Þorsteinn Baldur Friðriksson[1] (born 30 June 1979), commonly anglicised as Thor Fridriksson, is an Icelandic businessman. He was the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Plain Vanilla Games, a Reykjavík-based video game developer, until its defunction in August 2016.[2]
Thor Fridriksson | |
|---|---|
| Born | Þorsteinn Baldur Friðriksson June 30, 1979 Reykjavík, Iceland |
| Nationality | Icelandic |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford (MBA, 2009) |
| Known for | Plain Vanilla Games |
Personal life
Thor was born in Reykjavík on 30 June 1979. He graduated from the Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík in 1999 and studied at Reykjavik University.[3][4]
Career
Thor was working with the broadband-ISP startup Hive until it was purchased by Vodafone in 2007.[5] Deciding to explore a different industry, Thor became a local TV news reporter.[2][5] After studying at the University of Oxford, Thor started Plain Vanilla Games in Reykjavík during the Icelandic financial crisis.[6] Thor and his team at Plain Vanilla Games spent over a year developing an educational app for children called The Moogies,[5] that failed to gain popularity on the App Store.[7] Despite the country's economic issues, Thor decided to keep the Plain Vanilla Games' headquarters located in Reykjavík to help support job growth and other start-up companies.[6]
In June 2020, Thor released a new game titled Trivia Royale that "lets users compete in a 1,000-person, single-elimination trivia tournament."[8]
In 2022, Thor launched a new gaming platform, Rocky Road, which debuted a "hyperlocal social mobile gaming experience" in Iceland, and subsequently raised $5.2 million from Luminar Ventures, Crowberry Capital, Sisu Ventures and David Helgason, the founder of Unity Technologies.[9]