(To those of you who skipped geography, that's essentially Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland.)
In the months ahead, expect to see the biggest developments from the Nordic region details across these pages news that, with studios across the region enjoying international success, will no doubt define the mobile industry as we move forward.
News just like this, in fact...
Freedom
Spring is finally upon us, and here in the Nordics the industry is currently gripped by the entrepreneurial bug, with a series of studios taking steps to free themselves of the publisher shackles.
One of those developers is That Brain. Born from the ashes of the now defunct Grin Studios the developer behind Bionic Commando - the studio is the (wait for it) brainchild of Jonatan Crafoord and Björn Albihn, who felt branching out on their own was a no brainer.
"We had both worked at bigger studios in specialised roles before, and we wanted to be a part of a small and agile team for a change," Jonatan Crafoord said.
"Between the two of us we have a lot of fields in game development covered; we can handle art, code, music, sound effects, programming as well as business. Working in a small team, we get to use all of these skills daily, as well as learning new ones in the process. It's also great to see our own ideas come to life."
The Stockholm based studio has already commenced work on their new game, entitled 20,000 Leagues Above the Clouds.
"We have worked on mobile games before, and think 20,000 Above could work especially well on tablets," he added.
"We're keeping it in mind when designing the game in case we want to do a tablet version in the future. The main reason we have chosen to focus on desktop first is that it is a good starting platform from a development perspective.
"It is also a great platform for indies to reach out on. We'll see where it takes us later on."
And the award goes to
The Nordic Game Awards which are the showpiece event of the Nordic Game Conference have revealed nominees for this years iteration.
All regions have a studio in the running for the top prize including Rovio with Angry Birds Star Wars.The best Nordic Handheld Game will be contested between Clash of Clans and Hay Day both from Supercell, as well as Subway Surfers from Kiloo and Voodoo Friends from Cego.
The winners are due to be announced on 23 May.
Clash of Clans
Meanwhile in Finland, a new contest designed to boost innovation from an academic perspective has been launched.
Game Studies Thesis Competition 2013 has been founded by Neogames Finland and the Digital Games Research Association DiGRA.
Students with the best Bachelor or Masters gaming thesis will win 700 and the chance to present their ideas to the Finnish games industry. Submissions should be sent to digra.finland[at]gmail.com.
The winners will be revealed at the end of May.
