Iceland review - 2014, Page 17

ICELAND REVIEW 15
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“Look” said Þorsteinn (Thor) Baldur Friðriksson,
the CEO and founder of Plain Vanilla.
“This is what they in the U.S. call the Nordic invasion,” he said showing me
today’s Apple store top list. “Our game QuizUp is number two but look, seven
of the top ten are from the Nordic countries. Here we have Candy Crush from
Sweden, and the best-selling game Clash of Clans from Supercell in Finland,
and two Angry Birds games from Rovio, another Finnish company. Nokia’s
downturn gave the hi-tech and gaming industry in Finland an enormous boost,
with talented people creating their own jobs after being made redundant at the
telecommunications giant. Same with Iceland: before the crisis in late 2008,
the banks were taking all the good people. I think I would have been a banker
today had the banks not collapsed. The crisis has been good in many ways for
Iceland.”
QuizUp is a beautiful, social and highly addictive game.
Iceland Review met the man behind it, the CEO and founder
of Plain Vanilla, at the company’s HQ in 101 Reykjavík.
WORDS AND PHOtOS BY PÁll stefÁnssOn