Preliminary Dates for 2007-2008 Season

Hi everybody! These are the preliminary dates for next year. Mark them down in your calendar, but be sure to check back here regularly for any changes!

Fall 2007: August 28th September 11th October 9th November 13th December 11th

Spring 2007: January 8th February 5th (Ski holidays?) March 11th April 8th May 6th June 10th

These dates have been laid trying to avoid all major holidays and special events in Finland as well as all major games industry events world-wide. If you spot any conflicts, let us know early and we can try to adjust the dates. One thing worth of note is also that February date has not yet been checked against ski holidays in Southern Finland.

In addition to that we've tried to space them out evenly (except for August-September, which are close due to many people being still on holidays in August).

We've received a lot of feedback to pick a more regular time of month and we've tried to do that also. If the opportunity after all this existed to put them on 2nd Tuesday of each month, we did just that, but as you can imagine not many of them actually made that day anymore due to theese other considerations :).

Jyri - Lead Chapter Coordinator

June Gathering - Opportunity to Play First Ever Finnish Xbox360 Title "Flatout Ultimate Carnage" Before Street Date

The season ending June gathering continued the strong attendance streak with 115 attendees! It seems that the summer vacations had started and some regular visitors had escaped to their summer cottages already.

This time it was Flatout Ultimate Carnage that was being showcased via an xbox 360 demobooth with a playable copy of the game few days before it's official street date.

There was a constant line of people wanting to get their hands on the game and the game was clearly the main topic of the gathering. The crowd consisted of strong console game company presence and amidst the international visitors this time there were people from Sega Europe.

For more photos click HERE

It was easy to see that the new law is now in effect, banning smoking inside bars & clubs. This caused a constant flow of people to the terrace outside of Public Corner and back to System Rock. At least the air is fresh from now on and non-smokers are happier to stay longer.

Special thanks to all the volunteers who showed up early to setup the demobooth! Thanks to you the event was a another huge success! Big thanks also to good folks at Microsoft for supplying us with the demostation! -Miikka Luotio

May Gathering - After Action Report

The May gathering managed to hit the high-score for number of attendees for the year so far with 150 attendees!

Not even the gorgeous sunshine and nice warm summer day outside could keep the crowds away. Once inside, it was quite clear what brought all the people in: the exclusive chance to play the new PS3 title from Housemarque, Super Stardust HD.

For more photos click HERE

The game naturally took the center stage at the Gathering. The queue to play it was constant and the crowd circled around the main event all night long. The gathering went on until wee hours of the night and seemed that people stayed in quite late this time.

-Miikka Luotio

April Gathering - After Action Report

April gathering turned out to be quite exciting and attendance rose up to 121 attendees this time - that's the biggest crowd we have ever had for a non-sponsored event! One of the most obivous new things were the new Elvis pinball machine right next to the reception desk. Also we had a sneak preview of the Flatout Ultimate Carnage in the form of an intro movie. Not suprisingly, Flatout Ultimate Carnage became the most common conversation topic of the night. It was clear to see that console developers were very well represented, there was quite a lot of Bugbear and Remedy folks attending the gathering this month. There were also a couple of foreign visitors, one from Sega Europe, one from Nordic Games.

For more photos click HERE

There was also a student group from Tampere in attendance, who were interested in setting up first Finnish IGDA Student Game Development Club. Besides Tampere there was also people from Oulu. ELVI project people were looking for suggestions for speakers to a small game dev conference in Oulu. It was also nice to see IGDA Volunteers playing a lot of DS together!

-Miikka Luotio

March Gathering - After Action Report

The March gathering started slowly but surely. At the end we had 92 people who attended the March gathering. That's below our season average, but better than last time! Jyri had brought the award from GDC'07 IGDA Luncheon for everyone to see and touch. Many people seemed to still be in a slight jetlag state. GDC highlights were a common discussion topic, many seemed worried about the size of GDC growing and how hard it was to hook up with contacts now that Fairmont was no more. Good replacement didn't seem to surface this year yet. But every one seemed to agree that there was loads of good lectures again.

For more photos click HERE

This time there was quite a lot people from Digital Chocolate who came to offer farewell drinks to a developer moving abroad. Bugbear boys also made it despite their end crunch on Flatout Ultimate Carnage, they seemed to be in need of beer and stayed late.

In handheld gaming side, there was quick and brutal DS match in Advance Wars: Dual strike between Helsinki and Tampere. (Tampere won)

-Miikka Luotio