Finnish video games

Finland’s first commercial video game Chesmac was published in 1979 for the Telmac 1800 computer. The next decade witnessed the birth and rising popularity of both VIC-20 and Commodore 64, which resulted in computer gaming becoming a hobby as well as the publication of games on a larger scale.

Commodore 64

Main article: Finnish Commodore 64 games

Commodore 64 – advertised as the computer of the nation – was a very popular computer in Finland towards the end of the 1980s. The largest group of home computer users was gamers, and the great number of games available on the Commodore played a key part in its popularity. What also affected the popularity of the Commodore was its importer PCI-Data’s marketing tactics that made the brand known to many. The computer was sold more per capita in Finland than anywhere else in the world. Read more...

Amiga

Main article: Finnish Amiga games

Many Commodore 64 users switched to Amiga towards the end of the 1980s, which at the time was the most popular computer in Finland for gaming as well as for other computer-related activities. Amiga’s strength was the broad selection of games available, both commercial, as well as public domain and shareware games. Read more...

PC

Main article: Finnish PC games

As we entered the 90s, computers had developed better features and game development became more complicated. What once was a single-person task became a team effort. The first domestic game companies Housemarque (which was born when Bloodhouse and Terramarque merged) and Remedy Entertainment both had their roots in the demoscene. Apart from these companies, amateur gamers were industrious in making games. Amiga was still going strong at the beginning of the decade, but started losing its market share after mid-90s to IBM PC-compatible computers. Read more...

External links

• Videogames.fi
• History of Finnish Video Game Industry at Wikipedia (in Finnish)

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English • Suomi