. Rovio is also well known and has the roots for success from few years before. There are also other game companies in Finland that have succeeded and this motivated us to investigate what is happening behind the game industry and what could be learned from there that could be applied to other software industry as well.

In order to explore and explain the different success factors, we interviewed the following eight Finnish game companies: Rovio Entertainment, Fingersoft, TicBits, Boomlagoon, 10tons, Tribeflame, Star Arcade and Mountain Sheep. In addition, we investigated public sources, like interviews given to newspapers and books written about companies. These sources cover well Supercell as they have given numerous public interviews to journalists. Similarly, Remedy was analysed based on public sources.

Based on the results we recognised some 30 patterns that, depending on the context, could be used in other organisations as well. The patterns include the applicable context where they can be used, driving forces (and counterforces) that should be recognised, the problem they are solving and the solution to the problem coupled with the key enablers. Furthermore, narrative stories based on the interviews and public sources are included.