The Game Industry of Finland 2021-2022 — the main thing from the report in Russian

Neogames, which positions itself as a hub of the Finnish gaming industry, has published a report on the state of affairs in the local game development over the past two years. We share the main figures and graphs from it.

• 2021 was the first year in the history of the Finnish gaming industry when its global sales exceeded the €3 billion mark.
• Both in 2021 and in 2022, the industry’s revenue amounted to around €3.2 billion (operating profit — about €0.9 billion).

Dynamics of total revenue of the Finnish gaming industry (2004-2022)To understand the dynamics, the €2.5 billion mark was reached in 2016.

• In total, during the period from 2013 to 2022, the industry earned €23 billion (the Finnish state spent €2.5 billion in taxes).
• Over two years, the country’s game studios have collectively attracted €300 million as investments (half of this amount is €150 million loan that Supercell allocated to Metacore). For comparison, in 2019-2020, significantly less was “raised” — €100 million.
• In addition, more than €500 million was sold to Finnish studios as part of M&A deals (of which €400 million was spent by Playtika on the purchase of 80% of Reworks Studios).
• In just two years, seven Finnish game studios were bought.
• There were five Finnish game studios that earned €100 million or more in 2022.
• The annual earnings of more than a million euros are from 45 gaming teams.
• The annual median revenue of the Finnish game studio is €300 thousand.
• On average, the Finnish gaming industry has been bringing 50 games a year to the market for the last two years. For comparison, earlier — in 2019-2020 — it produced 100 projects per year. The decline is explained by the increasing focus on the service model and the lack of interest of local teams in the hyper-casual niche.
• The number of operating game studios in Finland increased from 200 to 232 in 2021-2022.
• During the period from 1995 to 2022, 650 gaming companies were opened in the country.

Number of active game studios in Finland (2004-2022)The majority of Finnish game studios are located in the south of the country — in Helsinki or areas near the capital (42% of studios).

• There is also a large part of the most successful teams (with annual revenue of more than one million euros).
• More than 76% of Finnish game dev employees work in or near the capital.

Distribution of Finnish game studios by countryMost studios are working on mobile games (66%).

• About the same amount (64%) is engaged in creating games for PC. At the same time, there are significantly fewer console commands — 33%, although their number is growing from year to year.

Distribution of Finnish game studios by platforms for which they make gamesBy the end of 2022, the number of people employed in the Finnish industry amounted to more than 4,100 people (this is 500 more people than worked in the industry at the end of 2020).

• Of these, 3,700 work in the country, and the rest are from abroad.

Number of employees in Finnish gaming companies (2004-2022), *250 abroad, **400 abroadPreviously, analysts believed that the number of employees would increase by a thousand people, not by five hundred.

• The slower growth rates here are explained by the fact that, firstly, the pandemic slowed down recruitment processes, secondly, by the closure of several large studios at once (in particular, Seriously and Skunkworks) and, thirdly, by cuts in other studios (we are talking about at least 200 experienced gaming specialists who are immediately were hired by other studios).
• The median number of employees in a Finnish gaming company is 10 people (the average is 26).
• 35% of Finnish game dev employees continue to work remotely.
• The share of women in the local industry at the end of 2022 was 22%.
• The share of foreigners in Finnish studios is 30% (half of them are not from the European Economic Area).

The full version of the report can be downloaded from this link or from our website (the file is attached to the publication).