The Icelandic Gaming Industry forum was formed on May 6th. The forum consists of people working on creating and designing games. With a short notice the people got together and met at a downtown Reykjavík bar and held their first meet up. What brought them together was their shared passion for gaming and everything game related. Although the meeting was informal with light discussions, the tone was very serious and the message is clear: a new industry is rising in Iceland, the Icelandic Gaming Industry.
The companies behind this forum held presentations at the Ministry of Ideas (hugmyndaraduneytid.is) on May 9th.
It turned out to be an interesting state of the industry with eight companies presenting. Presentations are here.
My presentation on Betware is here:
In my presentation I introduced the company and presented some games. Betware is not well known in Iceland and often mistaken for a betting company of similar name. However, Betware is a software company not a betting company. We sell games to state Lotteries. The company has over 100 games in its portfolio, which run in four Lottery data centres. We also run our own multiplayer social network site, CertusGames.
What is interesting is about the IGI is the enthusiasm and passion for games. And this is not an industry to be ignored. The gaming companies are real professional companies. Almost 600 people work for the Icelandic gaming companies, with more then 320 people working in Iceland. So Iceland is not doing badly when it comes to the gaming industry and it is likely that the industry will continue to grow.
Unfortunately, gaming is not considered a specific field of industry by the authorities. The Icelandic Gaming Industry will change that.