Helsinki-based Tribe Studios was accepted into Tekes’ Young Innovative Companies program, picking up the largest chunk of their private funding from Frontier, the consulting agency that has helped over 70 Finnish companies enter and establish businesses in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. This is Frontier’s first significant investment, at €55,000, which is an interesting move for the firm.
We’ve covered Tribe Studio’s product, Dramagame, for some time now. Their game platform was designed for their role-playing game concept, and has also pivoted into the educational and entertainment space.
“Dramagame is still the base technology,” explains Elina Aarponen, the CEO of Tribe Studios. “The major pivot we did was more of a tech provider, looking for b2b partners that are interested in enriching our technology, such as AltoGame, which is doing educational simulations.”
Tribe Studio’s technology allows for the simulation of any social situation, helping train any soft skill through simulations.
On the entertainment side, their game gamifies social encounters, where players have a series of quests and their own agenda where they have to interact with other players to reach their players’ goal, creating sort of a virtual soap opera players control themselves. The experience varies every time depending which character you play and what kind of solutions you and the others players will end up with in your quest lines, and after the 45 minute game, players have a chance to debrief and chat.
Arponen says they’re got some interesting opportunities from their investment from Frontier, as they can also put in some sweat equity to target the Asian markets.
“The Middle East and Southeast Asia are interesting. What they’re interested in is projects in education, so basically things that will give them long term value. Being from Finland and talking about games and education gives us a good edge.”
