A report from Digiexpo 2006

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Digiexpo was held from 3. - 5.11 in Helsinki and, at least on Saturday, turned in an impressive crowd of entertainment electronics enthusiasts. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all had their booths set up in to lure prospective buyers to try out their latest wares.

Gears of War booth

Microsoft was showcasing several upcoming Xbox 360 titles on the show floor, but the most high profile one was Epics soon to be released Gears of War, which had an impressive stand separate from the other games. Electronic Arts was out in full force on the showfloor with a behemoth of a booth. Eager gamers got to test Need For Speed: Carbon for the 360 among other titles.

EA Games booth

Nintendo booth

Wii gaming

Nintendo had a small booth, where people could try out a few Wii and DS titles. As expected, the Wii games stole the show and the lines grew pretty long. The Zelda: Twilight Princess line was the longest and most people who got to play the game, took their sweet old time with it.

Playstation show

Playstation show

The Sony booth was swamped with eager gamers, waiting to get some alone time with the PS3 and its launch games. Sony held The Playstation Show through out the weekend a few times a day. They showcased the basic functionality of the PS3 there and the presenter played a few quick rounds of MotorStorm and Insomniacs FPS title Resistance: Fall of Man.

by Tommi Hartikainen

November Gathering - 21st November 2006

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Fellow Finnish Game Developers! A picture of our October Gathering made the front page of IGDA's international website (http://www.igda.org/) with associated text saying "Finnish Queue of Death". That means excellent international exposure among the international game development community, which can only be a positive thing to the whole Finnish game development scene. This visibility, combined with the fact that our average attendance has risen to 3-digit numbers this season means that Finnish game development is gaining momentum. Let's keep the momentum going - join us at System Rock for our November gathering, two weeks from now, on Tuesday as usual.

Place: System Rock, Keskuskatu 4, 00100 Helsinki (same place, System Club just changed it's name to System Rock) (see map at igda.fi gatherings page: http://igda.fi/?page_id=5) Time: Tuesday 21st November, doors open at 19.00

As further proof of that momentum, it gives me great pleasure to tell you all that a new high-profile game developer has just opened its doors in Finland! And to celebrate this moment, they have shown great generosity and have agreed to sponsor our November Gathering!

DRINK TICKETS WILL BE SPONSORED BY RECOIL GAMES! *

(* 5 tickets per person, while tickets last. Doors open at 19.00 sharp.)

Recoil Games is a new next-gen console/PC game studio founded by Samuli Syvähuoko and several other Finnish game industry veterans. The company is currently in stealth mode, but will use the IGDA meeting to lift the covers a bit. However, there will be no speeches or powerpoints - just people you can talk with :)

Oh, and Recoil will be offering snacks to the 100 first attendees as well. http://www.recoilgames.com/

Join us to celebrate the on-going growth of the Finnish game development community!

See you there! Jyri - IGDA Finland Chapter Coordinator

Site updates - November

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Greetings igda.fi readers! I am pleased to announce the following updates/additions to igda.fi site:

Featured "Insider" articles

We will soon have original content specifically written for this site. Igda.fi is going to feature a series of "Insider's look at Finnish Game Industry" articles! These articles will cover Finnish game companies, Finnish game industry figures as well as game developed in Finland. These articles will be written by IGDA Finland volunteers and will only be available on this website.

You can send your suggestions for which game, companies and personalities to feature in the future to: editor@igda.fi

If you want to become one fo the volunteers writing these articles, contact liz.fahey@igda.fi

Educational facilities added into Industry page

A list of educational facilities providing game industry training & education.

RSS feeds!

Now you can get truly live with igda.fi! Get live RSS feeds of the news feeds at igda.fi!

-Miikka Luotio, Webmaster

October Gathering - After Action Report

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On the day of the October Gathering, it was raining heavily. This gave us some cause for concern. Would that affect the attendance negatively? Apparently not. At 7p.m. sharp, there was already a queue at the door. If this was because of the rain, then we like rain! All in all, the final attendance figure for the gathering was 100 people in total.

For photos CLICK HERE

For a superb panorama shot by Mikko Lehtonen CLICK HERE For more photos by Mikko CLICK HERE Thank you Mikko for sending these in!

Again we had a good steady number in new visitors with 20 more people joining the mailing list. Amongst these there were people from ELVI project all the way from Oulu.

100 attendees was well in-line with the season average of 104 attendees per Gathering. During the same period last year, we averaged 74 attendees per Gathering. Time will tell if this autumn has been exceptionally active or if this is just natural effect caused by the steady growth in Finnish Game Industry jobs.

As all those that were present probably noticed, System Club has changed its face. System Club is now System Rock with new interiors and new music style. The pirate flags near the entrance were superb!

There was an unfortunate mix-up and the cloak room didn't open until 11.30p.n. this time, which caused a hefty pile of jackets near the entrance. We will try to prevent this of happening again in the future. Another nice detail was that there were many people that had brought their own cameras. If you think you have any good photos send them to our photography master Tommi Hartikainen

October Gathering - 24th October 2006

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Game developers & other IGDA enthusiasts! Fall is here, it's getting darker and colder and trees are loosing their leaves. But no need to despair, IGDA Gathering is here again to cheer up your fall! Come join us at System club for our October gathering, two weeks from today.

Place: System, Club, Keskuskatu 4, 00100 Helsinki (see map: HERE) Time: Tuesday 24th October, doors open at 7.00pm

As always, I expect quite a few people to bring their handheld consoles, DSs and PSPs, for some WiFi multiplayer action.

See you there! Jyri - IGDA Finland Chapter Coordinator