Founded 2003

Employees Ten

Key staff Tero Alatalo (co-founder, CEO), Sampo Töyssy (vice CEO)

URL www.10tons.com

Selected softography Crimsonland, Neon Chrome, Tesla Vs Lovecraft, Undead Horde

Current projects Dysmantle

During the early era of casual games, making your name wasn’t easy for anyone. But in 2003, with that scene growing on PC and most new developers chasing a quick hit, a small team in Tampere, Finland found breakout success by going against the tide. 10tons founder and CEO Tero Alatalo and team decided to embrace a classic genre in danger of being deserted: the twin-stick shooter.

“I’m not sure twin-stick top-down shooters were even a thing on PC back then,” Alatalo says. 10tons vice CEO Sampo Töyssy concurs: “3D games were all the rage then, so focusing on 2D and large amounts of enemies was somewhat novel.” Highly inspired by classic shoot-’em-ups such as SmashTV and Robotron, Crimsonland was their first release in the genre that would eventually become synonymous with the studio, even before 10tons had been officially founded as a company.

In addition to the novelty of the genre, Töyssy also cites the widespread standardisation of built-in 3D accelerators in PCs as a factor in Crimsonland’s popularity. “It became possible to create a top-down shooter with thousands of enemies on screen. Once expensive and an enthusiast product, they suddenly were standard on all PCs.” Crimsonland’s gory gunplay and endless horde of bugs might appear a little simple by today’s standards, but it was enough to put its developers on the map.

“We basically made it for fun,” Alatalo says of the game’s humble origins. “We were all students at the time, and not exactly rolling in money, so seeing even modest amounts of money pour in was very encouraging.” Initially, though, Crimsonland was released online as freeware – not an uncommon route for amateur developers then, and one that worked well to get the game into people’s hands. For this cohort of university friends, taking the step onto the commercial path required the involvement of another, more seasoned Finnish development house.