Funcom is by far the largest gaming company in Norway. The developer generated a revenue of over 270 million Norwegian kroner in 2018 with 30 game titles such as Conan or Secret World. The social game producer Dirtybit was the second most valuable company in this industry in the country. Amongst others, its games include the award-winning and globally launched Fun Run for mobile devices. In 2018, the turnover of Dirtybit amounted to roughly 29 million Norwegian kroner.
Playing digital games is quite popular in Norway. Over half of the population had access to video game devices as of 2019. The same survey found that roughly one third of Norwegians played games on a daily basis. The share of men playing digital games was higher than the share of women that year. The same applies for children playing video games. Gaming was more popular with boys than with girls. In 2020, nearly all Norwegian boys aged nine to 18 years played games. By comparison, the share of girls doing so decreased with age. Only two thirds of 15 to-18-year-olds stated to play games.
One of the most popular video games in Norway is Minecraft. It ranked in the top five games among children of all age groups in 2020. To give an example, the sandbox game was played by over two thirds of boys aged nine to ten years and thus, it was the second most popular. It even ranked highest with girls aged 13 to 14 years. Another favored game was the royal battle game Fortnite, but not only among children. In April 2020, Fortnite had the second highest number of daily active users among iPad owners in Norway. Over 13 thousand people used the gaming app daily that month. Among all iOS device owners, the amount was nearly 39 thousand. In May 2020, the number even grew to over 50 thousand. Additionally, Fortnite recorded the second highest number of active eSports players in 2019, after Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO).
