Nordic Game Awards Six Projects In First Funding Round

The Nordic Game program has awarded its first round of annual funding to regional independent projects, selecting six grantees from among a record pool of 86 projects. "The expert group was pleased to see the wealth of high-quality applications in this round," says a statement from the group that evaluated the applicants. The grantees were as follows: - Art of Crime Aps (Denmark), DKK 500,000 ($91,396) for Crimeville - Casual Continent Ltd (Finland), DKK 500,000 ($91,396) for Crown of Byzantium - Recoil Games Oy (Finland), DKK 500,000 ($91,396) for Earth No More - Press Play Aps (Denmark), DKK 450,000 ($82,256) for Hard Plastic - Tactile Entertainment Aps (Denmark), DKK 250,000 ($45,698) for iCreatures - L Mediahouse (Sweden), DKK 400,000 ($73,116) for Sky Heroes Four other teams were each awarded DKK 100,000 ($18,279) to invest in improving their projects. "This reinforces the impression of a highly creative, competent, and innovative Nordic games industry, whose major obstacles are barriers to market entry, and as a result, also barriers to early stage funding," says the program in a statement. "Now at least a few more of all the potential good games have been helped part of the way towards reaching their audience." This is the first of two rounds of development grants under the Nordic Game program -- which recently expressed concerns that the amount of funding it has available to award is insufficient proportionate to the increasing number of applications for grants. Last year, 16 projects in total received grants across both funding rounds. Launched in 2006, it's financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers for a six-year project period now in year three. It aims to increase Nordic young people's access to games and game technology.