Play Finland’s Weekly Newsletter
In this report we will combine week 14/2020 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:
- 4th April REE masterclass/workshop with the amazing Dedouze on the 4. April. Please follow the IGDA Twitch channel in preparation for the event.
- 6-10th April PGC Digital. It will enable developers, publishers and investors to find the perfect people to have meetings with, and then set up video calls. That’s 5 days of structured, digital, business meetings, on top of 30 hours of exclusive video content to watch. In addition, the event will also feature Investor Connector, Publisher SpeedMatch and the Big Indie Pitch – those great networking side events that you join at conferences, but accessible from your own computer.
- 14th April Hyper UA Gamevasion / Copenhagen
- 14.-15th April Bit1 / Helsinki
24th April Retro Game Jam 2020 / Turku- 15th May BooBJam2020
- 26-29th May AWE – Augmented World Expo AWE USA 2020’s online event
- Become a member of AWE Nite Helsinki’s meetup group https://www.meetup.com/AWENiteHelsinki/ and get a special discount at just $99 (by April 1st)
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
Since all the game industry events have been postponed, cancelled or moved to online due to Corona virus epidemic, EGDF in co-operation with European country organizations has collected a list of online (and postponed) events.
- GDC 2020 Talks Are Now Available To Watch For Free On The GDC Vault!
- 4th April REE masterclass/workshop with the amazing Dedouze on the 4. April. Please follow the IGDA Twitch channel in preparation for the event.
- 6-10th April PGC Digital. It will enable developers, publishers and investors to find the perfect people to have meetings with, and then set up video calls. That’s 5 days of structured, digital, business meetings, on top of 30 hours of exclusive video content to watch. In addition, the event will also feature Investor Connector, Publisher SpeedMatch and the Big Indie Pitch – those great networking side events that you join at conferences, but accessible from your own computer.
Open jobs & Recruitment:
- Koukoi Games is looking for new people to join the team.
- XAMK is looking for a full-time project manager who will be in charge of their Baltic Explorers project.
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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:
- Martti Suosalo wins a BAFTA Games Award for Control / Martti Suosalo päihitti Bond-näyttelijän pelialan kisassa Briteissä – palkittiin parhaasta sivuosasta
- Lightheart Entertainment raises $1.4 million for ‘hyper core’ mobile gaming. Galaxy Interactive, using the Galaxy EOS VC Fund, led the investment round.
- Natasha Skult joins to IGDA.org Board of Directors
- Koukoi Games‘ Om Nom: Run has reached +5m downloads in around a month!
Financial support;
- EGDF and Neogames Finland ry. are investigating how Covid-19 is affecting Game business and game companies in different European countries. Please fill this quick survey (by 31st of March) to give us better understanding in this matter. All the answers are confidential.
- 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.
- ELY-keskusten rahoitus yrityksille koronaviruksen aiheuttamassa poikkeustilanteessa ELY tuki tarkoitettu alle 5 hengen yrityksille. Business Finland tuki tätä isommille, jos kuitenkin on jo haettu BF tukea ei hakemusta pidä peruuttaa. Molemmista tukea ei kuitenkaan voi hakea / ELY Centres’ funding for companies in the exceptional circumstances caused by the coronavirus. Note that if company is over 5 people you should apply from Business Finland and smaller from ELY. If company already applied from BF, then it is ok, do not cancel your application. However, should not apply from both BF & ELY.
- Hallitus julkisti 15 miljardin pelastuspaketin Suomen taloudelle, katso tallenne – Yle seuraa hetki hetkeltä talouden superpäivää / Government announces 15billion EUR support to secure Finnish economy.
- Digi & Game Center – Mesenaatti – Korona Aid Kampanja tulossa. / Digi & Game Center – Mesenaatti – Corona Aid campaing is coming.
Releases;
- QuickSave released Toilet Paper – The Game
Other News:
- Since all the game industry events have been postponed, cancelled or moved to online due to Corona virus epidemic, EGDF in co-operation with European country organizations has collected a list of online (and postponed) events.
- Gabri from Helsinki Games Capital has volunteered to mentor capital area companies about how to modify their pitch decks to be better suited to online environment. If you are a capital area company and want to modify your pitch deck, contact: gabriele.aimone(at)helsinkigamescapital.fi
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Zsuzsa James will be moderating next week’s #PGCDigital Monetiser track about the ‘State of Investments – What to Expect from the Market now’ with David Bluhm (Agnitio Capital), Jim Ying (CVCapital) and Ed Fries (1UP Ventures).
- Big Ear Games – Play with Music brings the sound of music education to children!
- Gamified Adventure Tour to Sustainable Digi & Game Ecosystem.
- NordXE is creating the first regulated marketplace to trade virtual assets, securities, financial instruments and alternative assets in digitized form and lNordXE is creating the first regulated marketplace to trade virtual assets, securities, financial instruments and alternative assets in digitized form looking for Finnish game companies to work with us on this service. If interested you can contact Panu Mustonen directly.
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.