Digital Chocolate Ltd is the biggest Finnish company focusing purely on games. “When the Finnish story tradition is combined with technological expertise, the combination is unbeatable,” says Ilkka Paananen the company’s managing director in Europe.

On the list of mobile games developers and publishers Digital Chocolate is ranked among the five biggest companies in the world. In quality Digital Chocolate was number one in 2005. In 2006 and 2007 the company was presented with the Best Games Developer award.

Digital Chocolate’s best-known games are Extreme Air Snowboard, Racing Fever, Bubble Ducky, Rollercoaster Rush, RockCityEmpire and Tower Bloxx. Tornado Mania! is one of three games, and up till now the only mobile game, ever to have been awarded ten out of ten.

In the field of social games, Café Games in particular has received publicity. Growth prospects are good.

“We are particularly confident that social games will come because, as phenomena such as Facebook have shown, people constantly want to be in contact with each other and do things together – including playing,” Paananen believes.

Inspired inventor

There is an active community of games developers and games companies in Finland, even seen from a worldwide perspective. The games industry has become a major factor in the Finnish content-production field.

Paananen emphasizes the combination of the strong Finnish story tradition with technological expertise, systematic training in information technology and art, and a respect for reading. Because of the distant location Finns also feel that they are well informed about world affairs.

“We are a nation of inventors and we enjoy trying new things. Our strengths are the stories, innovative ability, technology, desire to do things correctly in one go and staying up with the times,” Paananen points out.

Growth and development

Digital Chocolate’s investment in its Finnish operations has increased continuously. Paananen says that Finland is an excellent operating environment.

With the acquisition of the Finnish company Sumea Interactive Oy, the company more than tripled its workforce in Finland. Over 130 people are working at the European head office in Helsinki.

Digital Chocolate’s customers include more than 250 operators and distributors, among them Cingular, Orange, Sprint, T-Mobile, 3, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone. The company’s products are available in over 70 countries around the world.

>> www.digitalchocolate.com
>> www.sumea.com

Digital Chocolate Ltd, which develops and publishes mobile games, employs a workforce in Finland of more than 130 people from over 30 countries.