January Gathering: Tuesday 13th

Happy New Year 2009!

What’s happening in 2009? What surprises we will see? Which Finnish game titles will come out? Which companies will be going to the GDC or Nordic Game Conference? Come to the IGDA Gathering to hear the latest buzz and hottest topics on January 13th at Cuba Café.

IGDA FINLAND JANUARY GATHERING Place: Cuba Café, Erottajankatu 4, 00120 Helsinki (map) Time: Tuesday, January 13th, doors open at 19:00

P.S. NOTE TO EVENT CALENDAR SUBSCRIBERS! We have an issue with the date and to some users the event might show up a week early in their calendars. For this reason, we want to point out that the event is indeed on January 13th, NOT on January 6th! We apologise for any inconvenience.

December Gathering: Santa's little helpers storm the house!

[singlepic=319,320,240,,center] Once again Finnish developers sheltered from our awful December weather in the warm and cozy Cuba bar at Erottaja. Imagine the surprise as on sign up they were transformed as Santa's little helpers with free hats, cookies, drinks and gaming! In a moments of notice we had 154 little fellows running around and cherishing the magic of christmas games rush. Pictures say more than words, so browse our gallery for some insider feed on what everyone was talking about the next day.

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Our generous sponsor for the evening was once again Nokia who needs little introduction with their new N-Gage platform pushing onward full steam and as a long time developer of mobile gaming solutions. Even more, the December gathering saw Little Big Planet enchanting visitors as kindly provided by Sony! There was a constant flow of people itching to dress up their character and have fun with three other players at a time. They probably spent more time waving their arms and making funny faces to each other than actually advancing in levels!

As a part of christmas magic we got a healthy bunch of new voluteers to join our ranks and held secret meetings for more awesomeness during the upcoming second half. Speaking for the whole IGDA Finland chapter team, we wish everyone a merry christmas and a lot of games for presents. You have earned it!

GDC 2009 Scholarships Notification

The IGDA Student Scholarship Program for GDC09 is now underway! If you're a student interested in the field, be sure not to miss out the opportunity to meet the big guys of the gaming industry in San Francisco, California next March! Through this program, if selected, you will receive a main conference pass with access to all sessions, roundtables and keynotes, an industry mentor that will introduce you around and a chance to visit a local studio and an orientation session as well. This is a big opportunity for anyone who is interested in getting his or her career off the ground! ;-)

If you want to know more about what's ahead, check out reports from previous winners, including Liz's report from 2007. It's also worth mentioning that there's a forum post from one of the judges, Mr. David Weinstein, giving an insight in the judging process. The deadline for all applications is Thursday, January 15th, 2009.

2007-2008 Season Report, part 2: IGDA Finland Growth Continues

Everyone! Welcome to the second part of this season report. You can find the previously published first part of the season report here.

During last season, which ended in summer 2008, IGDA Finland once again grew nicely. We didn't quite reach the 30% yearly growth as previous season, but that just might be because we're pretty much reaching the majority of the Finnish game industry by now. The latest published figures put the amount of jobs game industry jobs in Finland at around 1200-1300 (although this figure is from 2006 - we really need more up-to-date figures). During the season, our invitation mailing list grew 34% reaching 945 people and by the time of writing, we've already exceeded the 1000-mark!

Our membership grew to 235 by end of the season, which means we've doubled our membership in 3 years! Not only did it grew, but we had more individual full members than ever before, seeing both student members and individuals from affiliate studios moving to that category. While we appreciate the membership that we get through our affiliate studios and those of students, nothing spells commitment to IGDA more like people who decide to pay the full membership out of their own pocket. Most importantly, it also tells us we must be doing something right. :)

Last season our gatherings drew in a total of 1486 attendees averaging 135 attendees/gathering, both showing slight growth from last season. November gathering sponsored by Recoil broke the record they helped us set last year with a new attendance record of 243 attendees.

Here are some of the actual statistics of the last season: (Click on a chart image for a full-size version)

Membership Growth by Type

Membership Breakdown

Membership Profile Development

Monthly Gathering Attendance by Season

Growth of Mailing List

The first part of this three-part season report can be found here and the third part is here.

Joona and Lari

December Gathering: Tuesday 9th

Ho-Ho-Ho! Have you been a naughty or a nice game developer in 2008? We have heard rumors that Santa will be visiting the IGDA Gathering on the 9th of December. Santa will give drink tickets and gingerbread to all the nice game developers. Welcome to spend a merry-merry little X-mas party with us at Cuba Café!

IGDA FINLAND DECEMBER GATHERING Place: Cuba Café, Erottajankatu 4, 00120 Helsinki (map:http://igda.fi/?page_id=5) Time: Tuesday, 9th of December, doors open at 19:00