Weekly News 9

Play Finland’s Weekly Newsletter

In this report we will combine week 9/2021 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:

• PG offers to PlayFinland members a 20% discount on tickets to those classes. Tickets are currently 50% off in total with our Early Bird prices.
  More information about the MasterClasses here behind the link. The discount code for those MasterClasses: MediaPartners20
  • 9th March PG MasterClass:
    • Understanding The Market Through External Data & Tools (Online)
    • Using Data in Game Design, with Brett Bauer
  • 10th 9th March PG MasterClass:
    • How (and When) To Save a Failed Game, with Oscar Clark
    • Game Economy Design, with Nick Murray
  • 11th March PG MasterClass:
    • Game User Experience: Making your games more fun and profitable, with Jason Schklar
• 10th March – and continue all the way to the end of May. Quantum Games 2021 goes Twitch – public lectures open for everyone! Register here
• 15-19th March GDC showcase is going all virtual this year.
• 25th March XR Nation: AWE Nite Northern XR: Spotlight on Sweden
• 29th March Games Now! open lecture series at Aalto University; “Fostering Playful Experiences with Wearables” (online)
• March 2021(Date tbc) British Academy Games Awards
  • Tuesday 2 March 2021 – Nominations announced
  • March 2021 (Date tbc) – British Academy Games Awards
• 19-20th April PGC Digital #6
• 21-22nd April Finland Games Job Fair
• 6-7th April Global Games Pitch ’21 – PC and Console
• 19th April Games Now! open lecture series at Aalto University; “Next Generation of Interactive Streaming” (online)
• 3rd May Games Now! open lecture series at Aalto University; “Art of Learning by Doing – The Great Game Jam Panel” (online)
• 26-28 May Nordic Game Conference
  • You’ll get a free ticket for a friend/colleague if you register before 31 March!
• 12-16 July PGC London 2021
• 19th-23rd of July GDC 2021
• 28th Sept – 1st Oct PGC Helsinki 2021
• 14-15th October W Love Games
  • SUBMIT A TALK
  • SUBMIT A WORKSKOP
  • The recorded sessions from W Games 2020 are now available on website

See also The Game Industry Events calendar Game Conference Guide Calendar Flemish Game association calendar

 Announcements:

• Vungle Acquires Finnish GameRefinery, a Leading Mobile Game Analytics Company.
• Seriously’s Petri Järvilehto takes over CEO role.
• Neogames is updating the Finnish (active) Game Developers company list on our site. Make sure that your company is listed!

 Discussion

• Licia Prehn asks Has your company, or a Finnish company that you are aware of, ever taken inspiration from the player community regarding diversity initiatives within the company? Or, has your diverse player base helped re-enforce your company’s vision for diversity?
• Saku Vesamäki is looking for feedback to his first game release

💰 Funding

• If you have plans to apply for the Digidemo grant, please note that there is just one deadline this year, 30.3.2021. The Autumn round is canceled 😔 (Article in Finnish only)

 New releases 

• Pako Caravan is now available for Nintendo Switch!
• Sekvensoft’s first game, Irradiant Core is out on Android!

Other News 

• Nutfarm Games has signed a new deal and secured funding for Children of the Eclipse!
• The five-year journey of Hill Climb 2 and how Fingersoft is already prepping for a third
• XR Nation Citizen’s Spotlight: Anarky Labs
• Miska Katkoff tells about his vision and Savage Games (also about IDFA) in Helsingin Sanomat (Article in Finnish only)
• The Finnish Game Incubator 2021 Online Demo Day VOD is now available here and with handy timestamps(!) on YouTube! Check out the 7 pitches and all the game hub news from the video

• GameRefinery analysts and partners have gathered their thoughts and opinions on all this year’s Mobile Gamedev Awards winners in a report to provide a snapshot of all the winning games, including a top-level overview of the features and events that made them stand out amongst the competition
• The Pegasus Expedition by Kalla Gameworks is presenting their Indiegogo campaign.
• Jukka Laakso together with Sami Lehtinen is joining Aalto University’s Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, where Finnish researchers are developing game that eases depression symptoms.
• Solip Park recently started a web-comic project titled “Game Expats Story – season 1,” based on the stories of expatriates/immigrants making games in Finland.  If you are also an international in Finland making games, and want to take part of this project — then do sign-up for interview
• Returnal – Gameplay Overview | State of Play:

• An article (in Finnish) about e-sports and what Supercell has been building around it’s games. Chief Pat and Supercell’s Kim Jensen and Jannica Routamo interviewed.