Play Finland’s Weekly Newsletter
In this report we will combine week 12/2020 from the Finnish Game Industry.
News are gathered from the Play Finland group posts during the week. That is why we recommend you to post by yourself (however not flood) your Finnish Game Industry related news to the group. It also guarantees that your news will be visible in the weekly newsletter /news compilation. Play Finland is at the moment one of the main channels for sharing information inside the industry.
We (admins) occasionally publish industry related posts or links in Play Finland. But since there is so many things going on, we don´t even try to cover the whole field.
Best Regards,
Neogames Finland
Events:
30th of March Inside the Gaming VCs brain – WebinarApril 1st Games First / Londoncancelled- 14th April Hyper UA Gamevasion / Copenhagen
- 14.-15th April Bit1 / Helsinki
24th April Retro Game Jam 2020 / Turku- 15th May BooBJam2020
27-29th May Nordic Game 2020 / Malmö, Sweden- 4-6thAugust GDC Organizers Plan New 3-Day GDC Summer Event For August
- 29-30th September Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki
- 15th October Reboot Develop Blue / Croatia
- Over the years, Develop Blue has become one of the main annual conferences for European game developer communities. Therefore, EGDF and Neogames Finland ry. are happy to announce a 10% discount code for a STANDARD CONFERENCE PASS Please do not hesitate to contact the associations to receive yours.
- 16 October W Love Games conference / Helsinki
- Tickets sign-up starts in May and the link is first shared to those who have signed up for W Love Games newsletter. Sign up to a newsletter here.
- 6th of November #XmasJKL 2020 – The Finnish Game Industry Seminar / Jyväskylä
See also The Game Industry Events calendar: http://www.neogames.fi/en/events/eventcalendar
Webinars & Streams & Videos
EGDF has started to collect info about the game industry online events and webinars. Info is updated also in PlayFinland.
Open jobs & Recruitment:
-
BusinessFinland has launched a nationwide job board to advertise jobs for #English speakers in #Finland. Advertising the open positions in the portal is free of charge for the companies.
- Games Factory Talents launched new Games focused tech Talent board that helps Talents to land a Dream job at a Games Studio in Helsinki. Please check the positions and companies and APPLY
- Pocket hunt has launched their recruiting app for games people in Finland, Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Benelux countries, Bangalore and Singapore.
- Jobs in Games: Rovio’s Heini Kaihu on how to get a job as head of studio.
- if people are interested in taking part in ‘Jobs in Games’ series feel free to get in touch with Craig Chapple!
- Take a look at https://thehub.fi/jobs for the current list of all jobs available in the Finnish Game Industry!
Announcements:
- Finland declares state of emergency and is shutting down.
Education:
- Early childhood education: The Government advises parents and guardians who are able to arrange childcare at home to do so.
- Primary, secondary and higher education: The premises of all education institutions will be closed down, and contact teaching will be suspended. Instead of contact teaching, the teaching and guidance will be organised to the widest extent possible in alternative ways, including distance learning, various digital learning environments and solutions and, where necessary, self-learning.
Events and other public activities:- Events: Public gatherings are limited to no more than ten persons, and it is recommend to avoid spending unnecessary time in public places.
- Cultural, youth, sport, community and religious activities: All national and municipal cultural, youth and sport facilities will be closed. Private and third-sector operators and religious communities are advised to do the same.
The protection of the most vulnerable groups- A quarantine of main risk groups: As a general guideline, persons over 70 years of age must refrain from contact with other persons to the extent possible (quarantine-like conditions). Visits to housing services for the elderly and other at-risk groups will be prohibited.
- Care institutions, health care units and hospitals: Visitors will be banned from care institutions, health care units and hospitals, with the exception of asymptomatic family members of children and critically ill individuals, family members of those in hospice care and spouses or support persons in the maternity ward, who will be permitted to visit on a case-by-case basis.
Limiting free movement of people:- Inside Finland: The movement of people _may_ be restricted in order to prevent a serious danger to life and health.
- From and to Finland: Passenger transport to Finland will be suspended as soon as possible, with the exception of the return of Finnish citizens and persons residing in Finland. Finnish citizens and persons residing in Finland must not travel abroad. Finnish tourists abroad are advised to return to Finland immediately. Necessary travel for work and to access other necessary services will be permitted across the northern and western (land) borders. Freight and goods traffic will continue as usual.
- Quarantine for people returning abroad: Finns and permanent residents in Finland returning from abroad will be placed in quarantine-like conditions for two weeks. Persons returning from abroad must agree on the date of their return to work after a two-week period of absence together with their employer.
- Mainframe Industries raises $8.3 million for cloud-native games / Konkarien pilvipelistudio sai viime hetken potin Yhdysvalloista: League of Legendsin tekijä Riot Games ja Amerikan kovin rahasto sijoittivat Suomeen 7,6 miljoonan euron potin
- Control – Remedy has taken home 3 trophies at this year’s Game Developers Choice Awards!
- Pelimusiikin ammattiorkesteri Game Music Collective (GMC) sai suurimman, 200 000 euron, avustuksen Alfred Kordelinin säätiöltä / Game Music Collective got EUR 200 000 grant from Alfred Kordelin foundation
Financial support;
- Neogames has conducted the government support together in one page
- Business Finland lanseeraa kaksi uutta rahoituspalvelua lieventämään koronavirusepidemian aiheuttamia talousvaikutuksia. / Funding for SMEs and midcap companies whose business is affected by corona virus outbreak.
- AVEK offers once again DigiDemo funding. Deadline for applications is 1st of April. More information on Kopiosto’s website, but short recap what is DigiDemo meant for.
Remote Work;
- Super Evil Mega Corporation is sharing their best practices and guidelines for remote work.
- Linda Nummelin wonders how to replace recreational team activities at breaks while remoteworking
Discussion;
-
Jussi Immonen asks about CVAA => Demystifying CVAA
Other News:
- Check the latest amazing Finnish Games trailers (ie. Hologram Monster) from Play Finland Youtube channel
- ZOMBIES ARE COMING! This is for ADULTS ONLY 18+. Check out Call of Duty Black Ops Zombie MUSIC VIDEO by Game Music Collective .
- Game Developers World Championship for 2020 is launched and now calling for all developers who have games coming out this year or currently in development to join in and submit their games!
- China mobile game downloads skyrocketed by 80% in February 2020
- Games Factory Talents have built remote engineering team model specifically for Finnish games studios and considering current situation and remote work necessity this might a good opportunity to build your own remote engineering team from scratch.
- COVID-19 Resources – IGDA
- Jussi Ratilainen offers equipment and know-how to create smooth live streaming.
This is the weekly summary of news from the Finnish game industry. If you want to have your news on the list, post them on the Play Finland Facebook group. The summary will be posted every Friday afternoon. Check out previous week’s list.