It's amazing how many 3D start-ups spun out of the Finish demo scene Future Crew: Bitboys, Remedy Entertainment, 3DMark, and I'm pretty sure others that I'm missing. Anyone know why Finland is such an innovative 3D/software powerhouse?
In my opinion as someone who grew up inside it, the factors that created this fertile ground in Finland for young computer hackers in the 1980s and '90s were:
- High-quality educational system, but without pressures to perform (unlike e.g. many Asian countries). There are no standard exams in Finnish schools except a single national one at the end of high school. Teachers all have a master's degree, it's usually a lifelong career, and they have (had?) lots of latitude to create their own curriculums.
- An economic boom in 1984-89 that enabled many households to acquire home computers.
- Long and dark winters that left kids with plenty of time. Combined with the aforementioned educational system, you had teenagers who were already pretty good at math and English playing around with computers on ample free time.
Sweden also is strong in similar areas due to that same effect, so the cause should apply to both.
I'd say a big effect is lack of respect for authority figures, people speak up when they see something wrong with no regards to status or authority, and managers tend to accept that. This makes experienced people learn from juniors much better than in many other cultures, which is great to explore new fields. So the game cracking scene that was a big part of the demo scene is just an expression of that strong anti authoritarian culture.
In Japan you have to respect your leader, and in USA you have to be an optimist and not criticize your manager, so their cultures doesn't really get the same effect. It is so much easier when you can just straight out say that someone's demo was bad at something and could probably be made better, and they just listen and improve without you having to be an authority figure.
The demoscene was an interesting social phenomenon where "street credit" from the graffiti scene was applied to math dorks. This created a competitive atmosphere that made you stay up late, reading CGPP, PC Intern, and Ferraro.
I think a few factors/explanations, based on what I remember from colleagues on EFNet...
- Teachers/professors have a more actualized social selection/prestige; the pay is better (especially comparing to a similar US university) so there is more incentive for talented people to stay in education vs go into private sector.
- Finland has a high level of government programs to help industries in various ways. As an example from another industry, Children of Bodom recorded many of their albums in a government owned/sponsored recording studio.
- Finland also has free education. I'm betting a lot of people saw the possibilities, it was likely a bit easier to break into back then.
That said, If you look at the late 80s and early 90s, Finland was a sleeping tech giant. IRC, Linux, InnoDB, Symbian (love it or hate it) all are products from that era...
