Intro to the Norwegian game industry

Teodor Bjerrang

Published in

SNÖ Ventures

18 min readJul 22, 2021

Quick overview of the different game hubs/cities, companies/studios.

The overview is “Work in progress”.

Tips and feedback, please email teodor@sno.vc

Oslo

Snowcastle

Independent game developer founded in 2009, launched their first feature title in 2011, currently in development of Earthlock 2 and Earthlock Tales: Castaway Island. Creator of Earthlock and Hogworld.

Founders: Bendik Stang, Erik Hoftun
Ownership: Founders, Team and Angels
Team: 30

Funcom

Funcom was founded in 1993. They were there in the early nineties, guns for hire making games for the big studios to fund their crazy ideas. They were there in the early days of the massively multiplayer online games, breaking new ground and pioneering features and business models that are commonplace today. Today, over 200 people from more than 30 different nationalities work and play at Funcom across studios in Oslo, Norway, Sweden, Romania and Durham, North Carolina.

CEO: Rui Manuel Monteiro Casais
Ownership: Tencent
Team: 200+

PortalOne

Founded in 2018, PortalOne is the world’s first hybrid games platform, launching a whole new category of entertainment that seamlessly mixes games with live shows that are embedded directly inside the games. The first format on the platform is PortalOne Arcade, a retro-inspired universe that immerses the show’s guests inside original PortalOne games, as well as contemporary and “super-sized” classic games that enable users to compete directly against these guests right from their mobile phones.

Founders: Bård Anders Kasin, Stig Olav Kasin
Investors: Founders Fund, TQ Ventures, Coatue Management, Signia Venture Partners, Seedcamp, Talis Capital, SNÖ Ventures, Rogue Capital Partners, Atari and ARRI. Angels; Kevin Lin, Mike Morhaime, Amy Morhaime, Marc Merrill, Xen Lategan, Thomas Falck and Eugene Wei.

Team: 20+

Megapop

Megapop was founded in 2012 by former Funcom and Artplant employees. The company has released several mobile games, including Trolls vs Vikings which was a top 10 game in 130+ countries. They have received extensive ‘featuring’ by platform holders. In addition, Megapop creates gamification solutions for commerce, ed-tech, training and public sectors. Millions of users are utilizing their products on a yearly basis. Their game ‘Haxity’, the first PVP deck-builder (Steam). Have now launched ‘Rob Riches’ for PC and mobiles.

Founders: Jørgen Tharaldsen, Thomas Sørensen, Mikael Noguchi, Christian Tellefsen

CEO: Jørgen Tharaldsen

Ownership: Employees. Investors - Sandstone Management, E Games invest Nordic, WB Invest, Skånberg Invest, Hamajaca, Alector. Angels: Pandelis Eliopolous, Anton Skog, Erik Winqvist, Grethe Wiksaas

Team: 10+

Red Rover Interactive

Founded in 2023, operate out of Oslo, Norway, and Newcastle Upon Tyne in the UK. Believe in the transformative power of social interactions and drama in gameplay, and are currently crafting an evolution of sandbox survival aiming to deliver truly novel player experiences.

CEO: Fred Richardson

Team: 11

Krillbite Studio

Krillbite Studio is an independent game developer creating unique and innovative game experiences. The company was founded in 2011 by graduate students who went on to develop and publish the critically acclaimed horror title Among the Sleep in 2014, a game that has since been ported to Playstation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Their last game was ‘Mosaic’, an award-winning title published by Raw Fury, with a story about our modern society and lifestyle. They are currently working on a sequel to Among The Sleep, as well as a VR version set within the same universe.

Publisher: Raw Fury for Mosaic
Ownership: Founders

Kahoot!

Kahoot! is a global learning platform company that wants to empower everyone, including children, students, and employees, to unlock their full learning potential.

In the last 12 months, more than 300 million games have been played on the Kahoot! platform with over 1.9 billion participating players in 200 countries. Kahoot! currently serves over 930K paying users with headquarters in Norway and offices in the US, the UK, France, Finland, Estonia, Denmark and Spain.

Red Thread Games

Red Thread was founded in 2012 by former Funcom employees, including Ragnar Tørnquist. Red Thread focus on high quality story-telling games with real impact, supported by a dedicated fan following. They have released the chapter-based “Dreamfall — The Longest Journey” series, as well as the Fjord-Noir mystery Draugen. They are currently working on the Polar punk survival RPG Svalbard, as well as the road-trip action adventure Dustborn (Published by Quantic Dream).

CEO: Ragnar Tørnquist
Ownership: Founders
Team: 10+

Hyper Games

Hyper Games was founded in 2012, spun out of one of the leading creative agencies in Norway. They have received great public acclaim, awards and featuring for their titles ‘Egg’ and most recently ‘Mørkredd’ (published by Aspyr). They are known to handle major Nordic children licenses really well, such as ‘Albert Åberg’ and an upcoming Moomin game. In addition, Hyper creates award winning games and gamified solutions for commerce, ed-tech, training and public sectors. They are part of Oslo Game Hub, sharing office space with Krillbite and Megapop.

CEO: Are Sundnes
Publisher: Aspyr
Team: 9

Agens Games

Agens Games was founded in 2005, spun out of one of the leading creative tech agencies in Norway. They have since the inception developed a range of casual games which succeeded in attracting large user bases. Their recent flagship game is the successful ‘Skate City’ game. The game was extensively featured for the launch of Apple arcade, and is now launched across platforms. In addition, Agens have created a range of games for public broadcaster NRK, some reaching significant parts of the Norwegian population.

Team: 10+

Loeding

Loeding is a promising game start-up from Ås, just outside Oslo, with parts of the team in the UK. Their first game, ‘Last Days of Snow’ is unique narrative adventure puzzler with a Metroidvania-style 3D world, set in the technophobic town of Barvik, Norway. You play as a 12-year old boy named OSKAR, who is one day involved in a mysterious incident that gives him the ability to hack and control machines. The game has already turned heads, received awards, and was recently given an Epic Megagrant.

Founders: Nikolay Savov, Jonathan Nielssen
CEO: Nikolay Savov
Team: 3+

Monkeybin

An independent game development studio, founded in 2010. They have developed a range of games, with MindFeud and BoardRush having attracted more than 6 million players worldwide. Apple featured both of their games Hyspherical I and II. They claim to have “a knack for creating extremely hard and unique games”.

CEO: Haakon Langaas Lageng
Team: 9

Bitfrost Entertainment

Bitfrost comes out of Hava media, and serves both as a publisher, investor and partly developer. They have received great public acclaim for their titles “iconoclast” and “Myriad”. Having invested into several Norwegian games by now, they have also worked towards investments and operating game-related technologies and web- services.

Ravn Studio

Ravn Studio has developed high quality computer games for all platforms since 2006, with a big focus on family and children games, using some of Norway’s most iconic IPs. Norwegian and Nordic brands for kids/youth, like Pinchcliffe Grand Prix, Captain Sabertooth, Blue Mountain, Pippi Longstocking, Twigson, Ella Bella Bingo and City of Friends. Their next big title is coming this fall, and sports an exciting new look at the Pinchcliff Grand Prix.

Founders: Stine Wærn, Tinka Town
CEO: Stine Wærn

Games People Play AS

Founded in 2020, Games People Play consists of veteran developers and serial game company founders. After having sold Artplant (IGI, Block and Load) to Toad Man Interactive, the managers Jack Wulff and Joachim Barrum have since found a new spark to create “Morder i Hytta” (Killer in the cabin), a multiplayer “who did it game” inspired by ‘Among Us’.

Founders: Jack Wulff, Joachim Barrum
CEO: Jack Wulff

Apt Games

Founded in 2019 as a branch of one of Norways leading tech and communication houses, the company released the arcade-inspired shooter “Terrorsquid” in 2020. A dedicated team of veteran game developers stood behind the game, which came out on multiple platforms.

Kristanix

Kristanix was formed in Drammen in 2008 by two brothers, Vidar and Tor Martin, and they remain at the core of the company .The goal since inception has been to create simple, fun games that everyone can enjoy. They have done this with significant success and playerbases, in particular towards their Mahjong titles, as well as Soduko, Jigsaw and Solitaire.

Machine Boy

A small indie studio founded by Mattias Folkestad, but he has anyhow managed to make some magical indie-games, including the recently launched “Embracelet” for Switch and PC.

In his latest title, Folkestad waves a story set in northern Norway, and local tales and unique settings is a focus area.

Playpulse

Playpulse’s mission: turning exercise into a fun, virtual experience — giving people the joy and sense of mastery from working out by making it something you actually look forward to.

Billionworlds

Billionworlds is a small indie studio that was founded in Oslo in 2020 by 6 friends that share the passion for strategy games. Today 2 of the founders — brothers Åsmund and Øystein Isaksen — form the core of the Company. The goal with their first game Kingdoms, is to make a lightweight turn based civilization type of strategy game, that is more accessible than the hardcore strategy games, but still just as addictive!

CEO: Øystein Isaksen
Team: 3

BitPet

Augmented Reality Pets in Your Pocket!
Take care of your BitPet® by going for walks. Discover treasures along the way, and meet other BitPets in augmented reality. BitPet makes daily physical activity fun, engaging and social.

Team: 2

Blackbook

Lucid is developed by Black Book — a small studio in Oslo, Norway, founded on humane design principles, shaping what we make and how we work

Team: 11

Tidvis

Tidvis is a company that explores and developes new ways of disseminating research and making it available, with a special emphasis on history. We believe history is important, because it gives us the means to understand the present and what we expect of the future.

Team: 6

Viewalk

Gaming which make people move more, not less.

Team: 2

Bergen

DirtyBit

Dirtybit was founded in 2011, and instantly created the hit-mobile series FunRun. This series has been very profitable for the company, and have to date seen more than 130 million downloads. Their revenues and earnings have successfully increased for six years in a row, while creating both new IPs as well as more FunRun games. Their current focus is live operations of FunRun3, as well as development on FunRun4, while testing new game concepts for mobile platforms

CEO: Erlend Haugsdal
Team: 24

Henchman Goon

Their aim is to create highly enjoyable and emotionally impactful games that leave a lasting impression. In 2018 HG released Pode, their co-op puzzle exploration game, on the Nintendo Switch. Today three of the original founders — Yngvill, Henrik, and Morten — form the kernel of the company, creating video games alongside a talented cast of recurring accomplices, collaborators, and companions.

Team: 3

Rain Games

Rain is an independent video game developer forged from a cooperative community of local artists and programmers. First game, Teslagrad, a 2D puzzle platformer sold over 1.6 million copies worldwide to great public acclaim. They have since launched the premium games ‘World to The West’ and ‘Mesmer’. Rain is now focusing on Teslagrad 2, as well as “Girl Genius”, a US IP which they successful crowd-funded with the IP holders.

CEO: Peter Wingaard Meldahl
Team: 12

D-Pad Studio

D-Pad Studio is a focused indie game studio, and received great acclaim and sales for their first game Owlboy The story-based platform adventure hit the pixel-zeitgeist perfectly when it was released in 2016, and keeps on selling across platforms to this date. Mini-projects Savant Ascent and Vikings on Trampolines are steps on the way to their next big (unannounced) title.

CEO: Jo-Remi Madsen
Ownership: Founders
Team: 5

Turbo Tape Games

Develop fun and engaging games and interactive exhibits by combining their passion for technology, games and education in their quest to create inspirational and immersive experiences.

Team: 7

Trondheim

Pineleaf Studio

Pineleaf Studio is the largest gaming studio in Trondheim, and launched their innovative co-op RTS “Dwarfheim” into early access on Steam in 2020. The company has successfully crowdfunded their journey, much thanks to a resilient journey by the founding team. Launching the Real Time Strategy (RTS) Game Dwarfheim beyond Early Access is their big focus, while considering their next game universes.

Publisher: Merge Games
Team: 19

Studio Gauntlet

Studio Gauntlet was established in 2018 by Alexander Jonassen and Christer Rebni. The team has since then grow to include Tamara, Remi, Brage and Alice, bringing a long marketing, sound and administration expertise.

The studio launched Bonkies early in 2021 together with Crunching Koalas, and alpha for their upcoming online football game in december 2021.

Publisher: Crunching Koalas
Team: 6

Breach VR

Breach is a mixed game-company, and have conducted significant research and development into VR, AR, MR and XR, helping to shape and enable the future of virtual reality and immersive technologies. This journey has led to dedicated games as well, including the upcoming ‘Kartoffl’. The founders have beenpart of Work-Work in Trondheim, the co-working space which has housed many of the creative companies in the city.

Team: 20

Bertheussen IT

Almost since the start of the app store, “Wordfeud” was a success out of the gate. Inspired by Scrabble, it instantly found a big audience, and is now played by over 30 million gamers. The company founder, Håkon Bertheussen, have since operated the game with a small team, while also trying into other casual games. On a yearly basis the company keeps on reporting very strong figures, with the “Wordfeud” saga being the clear focus.

Founder, Owner and CEO: Håkon Bertheussen

Riddlebit

Currently working on the game “Setback”, a first-person shooter based around a competitive sport set in a bright and optimistic sci-fi future.

Team: 8

PodPal Games

Age of Space offers a unique experience combining real time resource management and tactical combat in 3D.

SURT Games

an indie game company. Currently working on their debut game RHYTHM SPROUT: sick beats & bad sweets.

Team: 3

Gampire Studio

Creators of the games Telepatio, Real or Fake?, Mount Topia and Orbit Battle.

Sharp Raccoon

Indie game company with a goal of bringing player creativity into games like never seen before. Games; Rules of Robots and Exiles of Eternity.

Team: 4

Stavanger

Misc Games

Founded in 2011, the company has innovated the fishing game simulation market, a blue ocean indeed. Their first game for PC, Fishing: Barents Sea, was an open-world, commercial fishing simulator with over 400.000 copies worldwide. In October, 2020 the sequel came out called Fishing: North Atlantic that continues the success of its successor, while also getting the IP out on consoles. They are currently working on their next DLCs and will also announce a new big fishing title in 2022. Embracer group came into the company in 2020, securing a large portion of ownership.

Team: 10+

Bitbyte

Bitbyte is currently working on Rebot. An educational puzzle game teaching kids to code!

bitHammer

bitHammer’s first release is the retro game UFO Hunter. The first version of the game was made in QBasic programming language on a 486 IBM PC back in 1996.

Team: 3

Tønsberg

RockPocketGames

Rock Pocket Games was founded in 2008, and their first game was instantly featured on the then new Apple store (The Package). Since that first attention, they have released a string of high quality games across platforms, including Moons of Madness (2020, Funcom) and Shiftlings (Sierra). They are currently working on a new horror exploration game with Lovecraft inspiration. They are remain one of Norway’s most prolific ‘work for hire’ companies, producing for instance several games with Ravn studios.

CEO: Ivan Moen
Publisher: Funcom (Moons of Madness), Sierra (Shiftlings)

Seablip

Build your own house on the heartwarming island called Seablip. Build and upgrade your own ship. Fight as a pirate. Dig for treasure. Fish. Or investigate why the polar ice is melting. A long journey with mystery and adventure awaits! Created by Jardar Solli.

Team: 1+

Tromsø

Pazzing

An entertainment platform empowering anyone, from anywhere to create and customize their own augmented reality (AR) puzzle games (iOS).

Tellicherry Games

Team: 1

Hamar

Hamar Game Collective

A collaboration of established independent companies, working on their own IPs, bringing game dev solutions across multiple platforms and formats.

Perfectly Paranormal

Perfectly Paranormal is an indie studio at the Hamar Game Collective, specializing in unique, quircky and fun storytelling games. Some of the funniest games ever conceived in the Nordics are telltale marks of this studio (Helheim Hassle, Manuel Samuel). They are currently creating The Holy Gosh Darn

CEO: Ozan Drøsdal
Publisher: Curve Digital (Manual Samuel)
Team: 4

Encircle Games

Encircle is a Hamar-based indie company, and launched their first title ‘Corroded’ in 2019. This multiplayer arena fighter showed great technical promises, which they are currently using in their upcoming games “Wigged Out”. In addition to own IP they also fund parts of their company with work for hire towards games, ed-tech and local industries.

CEO: Siw Espeland
Team: 6

Sarepta Studio

Sarepta focus on meaningful games with a purpose, and won a BAFTA for ‘My Child Lebensborn’, a very unique life-simulator related to “child of war”challenges. This game was produced with Teknopilot. The game has recently seen a massive sales upswing due to innovative use of Tik-Tok as a marketing channel, and the company is now hiring. Making “meaningful and impactful” games is a continued stated focus of the company, with the next title coming up being ‘Thalassa’.

CEO: Catharina Bølher

Tinimations

Tinimations are a focused indie company dedicated to creating great rhythm games for multiple platforms. The Klang titles have showed great technical and artistic prowess, and this series is now being expanded by founder and creator Tom Ivar Arntzen.

Team: 1

Polyblock Studio

Small indie game developement studio creator of Tanknarok.

Team: 3

Raido Game

Raido Game’s Astride is a new indie horse game currently being developed by a team of five Norwegian artists.

The game will have a spectre of different horse breeds and disciplines. Starting with the scandinavian horse breeds, dressage, show jumping and cross country.

Team: 5

Moss

Ninja Whale Studios

Creator of Mount Wingsuit 1-2

Team: 3

Lillestrøm

4bit Games

4Bit Games is a small independent developer. The company was founded by students to publish their first game ORBIT. 4Bit Games has since been working on several acclaimed projects.

Team: 3

Other indie

Slid Studio

Creator of the game Northern Journey, a norwegian happysad game set in a northern land! Adventure through a beautiful and very varied wildereness. Dive, fly, use ziplines and find different weapons to aid your journey to reach the cold mountains and below. Encounter over 50 unique bosses and enemy types!

Team: 1

Mordi

Creator of the game Castle Siege, An asymmetric 1v1 tower defense/offense multiplayer game set in a fantasy medieval setting. Attack or defend the castle. Level up, and use magical spell cards to gain an advantage.

Team: 1

Arik

Creator of the game Dude, Where Is My Beer?, an old school point and click adventure game about finding a pilsner in the confusing world of unnecessary craft beers and snobby hipsters.

Team: 1

Games to come tracker

eSport

Heroic

Heroic was founded in 2016 as a promising challenger in the professional esports scene. Since then, through hard work and commitment, they have succeeded to position as one of the best elite teams globally.

Apeks

Apeks is a norwegian E-Sports club based in Oslo, Created in 2019. The staff at Apeks are previous players who have worked with linear sports before. Apeks know what it takes to get Norwegian e-sports the attention it deserves. Apeks views itself as a supporting big brother for the player

Nordavind

Nordavind is a Norwegian organization established in 2011 as BX3 esports club which rebranded on 9th February 2018 in collaboration with the Norwegian football club Vålerenga Fotball.

777

777 Esports is a Norwegian esports organization founded by the record company 777 MUSIC in collaboration with a number of profiles from the Norwegian music industry. 777 Esports work to see Norwegian talents rise in international sports tournaments, and to see more Norwegians gather around their passion for the virtual gaming world.

SKADE

Skade is an esports organisation founded on Skades island Scandinavia, in the heartland of the cult of Skade; Hålogaland (now Helgeland) in the north of Norway. Carrying on the tradition of Skadis hunt, and taking their storytelling from prose and rock carved petroglyphs into the digital age and the modern cityscape.

Riddle

Riddle is a Norwegian based esports organization whose primary objective is to promote norwegian and scandinavian esports alongside becoming a major household name within the european and international esports and digital lan festival scene.

Telialigaen

E-sport realted

Gameflow

Gameflow gives you a single portal for following all esports content in one place: matches, competitions, teams, news, and statistics.

Organizations and events

Konsoll

Konsoll is a conference founded by The Game Developers Guild in Norway. Konsoll was first organized in 2012, and since then we have had a steadily growing audience of game developers from both Norway and abroad.

Work-Work

A game house in the middle of Trondheim. The first floor and basement function as a bar with games available and game themed events. The proceeds of the bar go into affordable office space for game developers on the 2nd and 3rd floor of the house in addition to the investment company, Kick Ass.

Kickass funding

Trygge Rammer

An initiative started by the game developer studios in Trondheim designed to give fresh game developers guidance and hands on help to get them up on a professional level. Currently in a pilot status through 2021 and onboarding the second batch of game developers this June. Also organising an event in October 2021 about investing in the game industry in Trondheim.

Spillkonvent

An event organised by NFI and Viken Filmsenter. This is a National event for the game developers in Norway to reflect and learn from each other’s experiences with development, launches and other projects.

Spillprisen/Kavalkaden

A yearly award ceremony for the games for Norwegian games organised by NFI, the trade organisation Virke and Nordic Game.

Eldorado Esport

Home for eSport and Gaming in the heart of Oslo.

House of Nerds

House of Nerds is the ultimate venue for all nerd-related activities. Including eSport arena, incubator, scene area, esportbar and other nerd activities.

Governmental/organisations

Virke

Many of the bigger norwegian devs are members of Virke Produsentforeningen. You also find statistics for the industry.

Noneda

Norwegian Network for Computer Game Companies (Noneda) is an organisation dedicated to assisting growth and development in the Norwegian games industry.

Other