Sunday, 30 December 2007

Fortress Finland

In a follow-up to my musings about the relative sizes of roguelike game communities, I've just queried Google trends for a quick analysis. The results speak for themselves.


What I don't understand is why Finland tops the query list on all three. Could someone Finnish explain the resonance between that republic and roguelikes?
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2 comments:

  1. Unknown2 January 2008 at 02:04

    Part of the explanation may be that there are a few big magazines here that probably reach a very large percantage of the gamer population, and they like roguelikes (at least, more than the mainstream gaming press usually does). I know the columnists at the Pelit magazine have covered at least Nethack and Tome. The Mikrobitti magazine has game of the day/games of the month features that cover freeware & indie games, including, occasionally, roguelikes - not in much depth, but their readership is large and undoubtedly, they've brought people to the genre that wouldn't otherwise have even heard of roguelikes. Niche & indie games in general seem to be more popular here than in most countries, also at least partly thanks to the gaming press, in my opinion.

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  2. Unknown12 August 2009 at 00:51

    Finland always tops when it comes to obscure things, not only obscure computer games like roguelikes, but also obscure music, obscure films and so on.

    I think this is due to the Finnish mentality, if we generalise, Finns aren't that social and talkative, and because of that Finns prefer to have their closed circle of close friends instead of a living an extrovert life.

    This forms a perfect breeding ground for "cult cultures", where a few close become obsessed with roguelikes, underground psychedelic dance music, extreme forms of heavy metal and punk, obsession with philosophies and ideas and so on.

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