Nour Khrais' lecture in G&S on Tue 16.1 at 17:15

Nour Khrais' lecture in Games and Storytelling on Tue 16 Jan at 17:15 "Mobile game "glocalization"" on the basis of the experiences of Nour Khrais' game company experiences on the Middle East and European market:

http://www.gamesandstorytelling.net/Khrais-lecture-2007.html

Venue: University of Art and Design Helsinki, Media Centre Lume, Sampo auditorium. Videoconference venue in Tampere: University of Tampere, lecture hall 1096, PinniB, Kanslerinrinne 1.

Nour Khrais is founder and general manager of Maysalward R&D (MRD) Mr Khrais has over 6 years of experience in Mobile Value Added Services in International business environment both from the VAS platform infrastructures and Service provider Side. Prior to forming Maysalward R&D and in early 1999 Mr Khrais Joined ACOTEL/Info2cell Content Business Development Team where shortly he was nominated to be head of the Team operating between Dubai and Jordan offices covering the Middle East and North Africa Market and focusing in developing value added services for the operators in the region. In 2001 Khrais decided to explore a new experience and Joined SWAPCOM France a leader in Mobile Infrastructure VAS platforms where KHRAIS was responsible for the Middle East Market launching successfully for Al JAZEERA TV NETWORK their Mobile Platform AL JAZEERA MOBILE. Nov 2003 a dream comes true and Maysalward R&D was founded under the vision of Mr Khairs who decided to launch a Mobile Content Hub to the first Mobile Game Developer in the Middle East Region offering unique and localized content targeting the Middle East Europe and Latin American Markets. Nour Khairs is based between operational offices in Strasbourg, Dubai and Jordan and he holds a Master of Business Administration and Bsc of Agriculture Engineering. His passion for Games and entertainment enforced with strong business vision and management in mobile value added services guarantee the success and uniqueness of product and services production.

Free admittance.

Welcome!

The lecture is in English. Further information: Juhani Tenhunen juhani.tenhunen at lume.fi

http://www.gamesandstorytelling.net

December gathering appears in nintendo.fi

One of our December sponsors Amo Oy (Nintendo) decided to put IGDA Finland gathering in the news of nintendo.fi site. Last time we were mentioned in nintendo.fi was when we showed off some DS Lite action in our gathering.This time it was the Wii that broke the news barrier. We also broke the news barrier with December gathering in igda.org frontpage!

nintendo.fi article: http://www.nintendo.fi/?file=424

January Gathering - 23rd January 2007

Finnish Game Developers! Holidays are over and Finnish winter has been exceptionally depressing this year - unless one likes rain that is. But first IGDA Gathering of the year is here to bring you some joy. After an exceptional fall term, it is time to start the Spring half of our 2006-2007 season. No big programming this month, just good company, good conversations and cool beer.

IGDA FINLAND JANUARY GATHERING Place: System Rock, Keskuskatu 4, 00100 Helsinki (map) Time: Tuesday 23rd January, doors open at 19.00

Don't forget to bring your handheld consoles!

Come one, come all! Jyri - IGDA Finland Chapter Coordinator

Fall 2006 - Tremendous Growth for IGDA Finland

With Average Attendance of 146, Final Figures for Fall of 2006 Show Tremendous Growth for IGDA Finland It has been a great fall and our 2006-2007 season is off to a great start. In the last 5 months, we have organized 5 gatherings, the last two of them with sponsoring. In December we had our most labour intensive program to organize in IGDA Finland history, in cooperation with AMD, AMO / Nintendo Suomi and Samsung. Looking at the numbers, I can only be happy with the results of our group of volunteers.

When compared to last year figures during the same period, we have achieved some considerable growth in attendance. In the Fall 2005, our average attendance was 98.75 attendees/gathering. This fall it has been 146.4 attendees/gathering. That's a growth of almost 50%! Even if we exclude the attendance numbers from sponsored gatherings, we have still achieved 45% growth in average attendance.

We have also managed to grow the number of actual IGDA memberships. In July 2006, IGDA Finland had 162 members. By the end of the year, we now have 180 members! That's huge! That means Finland is #5 country in IGDA memberships, behind such game industry heavy weights such as US, Canada, UK and Japan.

This fall also saw the re-launch of igda.fi, with all it's improvements. The website is not only better looking, but we have managed to update it more regularly and provide more interesting content for it. Since the release of the new website we have seen a rapid growth month to month: from 213 unique visitors per month in August to whopping 1022 in December. Truly remarkable progress, which really validates that the website re-launch has been a huge success!

And last but not least, we have grown the size of the invitation mailing list as well. In July 2006, we had 541 people on the list, now we have 587.

Here are all of these afore-mentioned stats in pure numbers:

Average Attendance - Fall 2005: 98.75 - Fall 2006: 146.40 - growth: 48.25% Average Attendance w/o sponsored gatherings - Fall 2005: 72.00 - Fall 2006: 104.33 - growth: 44.90% Memberships - Summer 2006: 162 - End of year 2006: 180 - growth: 11.11% Size of invitation mailing list: - Summer 2006: 541 - End of year 2006: 587 - growth: 8.5%

- Jyri Ranki, Lead Coordinator

Jackpot for Finnish Developers in IGN Best of 2006 Awards!

This year Finnish developers have really hit a homerun on IGN Best of 2006 Awards. Finnish developed games gathered an impressive 9 wins across all categories on all platforms. In addition, Finnish developed games managed to gather another 8 mentions as Runner-Ups for a total of 17 nominations! Digital Chocolate also won the Best Developer in Wireless - in no small part thanks to Sumea, I'm sure. With the overall category winners still to be announced, I have a feeling there might still be more to come at least on the Wireless platform (Wireless Game of the Year?) ...

Congratulations to all winners: Sumea, Bugbear, Rovio & Universomo!

Here are the stats: (unofficial compilation - my apologies for any possible mistakes!)

* By Game (Nominations : category wins / Runner-Up positions) *

5 : 2 / 3 - Tornado Mania (Sumea) 4 : 2 / 2 - Flatout 2 (Bugbear) 2 : 2 / 0 - Nightclub Empire (Sumea) 2 : 1 / 1 - Mafia Wars Yakuza (Sumea) 1 : 1 / 0 - Mini Golf Magic (Sumea) 1 : 1 / 0 - Rollercoaster Rush (Sumea/Universomo) 1 : 0 / 1 - Beach Ping Pong (Sumea) 1 : 0 / 1 - Darkest Fear (Rovio) 17 : 9 / 8 - TOTAL

* By Company (Nominations : category wins / Runner-Up positions) *

12 : 7 / 5 - Sumea ( + Developer of the Year) 4 : 2 / 2 - Bugbear 1 : 1 / 0 - Universomo 1 : 0 / 1 - Rovio 18 : 10 / 8 - TOTAL (*1)

*1: Rollercoaster Rush has been awarded to both Sumea & Universomo in this one, that's why numbers are bigger when calculated per company. *2: 1 more Digital Chocolate game made it to Runner-Up, but it was not developed in Finland, so I didn't count that in.

- Jyri Ranki, Lead Coordinator