Play Finland’s Weekly Newsletter
In this report we will combine weeks 5/2024 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:
- 4th February composer Hideyuki Shima is having casual meetup to talk about game musics
- 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
Announcements:
- EGDF expresses its’ disappointment in Apple’s new install fee structure for game developers aiming to launch games and collect payments via third-party marketplaces and payment systems in iOS. Read the full statement
- Red Stage Entertainment got into a big list of Xbox Indie teams
Open jobs & Recruitment:
- In these uncertain times, many talented professionals are being affected by layoffs. If you find yourself in this situation, Games Factory Talents connecting Passion & Talentwant to share with you a their session recording from the Autumn #gamesjobfair. Using LinkedIn to find your next career opportunity. The importance of having a strong profile that catches recruiters’ attention is essential.
Unfortunately, many candidates miss essential elements that can decrease their chances of being called for an interview.
Watch Oleg Paliy’s session recording to learn how to “pimp up” your profile and increase your chances of landing your next career opportunity. Let’s make the most of the tools available to us in these challenging times.
Join Games Factory Talents connecting Passion & Talent at the upcoming Spring #GamesJobFair this April - 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
Other News
- Solip’s Comic special episode of Game Expats Story about We in Games Finland!
Special thanks to Essi Jukkala and other WiGFi board members who provided the advice for this episode - This week Makea Games turns 2 years old. They have grown dramatically since our inception in February 2022, not only in headcount (from 5 founders to 18 employees!) but also in ambition. Their first title Supermoves will release this year to Steam on PC, and they are opening up testing to all of the players eagerly anticipating the game this Monday 5th of February. Once they’re live, you’ll get a notification and can download and play the game right away from Steam next Monday!
- The first ever Digi & Game Center podcast is released
- Neogames Finland ry visited at
- Fingersoft’s office on Monday with Mari-Leena Talvitie, a member of the Finnish parliament and local city council as well as the future Minister of Science and Culture. Together with Jaakko Kylmäoja, Ville Rauma, and Susanna Solajoki from Fingersoft, Neogames Finland ry.‘s Chief Policy Advisor Jari-Pekka Kaleva discussed the current industry challenges with ms. Talvitie. In particular, they focused on different ways to invest in professional talent-building and game industry start-ups in Oulu. Furthermore, they discussed the various ways to smoothen up the talent immigration process in Finland and current European regulatory challenges.
- Colossal Order’s office on Monday with minister of Employment Arto Satonen. Minister Satonen works actively to support talent attraction to Finland and remove obstacles from talent immigration process. CEO Mariina Hallikainen led a tour of the office facilities and Neogames Finland ry. director Koopee Hiltunen provided in-depth insights into the distinctive challenges confronting the local game industry, especially concerning recruitment and local immigration policy.
- Living Game Intelligence Network Applications for the Incubation Track are now open! (Deadline is 18th February). Are you a game dev team or founder in the Helsinki area, looking to turn your passion into a successful game studio? Look no further! If you’re a team looking to become a company, a company less than a year old, a first-time founder, or thinking about becoming a founder soon, this is for you!
What they offer:
- Kickstart course
- A customized mix of mentoring, coaching, and other support
- Office spaces
- Community of game entrepreneurs and mentors
- All free of charge, no strings attached!
- Apply now and take the next step in your game dev journey!
- More information and link to the application
- Solip’s Comic special episode of Game Expats Story about worker’s unions in Finland. Do you know that there’s a workers’ union for game developers (incl. game expats)? Find out more in the next special episode of Game Expats Story about Game Makers of Finland
- Aalto University’s new masters programme in game (design) will start next Autumn. Applying (deadline is Feb 15th). Consider if you are interested in giving your career a boost (and ensuring that you have that masters diploma you have been thinking about getting). You will be growing your networks in three different countries as this program is international (the studies will be conducted in Portugal, Belgium and Finland).