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Brawl Stars is the big winner of this year’s Finnish Game Awards

Supercell's latest takes home two accolades at this week's ceremony in Helsinki

Brawl Stars is the big winner of this year’s Finnish Game Awards

Brawl Stars has been named Finnish Game of the Year 2018 at the country’s annual Game Awards this week.

Supercell’s mobile battler picked up both the Small Screen Game of the Year and overall Finnish Game of the Year accolades during the ceremony in Helsinki yesterday, organised by the Finnish Game Developers’ Association and the Neogames Finland Association.

It’s no huge surprise, given the continued success of Supercell’s latest. Brawl Stars is now making the Finnish firm an estimated $50 million a month.

This year’s awards also added a new Comeback of the Year category for studios that had made it back into the limelight after a troubling period. The inaugural award went to Bugbear’s game Wreckfest, which the Finnish Game Awards called “a true success story”.

Other categories celebrated Turku Game Labs and Humak’s cultural preservation project Lights On!, while Rovio’s Petri Hyökyranta received an award for his work in helping the company prepare for the introduction of the EU’s GDPR guidelines.

Finnish line

Only around 100 games came out of Finland in 2018, down from 150 to 200 the previous year. A statement from Neogames Finland accompanying the winners' lineup claimed this was down to more studios focusing on supporting older games for longer.

Neogames also claimed the Finnish industry employs more than 3,000 professionals, with up to 27 per cent coming from outside the country.

The winners of the Finnish Game Awards 2019 are:

Applied Game Award 2018: Lights On!, Turku Game Lab & Humak

The Best Creative Achievement of the Year 2018: The Thief of Thieves, Rival Games

Comeback of the Year 2018: Wreckfest, Bugbear

Power Player of the Year: Petri Hyökyranta, Rovio

Big Screen Game of the Year 2018: Tesla v. Lovecraft, 10tons

Mobile Game 2018 (Small Screen Game of the Year 2018): Brawl Stars, Supercell

The 2018 Finnish Game of the Year 2018: Brawl Stars, Supercell

Pocket Gamer Connects will be heading to Helsinki on October 1st and 2nd 2019. Can't wait that long? Check our Pocket Gamer Connects Seattle on May 13th and 14th.


Staff Writer

Natalie Clayton is an Edinburgh-based freelance writer and game developer. Besides PCGamesInsider and Pocketgamer.biz, she's written across the games media landscape and was named in the 2018 GamesIndustry.biz 100 Rising Star list.