THIS WEEK (36/2018) IN THE FINNISH GAME INDUSTRY

Play Finland’s Weekly Newsletter
In this report we will combine week 36/2018 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.

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:

8th September Intuitive Digital Workflow with Loish / Turku
11-12th September Pocket Gamer Connects (1,000+ delegates already signed up.)
- Exclusive 20% discount using code FINLAND20.
- At this year’s #PGCHelsinki for the first time we are having IGDA Finland Mentor Café, sponsored by GameAnalytics!
  Sign up as either a mentor or a mentee and be part of the first Mentor Café in Finland!
- IGDA Finland and Pocket Gamer want everyone to have a chance to take part in upcoming #PGCHelsinki event, no matter your location, and to make everything more accessible and convenient for our friends outside the Helsinki area we are organizing bus rides from hubs all around the country. The buses, provided by Pocket Gamer, are completely free of charge – you just need to register on the form below and turn up!We will need to know for the total numbers for the buses so please register by Friday August 31 to grab your seat. First come – first served!
  => Buses will go from Jyväskylä & Tampere, Turku, and Kouvola & Kotka, please register here: (NOTE: THE BUS TICKET DOES NOT INCLUDE ENTRY TO THE CONFERENCE – you will need a conference ticket to get access to the event(s).
12th September Invest in Games 2018 / Stockholm
12th Sept. Helsinki Unreal Evening
13th September MyGamez China Game Day / Helsinki
THU 13th Sept. The Esports Research Project at the University of Tampere are hosting a free afternoon seminar in Helsinki on Thursday the 13th of September (one day after PGC). Tickets are free, but please book via Eventbrite, as we have limited space.
17th September. Games Now! lecture series will start again
18th September. FullXP: Customer support & Community Management with Ana & Paula
Oct 4-5th Northern Game Summit – NGS / Kajaani
18th Oct. Gaming and esports event, Grail Quest – Pelifestari 2018 / Turku
October 19th Monetization in Games: Past, Present and Future – ft. John Romero / Helsinki
24th-26th October, Join Neogames and the Nordics at Game Connection Europe / Paris
10-11th November. Theme Park. Digital art rally 2018 / Kouvola
19-23 November 2018, Nanjing: IMGA Judging Sessions, China Game Design Seminar and the Awards Ceremony & Parties
22-24th May Nordic Game Conference

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

Releases;

“Bob’s Cat Challenge” is now available for Windows 10 desktop and Xbox One!
LoveBug – humble parody dating sim is finally live on Steam! Get ready to date game devs and fight bugs!
Second Order‘s Claybook v1.0 is out now! for PS4 XboxOne and Steam.

Announcements;

Mobile internet giant Cheetah Mobile secures publishing rights for Ministry of Games’ Trade Town
Bugbear Entertainment latest game; Wreckfest scored a #1 award from Playstation Experience at Gamescom2018!

Other News;

Gregory Pellechi episode The Causes of Conflict You on youtube& download the podcast & stream it on Spotify
Become the world’s best DJ in Mixmstr on Android and iOS in early 2019
Great unity development starter content for grabs at a low price. UFPS, Gaia, UMMORPG, universal sound effects, Inventory pro, a few indie games and a 600$ Zenva course where you make 12 games
Iron Danger shares the collection of Northern invader troops.
(only in Finnish) “IGDA Future” on jaosto, joka on suunnattu lapsille ja nuorille. Tarkoituksena on edistää pelialaa ja lisätä sen tunnettavuutta, sekä esitellä nuorille, mitä kulissien takana oikein tapahtuu. Tosiasia on, että iso osa siitä, mitä pelien tekeminen todellisuudessa vaatii, on tavalliselle ihmiselle aika hämärää. Osa kovemmankaan luokan pelaajista ei tiedä, kuinka paljon aikaa ja resursseja pelien tekoon uppoaa. Haluamme antaa nuorille mahdollisuuden tutustua alalla toimiviin henkilöihin ja auttaa heitä löytämään itsensä ei pelkästään pelaajina, vaan myös pelinkehittäjinä. Suunnittelemme toiminnan aloitusta lokakuulle, jolloin järjestetään ensimmäinen tapahtuma Tikkurilan kirjastossa Vantaalla. Tilat ja työvoiman tarjoaa kirjasto, mutta paikalle kaivattaisiin asiastaan innostuneita puhujia ja esiintyjiä. Jos haluaisit olla paikalla, ota yhteyttä joko (saana.maensivu@vantaa.fi tai lähetä viestiä täällä Facebookissa) tai Pauliina Hyytiäiseen (pauliina.hyytiainen@vantaa.fi).
Some good news for small teams looking for PM software, Atlassian is giving away five-user licenses for free to celebrate their integration with Crashlytics. More info
Charity collaboration in Angry Birds Match with Imagine Dragons. Rovio is teaming up with the band and their foundation in their great work against pediatric cancer. Check out the video, play the events, and above all, read more about the charity here.
IGDA Estonia is looking for a speaker for their gathering – 13.09, Tallinn. Topic – Art
Cryptic Cargo is a new startup, which has with the help of digitalization has created a completely new kind of an escape room experience that combines a physical suitcase with a ready to play escape game inside, and an application that takes the experience to the next level by providing a soundscape, the hints players need during the game and different interactive tasks and clues.
Everything you need to know about Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki
Join Neogames and The Nordics at Game Connection Europe 24-26.10.2018 in Paris.
Neogames has (again) negotiated a reasonably priced offer with SEB prolongation to its members to Game Connection Europe organized in the end of October.
In the spirit of the Nordic co-operation Neogames shares this offer with other Nordic clusters, NGI and their members. Read more from Neogames site
Only until Monday left to get in on the Big Indie Awards! Win a trip to G-Star, Busan and sign up now!
Do you know any Finnish Developers? Help them get their game discovered by sending them this link! The Nordic Game Discovery Contest is returning for the third year – and this time, it’s a brand new contest: teams compete live onstage in AN INTENSE round-based battle for points. Deadline for submitting your game is 21st September
Nopia launched their Kickstarter campaign this morning for the adventure game-inspired interactive series. The money is being processed by an American company so that we can comply with Finnish crowdfunding laws.
Sebastian Laitila is representing the upcoming finnish, independent multimedia review site and portal errori.net, which is aimed to open sometime in Q4 this year. The people behind it among others are the administrators of the well established alternative music portal kaaoszine.fi, which has a large enough following to give the initial leverage the new portal needs. Kaaoszine was also nominated this year as the best music media in Finland at Musiikki & Media Awards which will be held in October in Tampere, Finland.
- Instagram & Twitter Kaaoszine FB & http://kaaoszine.fi/
Are you creating a licensed IP? There are more and more devs who do licensed games but don’t necessarily know the best practices for localizing.Together with the IGDA Localization SIG Laura Guti Maza wrote a post to help you tackle this if it’s your case!
Suomalaisstartup taistelee humpuukia vastaan pelin avulla – “Hulluimmatkin ideat ovat saaneet ennennäkemätöntä kannatusta”
Pablo Serra, a game artist, with almost 5 years experience in the finnish game industry, currently looking for job. He has wide range of different styles: from cartoonish, casual, vectorial, etc… to pixel art or 3D (with 3DS max). He recently performed a video as a showreel, showing only some of his professional artworks. For more artworks, check his portfolio: Please, feel free to contact through his Linkedin or by e-mail.
Nitro Games announced the full list of superstars for the upcoming reality show heroes & superstars
Games Now! lecture series will start again in 17th September. It will be open for anyone interested and also streamed live from Otaniemi
2 WEEKS LEFT to apply to Game Executive 2018 program at Aalto ENT. Ffew slots left. This year they also have a very international group from Finland, Brazil, Slovakia, Iran, Vietnam, Denmark, Sweden and South Korea. To register please visit website.
Psyon games and GSK cooperate to make people aware of the importance of vaccines
Worth reading for any game developer, since probably every gamedev gets those “I am Tuber or Steam Curator, give me N free keys for your game” emails.
Game Music Collective has finally opened YouTube channel. Go to their YouTube page and subscribe to be the first to hear all the best game music!
- First Live video from Game Music Collective concert is out! Check out Halo on YouTube channel.
- “Journey” from Destiny 2 is now out in YouTube performed by Game Music Collective.
Supercell: It takes more than one great idea to make a successful game

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.