September Gathering was a solid success & Presentation drew in a full auditorium!

This time IGDA Finland gathering started differently because the evening begun with "IGDA Finland Presentations" at Pääposti Auditorium. The theme of the first ever session was money. We were positively surprised of the plentiful and versatile audience. There were a little over 60 persons present from students to business developers and game designers. It was also good to notice how the "IGDA Finland Presentations" attracted people who have never been at the pub nights but found "Presentations" a comfortable way to join the gathering. Some practicalities were still looking for their place but otherwise things went well. The speakers at the first session were Erik Robertson from Nordic Game Program, Ilari Kuittinen from Housemarque and Timo Vuorensola from Energia Productions.

Gathering attendees: 124 Presentation attendees: 60-70

Photos from Presentation - Small photos - Large photos Photos from Gathering - Small photos - Large photos

Erik Robertson reminded people to apply funds from Nordic Game Program. The deadline for the applications is 15th October. Erik also presented funded projects from previous rounds and reminded that one company can send more than one application but only one project per company can be funded. The applications should not be “too professional” and definitely no sequels. More information HERE.

The second speaker was Ilari Kuittinen who is the CEO of Housemarque and chairman of Finnish Game Developers Association. Ilari talked about downloadable console games. Housemarque’s first PS3 title Super Stardust HD came out in June this year and has been one of the most successful PS3 downloadable titles within the last months. In his talk, Ilari focused on future trends of the market. He admitted that casual games trend is reflecting to the downloadable console market as well and believed downloadable console games will be a huge market in the future.

Currently Bejeweled and Zuma are the best-seller casual games. There are a lot of fuzz going on around casual games. For example EA just founded a new division for casual games development. What comes to the “killer titles” for downloadable console market Ilari sees that the hard core of downloadable console games is not casual games. Currently Super Stardust and Warhawk are closest to the core. Ilari also mentioned that Housemarque is working on their new project for Xbox Live. The game will come out in 2008.

Timo Vuorensola directed popular sci-fi comedy Star Wrek a few years back. Now Energia Productions is doing their second movie titled Iron Sky. Finlandia awarded sci-fi author Johanna Sinisalo is doing the script for the movie. Energia Production would also like to make Iron Sky game or even several games but they have no clue how to do it. So he talked about their production in development and asked for help from game developers. If all goes well, they would like to make three games: one before the movie comes out, one at the same time and one after. Johanna Sinisalo would do the script for the game but all other details are not clear. Timo asked game developers to help Iron Sky team! How to make a game, how much would it cost, how long time would it take, what platforms… All help is highly appreciated and should be channeled to Timo.

After IGDA Finland Presentations it was pub night as usual. 124 enthusiasts attended casual beer & hang around at the System Rock. All "IGDA Finland Presentations" speakers joined the pub night, stayed late and hopefully got new perspectives and ideas for their work! It was also very nice to see that the number of girls is on the rise. We had fun – hope to see you again next time!

Written by Sonja Kangas Formatted and posted by Miikka Luotio Photos by Juho Niittyniemi

2007-2008 Season Started With A Bang - 125 Showed Up

After the relaxing summer break well-tanned game developers were full of eagerness at the IGDA August Gathering in System Rock on 28th August. This time 125 attendees joined the party. Digital Chocolate and Bugbear were especially well represented! Also professionals from Remedy, Red Lynx and Recoil were there. It was cool to see students from Tampere joining the party as well! I hope they will turn IGDA trips into tradition and act as an example to people from other cities as well. This is IGDA Finland after all!

This time a survey was put out regarding “IGDA Finland Presentations” series which is due to start in September. Thank you all who filled the survey! It’s highly appreciated!

We will arrange two IGDA Finland Presentations sessions this fall. We are doing these activities for you so it is really up to you whether the sessions will continue or not. We’ll get the lessons learned from the survey as well as from the first session within a few weeks! I personally hope people would see IGDA Finland Presentations as a golden opportunity to benefit the community as well as learn from the other professionals.

Note: Due a technical issue with the IGDA camera, we have only 2 cameraphone quality photos of the event. Apologies.

- Sonja Kangas

Chapter Coordinator

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