Play Finland’s Weekly Newsletter
In this report we will combine week 13/2020 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:
30th of March Inside the Gaming VCs brain – WebinarApril 1st Games First / Londoncancelled- 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
EGDF has started to collect info about the game industry online events and webinars. Info is updated also in PlayFinland.
- 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:
-
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:
- Remedy Entertainment signs with Epic Games to publish two new multi-platform games.
- Finland declares state of emergency and is shutting down.
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.
- AVEK offers once again DigiDemo funding. Deadline for applications is 1st of April. More information on Kopiosto’s website, but short recap what is DigiDemo meant for.
- 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;
- Iron Danger OUT NOW at Steam! Enjoy the release trailer and join the adventure:
- An original sci-fi comic book-themed tactical rogue-like RPG Deep Sky Derelicts: Definitive Edition from Finnish indie developer Snowhound Games has just been released on Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC!
Discussion;
-
Kim Soares asks: Does the corona pandemic show ingame in any way in any of your games? In Pixel Worlds me and some veteran community members created a world with basic info (wash your hands, social distancing, don’t panic etc.) in several languages, each language done by a player from that country.
Other News:
- Check the latest amazing Finnish Games trailers (ie. Hologram Monster) from Play Finland Youtube channel
- Episode 14; What will Covid-19 Corona Virus do with the Games Industry 2020-2022? Share you comments, thoughts with me on this link. The Questions are;
1. Are we going to see more revenues in second part of 2020;
2. Or will this decline when people have to get back at work;
3. Will the consumer get fincialy hit by the Corona Virus and will this have an effect on gaming revenues;
4. Big esports companies are seeing digital revenues going up, but event and merchandise revenues going down;
5. Were these esports companies more dependable on offline revenues then online revenues;
6. If we all think people will have less to spend then the following questions;
6.1; Are you launching massively all together in second half year 2020;
6.2; Are the CPI’s going to be too high then;
6.3; Are the lifetime revenues being surpressed by financial difficulties of gaming audience;
6.4; Will people stick to their old love instead of trying another game;
7. Just a thoughts; end of 2020 entrance tickets for esports events will be too expensive! - Happy Birthday to Sami Järvi (lead desinger of Remedy Entertainment and Control) who gave his face to Max Payne (article only in Finnish)
- Critical Force started this initiative, where local companies in Kajaani support struggling restaurants and catering services. Families with school children will get delivered meals to their homes. Game companies, please start similar actions in your home towns! Ask more information from Veli-Pekka Piirainen.
- Tampere Game Incubator 2020 begins this spring 2020, and we are accepting applications from game teams now! Build your game studio with the best mentors from the Finnish game industry – and earn an entrepreneurship degree while you’re at it! Free of charge, courtesy of your friends at Tampere Game Hub and Ahlman.
- the (wide) history of Finnish games (1918-2016) is now available for free online! The Praised, The Loved, The Deplored, The Forgotten : A View into the Wide History of Finnish Games.
- Also available in Finnish: Ylistetyt, rakastetut, paheksutut, unohdetut : Avauksia suomalaisen pelihistorian laajaan kirjoon
- EGD 053: Having Confidence to Invest in Gaming with Paul Murphy, General Partner at Northzone VC
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.