While some of the world's most ambitious and successful game makers reside on the streets of this relatively quiet northern European capital, they are often covered with snow. This gives them a comfortable environment to thrive.
Finland was the first to see the first screen of an iPad flicked across by an Angry Bird. Netflix has chosen to establish its first-ever internal gaming studio in Atlanta. The city is also home to major game studios, like Supercell, which makes the popular game Clash of Clans. A streamer has admitted that Helsinki has some of the highest-quality game talents in the world and that this is the reason that they chose this city.
This is one of the reasons why many people consider the Finnish capital to be the capital of mobile gaming. According to estimates, the global economy depends heavily on this sector of the economy and is currently worth £120 billion.
If we delve deep into some backdrop, during the 1980s and 1990s, Finland was not considered to be one of the richest countries in the world, but it has changed since then.
In most parts of the world, majority of people rely on computers that are not even close to the most advanced computers on the market. In the early days of the digital revolution, some restrictions accompanied the use of the internet. These restrictions would help to fuel a phenomenon that became known as the "demoscene" - a subculture in which programmers created art presentations, music, and games that stretched the capabilities of the technologies of that time.
Nokia came along at just the right time in Finland when Finns had become accustomed to doing a lot with a small number of resources.
A significant reason behind the success of the games industry in Helsinki today is the foundation laid by Nokia; according to Sonja Asmeslevä, CEO of Phantom Gamelabs, an agency based in Helsinki, "The Nokia model showed us how to build something big from here up."
The Finnish games sector is intimately familiar to Sonja as she is a games maker, board member, and founder of an innovative development studio, who brings to the table a wealth of knowledge in this field.
Nokia worked with young talented artists from the Finnish demoscene. These artists created a set of games that were designed to convince people they did not have to travel to purchase them. Instead, they could do it themselves, while there were few big games on the market at the time.
There is generally a high level of awareness of the success of this city, which is roughly the same size as Glasgow in terms of its gaming industry. Whenever you visit a bar or coffee shop, you will find people talking about it happily. Politicians and officials are also obviously trying to take advantage of this area to enhance their positions and gain popularity.
In any case, Sartita Runeberg, head of gaming at Reaktor, a technology infrastructure company, says in an interview that Finns have been tech geeks since time immemorial. Many gaming companies have started this way, where you can fail and try again. When you don't have to worry about failing, you can be braver.
A successful game company needs the right infrastructure to be able to grow successfully. The Reaktor company offers several services to support the 200 game studios that operate here, from company governance to marketing and technological support.
According to Runeberg, "there is no need to mortgage your house to start a gaming company because the social security system is there to support you, and the government is supporting gaming companies as much as they can." Getting grants to try out new ideas and funding to prove that something works in certain markets is easy, and you can easily get funding to prove concepts.
To remain on top of the gaming space, Helsinki is making sure it attracts the world's leading game developers as part of its long-term goals. To accomplish that, Helsinki Partners works with a group of people who are committed to doing so.
As the director of strategic initiatives at Helsinki Partners, Johanna Huurre, believes that all companies recruit from abroad when they have a specific need for expertise. This is because all of these companies are looking for certain talents who possess these skills.
Several of them are from South America and Europe. It is much easier for them to migrate between those continents than it is in other parts of the world.
Helsinki does not offer major tax incentives to companies and developers who wish to set up shop there; neither are salaries higher there by a significant margin. Those are just a few of the points Huurre says he wants to clarify.
"Helsinki is a well-known city for its work-life balance, which makes it easy to live a full life here," says Ginni Gratton. Several employees from Helsinki said that they enjoyed their free time so much that they were able to be very efficient during their working hours. This is because they are very ambitious about their work. Meetings that are full of nonsense are few and far between.
As a result of the pandemic, life is much easier in this community, and these soft values have become increasingly critical. People often say that they have fewer worries here because they have a strong support network. Parents here feel much freer than they would in other countries because they don't have to worry about schools or security.
Despite Helsinki's history as a technology hub and government support, the combination of those factors is working and it has worked well. There was a net profit of £2.8 billion generated by games studios in Helsinki in 2022.
As a matter of context, it is worth noting that in the same period, the UK's games market added £4.7bn to the British economy - even though the UK is 12 times larger than the UK on an international scale.
The Helsinki gaming scene is one of the most successful in the world, and Supercell is one of the biggest success stories. According to media reports, the game maker was recently acquired by Tencent, a Chinese corporation with a market valuation of $11 billion (9.2 billion pounds) following its acquisition.
He is also responsible for the famous mobile game Clash of Clans, which is known for its famous base-building gameplay. Stuart McGaw came to the studio from Scotland to work for the studio. The game Snake was a very popular game among many people growing up on mobile phones. He recalls playing it on a Nokia 3210 as a kid.
As McGaw first started his career as a software designer at home, he realized that he could further his career in Finland. This is because the country's games development scene is well known. People in this country have heard so much about how many games companies have been successful, says Alberto.
It would be unfair to say that local people have not yet become aware of the work of developers. This is because the industry is relatively unknown among locals even though it is one of the most valuable industries for the country's future.
The expertise and heritage built by Nokia in the 1990s have not been replicated in other cities around the world, however. Despite this, there are some interesting lessons we can learn from this and we see that even small things can affect a lot of people.
