WEEK (18/2020) IN THE FINNISH GAME INDUSTRY

Play Finland’s Weekly Newsletter

In this report we will combine week 18/2020 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:

4-10th May Games Now! Online Jam #2: Sad Games with Dr. Elisa Mekler
May 6th UE4 Developers Finland – Online Meetup
13th – 14th May European Games BizDev Gathering
15th May Work From Home For Game Teams webinar
15th May BooBJam2020
20th May Long Term Engagement in Hybrid Casual Webinar
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 => online event
June 8-12 PG Connects Digital #2. Interested to speak at there?
4-6thAugust GDC Organizers Plan New 3-Day GDC Summer Event For August
25-29 August; Gamescom / Cologne. Gamescom will under no circumstances take place on site in Cologne this year. Digital event will be organized.
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

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

Webinars & Streams & Videos

Since all the game industry events have been postponed, cancelled or moved to online due to Corona virus epidemic, EGDF in co-operation with European country organizations has collected a list of online (and postponed) events.

Gamesbeat Summit is kicking off next week and the Slack channel is already active. Zsuzsa James offers discount for for those interested GBS2020James
GDC 2020 Talks Are Now Available To Watch For Free On The GDC Vault!

Open jobs & Recruitment:

Iceflake Studios is looking for Game Programmers to join their growing team to develop our newest title, Surviving the Aftermath!
- Surviving the Aftermath is a post-apocalyptic colony survival game developed for PC, Xbox and Playstation and published by Paradox Interactive.
Fingersoft is looking for:
- 🔸Senior Game Developer
  🔸Lead Audio Designer
  🔸Marketing Artist
  🔸Lead Game Artist
  
  Read more here and apply! 💥
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:

Financial support;

Fast Forward Games (ffwd.games) is an initiative that brings together the top gaming CEOs, VCs and Angel Investors, offering their time, expertise, network and experience to accelerate the funding process for gaming start-ups. Due to COVID-19, the funding climate has changed, resulting a more challenging environment for many start-up studios looking to raise much-needed capital. We are here to help gaming entrepreneurs navigate these unprecedented times.
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.
- 1) Only apply if you are in actual need. Every application is reviewed and that takes time and going through “free moneys, gimme!” applications just takes times from those in real crisis.
  2) To be applicable for the grant, the Covid-19 must have affected your business in a negative manner and the project you plan to do with the funding needs to be either a new function/service/model for your company while the crisis is on-going or some way that you cope with the situation. This is not a grant to develop a DLC!
  3) Check that you don’t have any unpaid taxes in foreclosure and match your application grant according to your revenue. If your company is generating 10k a year you will not be receiving a 100k grant. If you are a startup with running costs, external funding and product still in development but can’t launch due to covid or have some other issue, explain it to us in the application and this will be taken in account.
  4) BF crisis funding is now only for companies between 6-250 employees. If you applied before this rule came into action last week your application will be reviewed and this new rule will not cause the application to fail.
ELY-keskusten rahoitus yrityksille koronaviruksen aiheuttamassa poikkeustilanteessa ELY tuki tarkoitettu alle 5 hengen yrityksille. Business Finland tuki tätä isommille, jos kuitenkin on jo haettu BF tukea ei hakemusta pidä peruuttaa. Molemmista tukea ei kuitenkaan voi hakea / ELY Centres’ funding for companies in the exceptional circumstances caused by the coronavirus. Note that if company is over 5 people you should apply from Business Finland and smaller from ELY. If company already applied from BF, then it is ok, do not cancel your application. However, should not apply from both BF & ELY.

Other News:

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.