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
Teemu Haila is a finnish student soon starting his second year in TPU (Tampere Polytechnic University). Teemu's major is interactive design, which basically includes a little bit of every aspect of creating interactive media, from graphics to script writing. Aside from his studies he likes the occasional doze of drawing, playing drums, taking pictures of the life around, bicycling, chilling out with friends and doing purely nerdy stuff. He is also propably listening to (DRM-less) music while doing any of the previous.
Sonja (Kangas) is working at the EGET as a game designer. She also does research and process development at her own company SoupLaLa in cooperation with game developers, console manufacturers and media houses. Sonja was asked to join IGDA Finland crew to organize IGDA Finland Presentations because she is one of the most acknowledged game researchers in Finland. She was an editor of first book about digital games written in Finnish (Mariosofia - Elektronisten pelien kulttuuri). She also did an extensive benchmarking study on mobile entertainment comparing Europe with North America and APAC in 2003. IGDA is about having fun and networking but it can also be an opportunity to learn from other professionals of the industry. Sonja sees IGDA as an excellent forum to reinforce the creative power of game developers and improve the industry.
