Nordic Game: Program makes major grant gifts to developers

The Nordic Game Program has made its annual donations to developers of games based on cultural Nordic content, amounting to over GBP 170,000.

The ceremony came at the end of a successful first day for the Nordic Game 2007 show, based in Malmo, Sweden.

Speaking before allocating the grants, Fin Koopee Hiltunen, director of gaming research and development company Neogames and a leading figure in the Nordic Game Program in general, said, "If you look at the situation we're at right now, I think the opportunity is now wide open to us, and I hope we're clever enough to exploit that opportunity on both business and political levels."

Grants of DKK 250,000 (GBP 23,000) and DKK 300,000 (GBP 27,500) were awarded to the likes of Danish developers Guppyworks, Ravn Studio and Unludo from Norway, Lockpick and Pixelknights from Sweden and Serious Games Interactive from Denmark.

Cheers accompanied the cheques. The Nordic Game Program announced in April that almost 40 companies from the Nordic region — which includes Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands — had applied for grants this year, requests totaling DKK 23 million (GBP 2.1 million), a figure far in excess of the final issue from the Program.

Nordic Game concludes today.