LAST WEEK (43/2018) IN THE FINNISH GAME INDUSTRY

Play Finland’s Weekly Newsletter
In this report we will combine  week 43/2018 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.

 
Events:

• 7th Nov. Tasapeliseminaari / Helsinki
• 9th Nov. The Finland Unity User Group is visiting Apprien
• 10th Nov. DevCon Tampere 2018
• 10-11th November. Theme Park. Digital art rally 2018 / Kouvola
• 14th Nov. Xmasjkl – The Finnish Game Industry Seminar / Jyväskylä
  • First patch of Speaker announcements!
  • Mika Rahko, Futureplay
  • Lauri Vuohensilta, Hydraulic Press Channel
  • Adam Sporka, Composer, Kingdom Come Deliverance
  • Jussi Immonen, Nitro Games
    ..and more announcements coming soon!We are super happy to have COOL people coming again as a our speaker to 2018 event at Jyväskylä, Central Finland
  • Ticket sales are open! Early Bird Prices -10% are available until 21.10.2018
  • The Finnish Game Industry Seminar now annual event already 4th time!
  • You can also book the demo stand with 80€
  • NightStop playing at #XmasJKL
• 19-23 November 2018, Nanjing: IMGA Judging Sessions, China Game Design Seminar and the Awards Ceremony & Parties
• 20th Nov. IGDA Finland Turku Hub November event with Platonic Partnership
• 22 November Manse Games Event / Tampere
  • Teut Weidemann joins to talk about F2P game monetisation.
  • Petri Ikonen. The talk will focus on how the studio overcame the obstacles of designing a F2P mobile game from a well-loved IP, and how their design thinking has changed during production and running the live service.
  • Third speaker will be Co-Founder of GameRefinery Joel Julkunen. Joel will be comparing the US mobile game market with several Asian markets and focus on their differences in various areas. During this talk we will learn which genres, game features & mechanics and visual styles are hot and which are not.
  • Fourth speaker will be Kalle Kaivola! Kalle has worked on games for two decades as a producer, publisher and most recently investor as a partner in Sisu Game Ventures.
  • Fifth speaker will be Google’s Industry Manager Juho Juhantalo. Juho is your first touchpoint to Google in mobile gaming in the Northern European region. 
  • Founder of Cellense Ivan Trancik. Ivan with his team at Cellense have worked to launch and scale over 50 games with over 2 billion downloads. They have been working with fast growing game studios like Fingersoft, Frogmind, BoomBit, DoDreams and many others.
• 23-25 November Junction / Helsinki
• 4-5th Dec. Slush
• 25-27th January Global Game Jam  if you want to run a site, apply now!
• 29th January Games First London 2019
• 22-24th May Nordic Game Conference / Helsinki
  • Gaming Track

See also The Game Industry Events calendar: http://www.neogames.fi/en/events/eventcalendar
Neogames is creating a tool for the city of Helsinki summarising all key games industry related events in Helsinki
Open jobs & Recruitment:

• Next Games is in need of User Acquisition Specialist (for Media Buying), Server Engineer for Game team, Server Team Backend & Frontend Developers, Player Support Specialist, and Game Analysts
• Taike on julkaissut pelitaiteeseen erikoistuvan läänintaiteilijan paikan hakuun
• GamePro training program open now. Apply before Nov. 19th
• Get your self matched in Game Factory Talents. Find your place in the Finnish Games Industry
  • Games Factory Talents have introduced a new platform to make your talent visible for the game studios. They are building a community of developers to showcase, making it easier for the game studios to find the talent they need.
  • “Instead of building a platform only for job seeking game industry professionals, we wanted a platform where the game studios could come and meet the talent even before they start the long and expensive process of advertising an open job position. Our Talent Board features industry professionals from all levels of experience to most of the various positions studios might be looking to fill”, explains Kim Bäckroos, CEO of the newly formed Games Factory Talents.
  • New talent is being added to the Talent Board constantly, and Games Factory Talents are inviting all industry professionals and game studios to take part. Head over Games Factory Talents to look at the talent and job positions available and make yourself visible for the hiring studios.Follow Games Factory Talents on social media for the latest news and information on any upcoming talent acquisition events.
  • https://www.linkedin.com/company/gamesfactorytalents
  • https://www.instagram.com/gamesfactorytalents
• 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!

Releases;

• Worbital Beta 2 is open for a final weekend
• Sling Smash released iOS and Android
• The Name of the Game -dokumenttielokuva saa elokuvateatterilevityksen 23.11.!
• Plush Pop Soft released Rapid Magic on iOS

Announcements;

• Finns succeeding in Game Connection Development Awards;
  • Kukouri’s Pixel Worlds won the People’s choice Award.
  • Fakefish’ Barotrauma won the Best PC Hardcore Game Award
  • Rival Games’ Thief of Thieves: Season One won The Best Storytelling and Most Promising IP Awards.
• StepDemo on nyt haettavissa. StepDemo keskittyy sisällöllisesti peleihin ja musiikkiin. Määrärahan tavoitteena on saada nuoret hyödyntämään omaa kulttuurillista osaamistaan luoden lisäarvoa ja uusia näkökulmia luovaan talouteen. Vuoden 2018 määräraha on 150 000 €. Tukea haetaan AVEK-hakujärjestelmän kautta, haku päättyy torstaina 29.11.2018.
• Neogames is updating the list of active Finnish Game Developers. Please see the list from the link. Please let us know (in this post or suviATneogamesDOTfi) if your company is missing. It is required that listed company is registered in YTJ and is regularly releasing games or is developing those in full time.
• Neogames is listing Finnish games released globally (and for first time) on 2018. Please help and make sure that yours are listed! and please let suviATneogamesDOTfi know if there are mistakes.

Recommendations from Play Finland community;

• Sami Pulli have been creating a tool for searching game engines as part of my studies. It needs to be evaluated with users. If you are interested in game development tools please try this new web service and answer to the usability survey.

Other News;

• Gregory Pellechi this week episode on iTunes and Spotify
• Games Factory offers a space for events or game launches.
• How does Badland Brawl monetise?
• Henri Ojala kirjoittaa opinnäytetyötä  tiedon käytöstä pelialalla. Käsittelen työssäni mm. mitä dataa kerätään ja miksi, miten se säilötään, ketkä sitä käyttävät, kuinka sitä hyödynnetään liiketoiminnassa jne. Tarvitsen alan toimijoilta haastatteluja, joten jos sinulla on mielenkiintoa auttaa minua, arvostaisin sitä suuresti. Haastattelu ottaa aikaa noin 30 – 60 minuuttia.Minut tavoittaa sähköpostitse henri.ojala@myy.haaga-helia.fi
• Rovio partners with the Chicago Bulls NBA team to create the Angry Birds Eye View Cam
• No bullshit rule in mobile gaming startup with 50 million players
• If you feel, that your startup is great and you want $100,000 investment, apply here
• Finnish (and Norwegian) games represented at #GooglePlaytime in Berlin, in the games track with Nacho from Google Play – talking about how your first success can be a burden and/or a new opportunity. Erik Pöntiskoskipresenting DoDreams/Drive Ahead, and Anette Dahlstrøm Ståløy talking about Dirtybit/Fun Run. An Vu from Small Giant Games was also on stage, sharing learnings with Google Instant games. Lots of Play Finland members also in the audience.

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.