WEEK (6/2020) IN THE FINNISH GAME INDUSTRY

Play Finland’s Weekly Newsletter

In this report we will combine week 6/2020 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.

Events:

• 7th of February Grand opening of Digi & Game Center / Jyväskylä
• 8th February, Game Business Booster 2020 / Jyväskylä
  • Calling for publishers & investors in Game Industry!
• 11th February IGDA Finland Helsinki Hub February Meetup & FGJ Post Play Party
• 12th February The Finland Unity User Group is visiting Next Games / Helsinki
• 12th February Intro to Games UR/UX / Helsinki
• 20th February Game Designers Finland Meetup / Helsinki
• 27th February Japan Games Market – Best Practices; How to enter & what to consider? / Helsinki
  • Check also the latest study regarding to China, Japan and South-Korean games market
• 3rd of March Game Audio Awards 2020
  • Submissions are open now
• 5th March AWE Nite Helsinki: XR Game Night
• 16.-17th March Game Connection America
  • Join Neogames and the Nordics at Game Connection America 16.-17.3.2020 in San Francisco (DL. for sign up at 3.2.2020)
• 18-22nd March; GDC | Game Developers Conference / San Francisco
• April 1st Games First / London.
  • The first three speakers announced
• 14th April Hyper UA Gamevasion / Copenhagen
• 14.-15th April Bit1 / Helsinki
• 24th April Retro Game Jam 2020 / Turku
• 27-29th May Nordic Game 2020 / Malmö, Sweden
• 16 October W Love Games conference / Helsinki
• 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

Neogames is creating a tool for the city of Helsinki summarising all key games industry related events in Helsinki

Open jobs & Recruitment

• Double Star is looking for a Tech/Backend programmer as we scale to build our first game into a success!
• Housemarque is looking for Senior Producer
• GamePro is here for the 10th time! Over 200 people have found their way to the Finnish gaming industry through the recruiting training program. Whether you are a company representative looking to grow your teams or a job seeker finding a position in gaming this might be for you!  Further questions & inquires can be directed to
  Tommi Ohtonen / tommi.ohtonen@saranen.fi p. 050 477 8959 AND Kasper Kuusela / kasper.kuusela@saranen.fi p. 050 313 5665
• 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!

Competitions;

• Nordic Game Discovery Contest debuts in Oulu. Deadline for submissions is 27 February 2020!
• A celebration of the creativity and innovation of indie games from several European countries @ Warsaw on 25 April 2020 –  a chance to win $100K in SuperScale services.
• Pelialan opinnäytekilpailu 2020 on avattu! DL: 29.2.2020 / Game Studies Thesis Competition 2020 is open! DL: 29.2.2020
• Bit1 Helsinki confirmed judges for the student game competition;
  • Timur Haussila, Game Lead of Supercell
    Sonja Ängeslevä, Product Lead of Zynga
    Juha Huhtakallio, General Manager of PlayStack Finland
    Karoliina Korppoo, CEO of 10th Muse
    Teemu Närhi, Senile Senior of Fingersoft
  • The best Finnish student game is searched by the national game competition Bit1. The preliminaries, PreBits, are held in Helsinki, Tampere, Turku and Kajaani in the beginning of March. Application period is between 13.1.-26.2.2020. 

Funding:

• Danske Bank is launching an angel investment programme for startups based in Finland that are looking for funding, typically at a seed stage, and have a proven business case. The Application period is now open and closes on the 19th of February.

Releases;

• Oddrok’s Early Worm matopeli is not for Nokia phones but do try it out from Apple App Store.

Discussion;

• Ville Helin asks if anyone have experiences of publisher called HappyTube
  

Other News;

• (Article in Finnish) Suomalaiset pelifirmat saivat tähdekseen Rambon ja kumppaniksi Lionsgaten – ”Nyt puhutaan Appstoren jälkeisestä maailmasta” Suomalainen pelistartup Quicksave on erikoistunut tekemään pelejä chattialustoille, mikä on pelimaailmassa vielä verrattain uutta. / QuickSave developes Rambo game for chat platform.
• Games Now! is looking for good speakers for lecture series at Aalto University
• Apple Arcade — Oceanhorn 2 livestream — Hero takes on giant octopus
• EGD 045: Investing At The Early Stage with Harri Manninen, Founder Partner at Play Ventures

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.