Finland has become an epicenter for mobile game development. Now, one of the most successful mobile game companies to come out of Japan is considering relocating there.
Taizo Son, chairman of Tokyo-based
Puzzle & Dragons developer GungHo Online Entertainment,
told The Wall Street Journal, "We'd like to move our headquarters. We are researching this option, and we are conducting a feasibility study."
If GungHo were to relocate, it would join similarly-successful
Clash of Clans developer Supercell, which GungHo and parent company SoftBank
acquired last month for $1.5 billion. Finland is also home to Rovio, the company behind the massively-popular
Angry Birds.
GungHo's breakout mobile game hit is
Puzzle & Dragons for iOS and Android. The game at one point was raking in an estimated $2.5 million per day, though its revenues and profits have recently shrunk down a bit, from
utterly insane to
run-of-the-mill insane.
Aside from advantages of bringing SoftBank's mobile game operations closer together geographically, Finland is also attractive because of lower corporate taxes and an active start-up scene, Son said.
