The largest expanding export Iceland currently ships out is video games, with a seven-fold increase in the past four years alone.
Eyjan reports that video games earned the country 1.9 billion ISK in 2005, and 13.2 billion ISK in 2009. In fact, exports in the creative fields accounted for about 3% of the country’s total exports, exceeding that of agricultural products.
Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, the director of video game company CCP, told Fréttablaðið that video game exports from Iceland have been growing faster than in other countries. His company by itself made 7.5 billion ISK in 2009, at a time when many companies were struggling with debts in the wake of the financial crisis of the previous year.
Despite using the Icelandic crown as the basis for its currency, which Hilmar admits has its share of difficulties, the company continues to grow. Video games, as an export, are also a good idea for this country of limited natural resources – the only natural resource required for producing video games is imagination.
CCP produces Eve Online, an MMORPG that boasts thousands of users from around the world.
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