The Finnish Game Awards 2014, organized for the first time by Suomen pelikehittäjät ry (Finnish game developer’s association), awarded the best game, the sensation, gamers’ choice and the rookie of the year 2013. Furthermore, IGDA-Finland celebrated game industry’s volunteers and Barona launched the first recruitment service build for the needs of Finnish game industry specifically.
For the first time the Finnish Game Awards paraded only Finnish games and game developers. The director of Neogames, the Hub of the Finnish game industry, Koopee Hiltunen noted:
“The game industry has quickly become an engine of the Finnish creative and cultural exports with the booming number of game developers. Consequently, it is only natural that the industry has its own gala focusing only on the creators of Finnish games”
In addition to below mentioned awards, IGDA-Finland honoured the IGDA volunteers working passionately for the Finnish game industry. The nominees of all the categories are listed at the end.
The Finnish Game of the Year 2013: Resogun, developed by Housemarque
The jury, consisting of the board members of the Finnish game developer’s association, underlined:
“The Finnish Game of the Year proves that even in this industry a company can survive, flourish and succeed for a long time. It also proves that you can master the basic skills of game making either best or brilliantly. The Finnish Game of the Year was a success among the critics on its own platform and the players just love it.”
The Finnish Rookie of the Year 2013: Facepalm Games
The jury reasons:
“Finland has traditionally been the country of small and talented developer studios and gifted developer teams. The Rookie of the Year 2013 joins this long line of indie studios that have become or inevitably will become something big.”
The Finnish Sensation of the Year 2013: Theory Interactive’s crowd funding for the game Reset
The jury stresses:
“The Sensation of the Year that was a true Christmas Miracle that proves that generosity has not died and crowd funding is a realistic option even for small game developer studios. Crowd funding can still be the enabler of many small and high quality indie productions. Thus a kind word for the Finnish legislators: please make donation based funding available for Finnish developers.”
The Finnish Gamers’ Choice 2013: Resogun, developed by Housemarque
The Finnish Gamers’ Choice is Resogun developed by Housemarque. Therefore it was awarded by the Kyöpeli award by the Pelit magazine.
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Information about the nominees
The nominees of the Finnish Game of the Year 2013 award:
- Badland / Frogmind: Glorious on its stripped-down appearance, Badland immediately ended in the spotlight of the extremely competitive mobile game market.
- The Swapper / Facepalm Games: A space adventure that includes amazing puzzles and creative story telling is also visually impressive and atmospheric. This side-scrolling game rose to PC game stardom.
- Resogun / Housemarque: This shoot’em up calls for dexterity, has top-notch game mechanics and is a magnificent audiovisual experience. It became instantly the leading pioneer of the new console generation.
- Oceanhorn / CornFox Brothers: This role playing game charmed gamers around the world by its integrity that defies the industry’s mainstream with its rich and deep story telling.
The nomisees of the Finnish Rookie of the Year 2013 award:
- Facepalm Games: When the majority of Finnish game developers are focusing on mobile games, Facepalm Games worked their way to glamorous success in the demanding PC-indie market.
- Frogmind: Frogmind, founded by Johannes Vuorinen and Juhana Myllys in 2012, is an indie studio that became an instant to worldwide sensation with memorable Badland. A stunt that many dream of, but only few can actually success in.
- Next Games: Only few companies have achieved as glorious start as Next Games: $6 million in seed funding combined with the international rights of Walking dead TV-show is an incredible achievement.
- Seriously: Founded in 2013 around a winning team, Seriously has managed to stimulate global interest just by its line-up. A perfect example of the fact that Finns are now the stars of the game markets.
The nominees of the Sensation of the Year 2013 award:
- The Swapper / Facepalm Games: All success stories are not based on mobile games. The Swapper is an eye-opening phenomenon in PC-game markets that encourages developers to embrace the possibilities beyond the mainstream markets.
- Next Games: Only few companies have achieved as glorious start as Next Games: $6 million in seed funding combined with the international rights of Walking dead TV-show is an incredible achievement.
- Fingersoft / Hill Climb Racing: The enormous success of Fingersoft is the heroic tale most game developers dream about. However, Fingersoft has not forgotten its roots and is helping many starting developer studios as a mobile publisher.
- Supercell: The acquisition of Supercell by Japanese SoftBank was the press-stopping news of the year that made the Finnish game industry instantly part of the Finnish industrial history. It also proved that the public support for the game industry will be returned multiple times in collected taxes.
- Reset / Theory Interactive: With astonishing last days of the campaign, Reset is the first Finnish game that secured significant crowd funding for its development. It is a joint effort by game developers and the gamer community for the future.