Nordic developers awarded over 250,000 Euro

Five Nordic videogame companies have beaten 53 others to receive a share of an award worth DKK 2 million (268,170 Euro) from The Nordic Game Program.

The Norwegian Minister of Culture, Trond Giske, will present the award to the five company's during an official ceremony at the Nordic Game conference next week.

"The applicants were all of a very high creative standard, so it has been far from easy to whittle them down," said Erik Robertson, director of the Nordic Game Program.

"We agreed on five games in the end because we felt they fulfilled all the stipulations and promise to be extremely good and entertaining."

The scheme aims to bring distinctly Nordic qualities to videogames aimed at children and younger consumers. Applicants have to fulfil a number of criteria such as being of Nordic ownership and containing at least one Nordic language.

In an exclusive interviewwith GamesIndustry.biz, Nordic Game press officer Jacob Riis was keen to point to the continued success of the Nordic region.

"The Nordic game industry is growing in a number of directions. For a long time now the Nordic region has been among the largest consumers of computer and videogames, but these last years many things have happened in development, education and research," he said.

"Funding has been provided by the Nordic ministers of culture to strengthen the Nordic games industry, which Nordic Game 2006 is part of."

Nordic Game takes place on September 19th - 20th in Malmö.