THIS WEEK (13/2018) IN THE FINNISH GAME INDUSTRY

Play Finland’s Weekly Newsletter
In this report we will combine the week 13/2018 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:

• 10th April IGDA Helsinki Gathering
• 19th-21st April Reboot Develop 2018 / Dubrovnik, Crotia
  • If you are interested in joining Reboot Develop this year, please do not hesitate to contact Neogames/EGDF, as the seminar organised have been kind enough to provide -10% discount code for you (-20% for the next 24 hours!) and to host the EGDF General Assembly.
• April 24th Finnish Game Awards
• Apri 24-25th The University of Tampere Game Research Lab Spring Seminar, Making Games.
• May 5th Game Över 11- pelitapahtuma Lahden pääkirjastolla
• May 8th Games First / Helsinki
• 16-17 May Bit1 Metropolia game event / Helsinki
• May 23-25 Nordic Game Conference / Malmö, Sweden
• May 25-27th SmirnovSchool / Theme Park May Workshop / Kouvola
  • Eugene Je (Evgeniya Zherebtsova), instructor, who is going to run one of the workshops in May, have some new art on her ArtStation, go check it out.

See also The Game Industry Events calendar: http://www.neogames.fi/en/events/eventcalendar
Open jobs:

• 700+ game companies in the Nordics to get an overview of game development jobs available right now. Currently 440 job openings in Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway – browse through them at http://gameform.eu/
• More jobs at gamesjobs.fi

Other News;

• Some  memories from IMGA Helsinki: China Game Day seminar and pitching event previous week!
  

  Amazing crowd of big and small gaming companies from the region, like Rovio, Supercell, Small Giant, Fingersoft, ZeptoLab, Huuuge, Creative Mobile, Pixel Federation, Natural Motion, Good Games, Yousician, Critical Force, Futureplay, Grand Cru, Futurefly, and many others showing up and meeting our Chinese speakers, who were representing the top 4 Android stores (Tencent, Oppo, Vivo, Huawei) and publishers Duoku and Lilith. Massive thanks to everyone for coming!
  In case you couldn’t join the event, here’re some of the key findings discussed during the two days:
  – Handset manufacturer stores and Tencent are now dominating the China Android platform game, together holding estimated of 70-80% market share. Oppo is currently the leading store in terms of user numbers. Internet giants like 360, Baidu, Ali, UC, etc. have significantly lost market share over the past couple of years.
  – Ad monetisation model is taking its baby steps, with Oppo now supporting ads with its own ad SDK and Vivo announced to follow soon. No 3rd party ads allowed.
  – Platforms are gearing towards more interaction between publishers and players, with in-store forums becoming commonplace
  – Western art style is not an issue, although in some cases bit of Asian style cuteness could bring you a long way
  – Stores are looking at multiple parameters when deciding which games get featuring. High DAU, strong retention and good IAP ARPU are some of the key parameters that can move their needle. In long run it’s all about how the game is operated (updates, live ops, marketing) in cooperation with the stores.
  – Casual PVP and HTML5 games were some of the trends mentioned. Messenger games are there too, with Tencent WeChat leading the way. Chinese market has some game genres with super strong local games, so unless you have big resources it might be a wise strategy to find a niche that is in line with the platforms’ strategy.
  – OEM stores are gaining good foothold in developing markets like SEA region and also looking for games to be distributed in those markets.
  Special thanks for this event goes to our sponsor and host Helsinki City. The historical City Hall provided perfectly elegant venue and truly impressed our Chinese partners. Also big thanks to We+ co-working space for hosting the pitching session.

• Estetiikka hyötypeleissä ja pelillistämisessä
• Psyon Games vieraili Leijonien Luolassa.
• Retro Rewind -lehden ensimmäinen numero painettu
• Iron Danger is looking for early testers. If RPG’s are the thing that rocks your socks off, join our Discord channel and find out more!
• Best Fiends boss Andrew Stalbow: When a hit turns into a brand
• Stupistupid Games got their game featured at Square Enix Collective
• Project: Longtail is progressing nicely and we have moved to a completely new area, que in the desert! Also they have a small playable area almost ready for testing so if someone is interested in coming and giving it a go at Hologram Monster office at Tampere, shoot me a message!
• Finnish Game Devs Discord chat, feel free to join (if you’re Finnish or in Finland and a dev)!

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.