Play Finland’s Weekly Newsletter
In this report we will combine week 2/2024 from the Finnish Game Industry and will be posted every Friday afternoon. Check out the previous post here.
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.
Best Regards,
Neogames Finland
Events:
- 22-23 January Pocket Gamer Connects London.
- Register + Promo Code: PlayFinland20
- 26-28 January; Finnish Game Jam, sites on Kymeenlaakso, Turku, Kuopio, Helsinki, Vaasa, Lappeenranta, Oulu, Jyväskylä, Porvoo, Lahti, Kajaani, Tampere, Rovaniemi. Many of them also in hybrid. Register here: https://www.eventbrite.fi/o/finnish-game-jam-ry-6802261839
- 7th February Over 7 Hills 2023 / Turku
- 23rd February Game Development World Championship The event will be at Tallinn, Estonia
Awards will also be live streamed on their youtube channel
- 18-22 March Game Developers Conference / San Francisco
- Digital Dragons 19-21 May 2024. Indie Showcase applications are accepted until March 1, 2024. Another opportunity for studios to show their games in front of investors, publishers, and media is Digital Dragons Arena. Krakow, Poland
See also The Game Industry Events calendar 
Game Conference Guide Calendar Flemish Game association calendar & Game Industry Biz
Open jobs & Recruitment:
- Game developers that are looking for new career opportunities this year check out the Careers Zone at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2024.
- Dreamloop is looking to add another Unreal developer to the team
- If you are a Facebook user and looking for jobs in gaming in Finland, make sure to follow Pelialan työpaikat Suomessa Facebook group hosted by Finnish employment agency Duunitori. Open positions tagged to game industry are shared in the group automatically. We are in no way affiliated with Duunitori, but wanted to point out this resource as another good way to check out open positions.
- If you are looking for talented games industry professionals for short- or long-term hire – please check out the anonymous GameDevTalents board with screened and pre-interviewed talents ranging from mid to senior levels of experience and open to career opportunities. Feel free to reach out for details! And if you are Talent working in games industry or willing to join the Finnish games industry, feel free to apply https://gamedevtalents.com. Additionally, here is an anonymous list of talents who joined our Games Job Fair event and are open to career opportunities. If you want to see someone’s full profile, please feel free to reach out with the Contact button, so that they reach out to the talent for their consent. In your email please specify the project and/or position you are hiring for. A job description would be ideal.
- Take a look at https://thehub.fi/jobs for the current list of all jobs available in the Finnish Game Industry!
- Uratarinoita, erilaisista ihmisistä / mostly in Finnish, but few different career stories in English too
💰 Funding:
- Creative Europe funding for games 2024 deadline for application is on January 24th, 2024
New releases 
- Shopping Cart Frenzy Northpole released (already on December) on Android and Apple
- (Physical) Collectible card Games Home Team Heroes is released
- Legend of Grimrock released on Nintendo Switch 15.1.2024!
- Collection of Game Articles has been released in Finnish
- JetDogs has released Towers & Powers on
Other News
- Solip’s Comic A special episode of “Game Expats Story” about Neogames Finland ry. aka, the Play Finland
- Harp’ player Salla Hakkola composes awarded game music for ie. Merge Mansion and Clash of Clans (article in Finnish)
- Wheelie King 6: Moto Rider 3D combines speed and skill in motorcross game (article in Finnish)
- Some of the talks of Theme Park. A digital art event are on their YouTube channel. First is Anna’s talk about building a sustainable career in visdev.
- Solip’s Comic episode of “Game Expats Story” about the butterfly effect of “empathy” and the “milk manual”
FYI, Korean game expats in Finland have made (since 2020) the FIN-KOR Survival Manual that was inspired by this milk manual. - Jackie the Chicken challenges players to brave jumps in game “Shopping Cart Frenzy Northpole” (article in Finnish)Video about the results of the game project course in Metropolia last fallDigi & Game Center is celebrating its’ 4th birthday already
- Neogames Finland ry. wrapping up the Finnish Game Industry’s 2023! Let’s take a closer look at the highlights of the past year in the local game development scene.
Established Finnish game studios delivered some highly anticipated new titles, including the long-awaited Alan Wake 2 by Remedy Entertainment, city-builder sequel Cities: Skylines 2 by Colossal Order Ltd, and the enchanting Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy by Frozenbyte Games.
All in all, Finnish developers launched over 30 new game titles on different platforms. Some highlights of this year’s indie releases include Death From Above by Rockodile—a timely war game set in the Ukrainian frontlines, Finnish Army Simulator by Please Be Patient—a satirical take on army experiences familiar to hundreds of thousands of Finns, and Lempo by One Trick Entertainment—a psychological horror game inspired by Finnish mythology.
The biggest industry news and milestone in the Finnish Game Industry in the past year was the acquisition of Rovio by Sega. Major investments also flowed into local game industry companies, with e.g. Noice securing $21M for a livestreaming and multiplayer gaming platform.
The local game industry is distinguished by our unique tradition of sharing and innovation. An excellent example of industry-wide co-operation is Pelimetsä, the first CO2 footprint calculator in the world tailored for game studios, launched in Beta last year. Neogames keeps following the local industry’s development. Our latest edition of the Finnish Game Industry Report is available on our website at www.neogames.fi
- Solip’s Comic episode of “bilateral learning experience” to both game devs who come to Finland and who are already in Finland