[drawkbox]

I haven't been to either but they have an impact for sure in gaming.

Finland is home to Supercell and Rovio, arguably the two biggest juggernauts in mobile gaming. This has spawned many studios there.

Sweden is also big in gaming as the home of Notch and his little multibillion dollar game company called Mojang with Minecraft. And of course PewDiePie with the youtube game review new era, it also has spawned all sort of gaming/tech interest there. They seem to have a play for entertainment as well with Kung Fury.

Both countries are a force in creating content with technology, which is probably the winning strategy and both places have been ignited by it.

[OlleTO]

If we're looking at the swedish game industry you also want to add Paradox Interactive and Dice to that list.

Our general technology industry is "restructuring", with pretty big layoffs at the large companies. The same week this spring Sony and Ericsson gave advance notice of upcoming layoffs to 1000 and 2000 people respectively.

While not a catastrophe in itself, and a several companies stepped in to offer jobs, it's worrying as a general indication of the state of our technological industry.