Best New Nordic Talent Award still open!

Best New Nordic Talent Award celebrates the promising innovation and creativity of the Nordic development community. The award goes to a Nordic game project that has fulfilled the following criteria:

  • The project is created by a team where at least 80% are Nordic
  • The project is the first game created by the team
  • The project is near-release or have been released within the past 12 months (from March 2008 and onwards).


To be considered for short-listing, the project must be sent in seven (7) copies on DVD, with a written design manual, a short motivation describing the team, plus contact information attached.

To be short-listed for this award you have to send your game project to the Nordic Game Program (address below) before 10 March 2009.

The projects for the short-list will be decided by Nordic Game Program. The listed games will be evaluated by the Nordic Game Award jury.

The winners will receive the award during the Nordic Game Awards 2009, to be held on 19 May during the Nordic Game 2009 conference.

Projects for consideration should be sent to:

Nordic Game Program
Minc, Anckargripsgatan 3
SE - 211 19 Malmö, Sweden
Att: NGA Talent Award

Deadline is 10 March!

About Nordic Game Awards:
The Nordic Game Awards 2009 is organised by Nordic Game Program in cooperation with the following game producers’ associations in the region: Danish Producers' Association, Finnish Neogames, Norwegian Producers' Association and Spelplan-Association of Swedish Game Developers.

The award show will take place during the Nordic Game 2009 conference, 19-20 May in Malmö, Sweden. More info about NGA 09 and the conference will be available soon at www.nordicgame.com.

Interview with Samuli Pöyhtäri from Farmind

The highest density of game developers is in the southern Finland but also Oulu -- the mecca of death metal -- has vibrant game developers’ scene. Oulu has a few game studios, games related education and they also has development program titled ELVI in 2005-2007 to boost up new game companies in Oulu area. This time we will get to know a little bit more of a company named Farmind from Oulu. IGDA chatted with producer Samuli Pöyhtäri.

Samuli Pöyhtäri: - Background in programming and demo scene - Has worked as a software designer in various software companies - Started his game career at Digital Chocolate in Helsinki - Moved back to Oulu and founded Farmind - Working as a producer and running all Farming productions at the moment

Farmind was founded at the end of 2005. They started working full throttle at the beginning of 2006 with 10 people under the same roof. Currently they have 18 people and they are recruiting more to ramp up to about 20 to 22 people later this year.

According to Samuli: “Since day one, Farmind has been going strong on the handhelds with great success. We did the first Finnish PSP and DS games and since founding Farmind, we’ve worked on four different handheld games. We want to keep it that way, but in addition to handheld consoles, we’re moving on to Wii as well.”

In terms of genres, they are not tied with any particular genre. They have done anything and everything from poker and casual driving games to a puzzle game and an adventure title. That is their secret of keeping it fresh. But also, as a studio we’re in a point where we feel comfortable on taking a step further and so we’re going to move on to Wii as well.

Why did you come up with an idea of putting up the company at the first place?

At the time of thinking about founding Farmind, there were no game companies in our hometown Oulu. We didn’t want to move to Helsinki to make games so the only option to follow our passion was to set up our own company. We also knew that there were a lot of people like us in Oulu, stuck in jobs other than games, but still had the desire and passion for making games. That’s where it all started.

What is your favorite Farmind game at the moment and why?

Wacky Races: Crash & Dash, the NDS version we did. I mean, you’re as good as your last game and I think we did such a great job with that game. However, I still like the previous games we did (WSOP and Puzzle Scape) and I’m really proud of them as well.

Game developers often live from a project to project. What are your main sources for funding?

At the moment, all our income comes from development advances, from the publishers. At the very beginning we as the founders of the company put a lot of money to the company by ourselves. At some point, we applied for funding from Tekes (Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation) which helped us to survive and we’re most grateful for that. There are also some loans from Finnvera (Financing services for internationalization) and the bank.

What are the biggest challenges for a young game studio in your opinion?

For us, I think, it was the first publishing deal. We went after it for a quite long time and actually with two different publishe gatherings are always in Helsinki, we attend the gatherings rarely. For us, the most useful resource is the forums that keep us up to date on the local as well as the international level.

Funding is also a very hard issue. We paid the beginning ourselves and we paid it from our backs because without a publishing deal, your income is zero and costs just keep running. You have to trust yourself and your partners and truly believe in what you’re doing to make that kind of commitments in terms of time and money. And most of all, you got to work really, really hard. I mean, it’s not like we set up the studio and out of nothing, or with luck, closed a publishing deal after another, we worked our asses to achieve that.

You are based in Oulu - How much location matters in good or bad?

I think in terms of the games industry as a whole, it doesn’t matter that much that we’re based in Oulu. When looking at the gamedevmap, we’re the most northern game studio in the world! Being a game development company means that you’re born global. Especially in Finland, we do not have domestic markets, so we have to go out to the world on the very first day.

Oulu is a university city so we have a reasonable talent pool to recruit from. But obviously, the level of experience is not quite the same as it is in someplace else. We’ve recruited some of the most talented people in Oulu, but with the current positions we have open, we’re also looking candidates from abroad. Being experienced is really important for us in order grow as a team and a studio.

One good thing about Oulu, compared to for e.g. Helsinki or other European cities, is that the costs are a bit less here. That given, Oulu can offer better quality of life (relatively, your money goes further here).

Networking is the keyword at the moment. Game developers are relatively well networked, partly thanks to IGDA. Have you find IGDA useful for you?

As the IGDA gatherings are always in Helsinki, we attend the gatherings rarely. For us, the most useful resource is the forums that keep us up to date on the local as well as the international level.

You have also attended game industry events such as GDC. How do you find that event from business perspective?

From business perspective, I think GDC is not the best. You run around from building to another and try to navigate through the chaos of having gazillion people doing the same thing. Business-wise, we prefer the smaller and more focused events. One of the best ones is the Game Connection in Lyon every December which is specifically aimed for developers and publishers to meet. Also the Nordic Game has a good atmosphere.

What is your biggest dream as a game developer?

Money, fame and girls of course! All kidding aside, we want to build our studio to be a well established and professional company that makes quality games and that people enjoy and can be proud working here. We’ve accomplished something good already and we want to keep growing, learning and be better in every field we work in.

That was interesting, thanks a lot Samuli and best of luck with Farmind! I hope you have time for a relaxing summer vacation as well!

Interview by: Sonja Kangas

Nordic Game Conference: Finland scored well!

Nordic Game conference was held on 14.-15. May in Malmö, Sweden. This was the fifth anniversary with a renewed focus on professional content and an emphasis on the Nordic region’s role as a global innovator, and forth Nordic Game conference for me. All in all IGDA Finland chapter had a strong presence at the conference with two advisory board members: Aki and Lasse, Sonja (coordinator), Teemu (webmaster) as well as our top class volunteers Vesa-Matti and Jenni. The conference has grown strongly from year to year from a small event with only a few hundred participants (it was called Nordic Game Potential back then) to this year's full scale conference together with large career expo, attracting over 1200 attendees. Fifth anniversary was momentous for Finnish game scene because there was record number of visitors from Finland including high number of students. On top of that Finnish developers really scored well at the latest round of Nordic Game Development Program. There were 75 development support applications out of which 19 were from Finland. At the end four out of eight funded projects were Finnish! Congratulations to Frozenbyte (Splot), Housemarque (Rope), Everyplay (Groove) and Kloonigames (Crayon Physics Deluxe)! The next funding round will be in fall 2008, be prepared!

Other possibility to shine in front of a big audience would be to put out an outstanding game during this year and get nominated for the Nordic Game Awards! Last Wednesday the Nordic Game awards were handed out for the second time. Best Nordic game of the year was World in Conflict by Massive Entertainment. Massive defeated Housemarque's Super Stardust HD just slightly, where as Massive got the fortune and the fame, Housemarque got a special mention :).

Nordic Game conference provided quality keynotes focusing on developing software and hardware in parallel for the Rock Band game (congrats to Olli-Matti Rautiainen from Outokumpu Pelitalo who was the lucky winner of a Rock Band set!). The other keynote focused on Lego Star Wars and Indiana Jones titles and dealt with challenges when working with license owners such as Lego and Lucas Arts. Lego Star Wars series has achieved sales of 18 million units to date. Besides big development processes also casual games were well in the view. Panel discussions focused around Freerice type of serious games, poking at the Facebook, Wikipedia as MMO etc. One thing evident though is that non-gamers are here to stay and Nintendo Wii is just the start.

WidSets Developer Competition

dev.widsets.com is announcing a developer competition! widsets

According to them, Widsets developer team is looking for game developers to try out their platform. There seems to be plenty of room to show your skills so why not! Anybody from indie to corporate are welcome! Apparently there is only roughly two weeks time left so hurry up!

More details from competition HERE and the developer kit from dev.widsets.com

What is Widsets?

With WidSets you can get your favorite web content straight to your mobile phone. Find news and information, stay in touch with email and blogs, play games, share pictures and more. WidSets uses mini-applications called widgets to push updates from your favorite sites directly to your phone. Why waste time surfing for information when WidSets can do it for you?

Finnish Games Association joins ISFE

http://www.figma.fi/

http://www.isfe-eu.org/

Europe's Interactive Software Federation announced that the Finnish Games and Multimedia Association is the 26th member to join the ISFE.

FIGMA counts eleven members in its association, all of them big software companies operating on the Finnish market," said Patrice Chazerand, secretary general of the ISFE.

Its presence in the ISFE strengthens the industry's voice in Europe. It will help us do several things: push on with our mission to secure effective legislation for the protection of intellectual property rights, achieve adequate enforcement of the legislation and win unrestricted market access both on and off line.

I am delighted to announce that with the arrival of the Finns virtually the entire Nordic block is now on board."

ISFE membership will bring my member companies more scope to get their voices heard by the legislators in areas such as intellectual property, e-commerce, the fight against piracy, WTO negotiations, protection of minors and the environment," said FIGMA's Managing Director, Riku Olkkonen.

The members of FIGMA include AMO/Nintendo, Atari, Electronic Arts, K.E. Media, Microsoft/Xbox, Nokia, Nordisk Film/PlayStation, Plan 1, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Toptronics/PAN Vision, and Vivendi Games.

The ISFE was established in 1998 and represents the interests of the interactive software sector throughout the 27 EU Member States plus Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It has been running the Pan-European Game Information ratings system since 2003.

XNA Game Studio European Tour 2007 liveblogging

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14:30 Dave

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* Dave explains the common things/tips to notice when starting a studio or just trying to get into game industry to make games * Dave moves on explaining goals of XNA * XNA goals as follows; Make it easier, Establish a vibrant community, low friction publishing channel for community games * XNA wants to establish itself as a tool to democratize game development * 700,000 downloads of toolset now, Adopted by more than 300 universities worldwide, More than 400 games (XNA Express 1.0) * Dave explains XNA as a robust educational platform & shows an example project (Aliens) that works from desktop computer using 360 controller * Dave explains XNA creators club, starter kit. Example games given with this kit, of all major genres. Shows off template functionality of XNA 2.0 briefly & shows off a template example project that users can dissect and modify freely. He continues showing a just compiled game deployed to 360 console. Looks and works exactly the same way in PC and 360.

15:00 Dave * Dave continues to explain minigames and samples provided in starter kit. Variety seems endless here. He shows off how to investigate components of the game in real-time, like a chase-camera and prototype how it works. * Dave shows off a visual game-like programming app called Boku that was made by Microsoft research, aimed towards kids. Apparently made with XNA, Boku allows you basically to create small games & interaction via a very simple programming interface. Microsoft wanted to use XNA to have fast iteration in the project. * Dave shows off Schizoid as an example. * He shows off examples from an XNA Dream.Build.Play competition, no Finland in competition apparently. Many of them games were done by one person or just a very small team. A lot of student projects also. * Dave said they will be doing the Dream.Build.Play again on December 08. * Dave showed off a Swedish made game Ragu, again wondering where is Finland. Ragu was one of the games in Dream.Build.Play competition. * Dave mentions about Imagine Cup 2008, a game development contest lobbying students to join since it's only for students. Game development is a new category in Imagine Cup 2008. * X360 XNA development will be free for students in near future apparently also and not only faculty members. * Dave thanks the university and wraps up * Jyri Ranki prepares his presentation > The presentation will be show with video and published to internet later on

15:30 Jyri

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* Jyri explains his experience and agenda & the company he comes from * Jyri briefly goes trough an overview of Finnish game industry companies & famous games made in Finland. * Jyri moves into explaining about IGDA Finland. * He explains a basic cut-through of a basic console game development cycle & a sample org.chart with explaining roles in more detail. * Jyri talks on how to get into the industry and what is required to get in the industry.

16.00 Charles Cox

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* Game in 60 minutes example

17:20 Break

17:45 Charles

* Charles goes more indepth with XNA 2.0 features * Button press deployment to XBOX360, builds and transfers it. * Allows you to use older "any" version of visual studio * Button press WINDOWS/XBOX live support * On Windows and XBOX you can store profiles (use it to save game and use other similar features) * Get the beta at creators.xna.com today! Final version avail. very soon!

* It's a wrap!

IGDA Finland gets a new student club - Score

Score is an IGDA student club that goes deep into video gamedev and is also formally known as TAMK University of Applied Sciences Game Development Club. Score aims to be the very first Finnish Student game development club of IGDA. Got Score?

The idea of Score was founded in the beginning of the year 2007 and the constitutive meeting, also as the first official meeting was held in August 18th.

The head of Score is called ”Scoreboard”, the members of which were voted in the first meeting. Scoreboard consists of four members: president, vice president, board member and secretary. Predictably, Teemu Haila, the founder of Score was voted as the president. Juho Hartikainen was voted as the vice president, Niko Kosonen as board member and Essi Nieminen as Score's secretary. The whole Scoreboard happens to consist of second year Interactive designers.

Score has almost 30 members, 15 of whom can be considered as active. The majority of Score members are from Tampere's universities and the age distribution is from 18 right up to 30. Score membership isn't dependable on being student. The most important thing is desire to work within games and especially gamedev.

Score aims high

Even though Score is brand new as an association and everything had to be started from the scratch, aims the first project reasonably high: 20-minute-lasting FP(S) horrorgame, Frayed. As most of the Score members study in TTVO (The School of Art and Media), setting for the videogame production is fairly decent.

Most of Score members creating Frayed have no formal training on gamedev. One of Score's main goals is to give its members a chance to improve and gather skills to become for example a game developer, game designer, producer or graphic designer for real – Score wants to make an effort to initiate its members into gamedev as a possible and desirable future career.

More information on Score itself and its projects and actions can be found on http://score.igda.fi

Writer: Essi Nieminen / Score secretary

From the web: IGDA proposes game credits standards

Credits Standards Committee chair to speak at GDC 08 The International Game Developers Association is pushing for an industry-wide adoption of professional standards in game credits.

A public "beta" of the proposed IGDA standards was posted online for member feedback in September, but the issue has recently come to the forefront with the news that Rockstar Vienna was snubbed in the credits for Manhunt 2.

"Accurate, complete, and fair credits are essential to ongoing employment, professional development, and artistic fulfillment for all developers," said the IGDA's executive director Jason Della Rocca.

"Further, having accurate credits helps employers make informed hiring decisions."

The IGDA has established a Credit Standards Committee with the goal of establishing generally accepted guidelines that all studios and publishers can use.

John Feil, the chair of this committee, will be hosting a roundtable session during the 2008 Game Developers Conference entitled "The IGDA Credits Movement: The Revolution Is Already Here.

Article from GamesIndustry.Biz

XNA Game Studio European Tour 3.12.2007

xna Microsoft and Helsingin Yliopiston Tietojenkäsittelytieteen Opiskelijajärjestö are organizing an XNA Game Studio presentation in Helsinki. It is part of the bigger XNA Game Studio European Tour. The event will be held on Monday December 3rd, from 14.30 to 19.15. It is open for all and free but you do need to register for it online.

More information and online registration available here.

Digiexpo 07 coverage

On games side in this years Digiexpo EA, Sony, Microsoft & Nintendo were strongly present. EA had the biggest expo area of all and second biggest was Sony's area. ea4.jpgmarion-and-luigi.jpg

I visited Digiexpo on Saturday mid-day and the place was packed full. You had to wait to play all the games, thus my coverage ended up pretty slim since my stay in Messukeskus mostly involved watching others play. Otherwise the event gets thumbs up in my book.

In Nintendo's expo area, people were playing Wii Sports and the usual stuff along with some new Wii & DS games like Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime - Corruption & Zelda - Phantom Hourglass. I got my hands on Mario Galaxy and i can tell you, the controls felt very intuitive and the visuals looked great as i expected.

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Microsoft was displaying their latest games and i could not spot any pre-release games in a quick glance.

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EA was running the show. Displaying tons of new games & even titles not released yet. Amongst the games there were, My Sims, The Simpsons games, Crysis, New sport titles & other coming soon titles. EA was showing off games on almost all gaming platforms.

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In Sony's area Playstation 3 & PSP games were most prominent. Playstation's Home service was quite visible in their expo setup and decoration & was perhaps the most innovative set decoration in the whole expo area. Their set had different areas for different types of game genres and actually these areas were filled up with gamers typical of that genre. EDIT: Apparently Sony had some pre-release games that you could play also.

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Some of the games magazines from Finland were also present, at least Pelit & Pelaaja. Near Pelaaja area the biggest attraction seemed to be Guitar Hero III.

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Click here for photos from Digiexpo 07

Liz's GDC'07 diary

Earlier this year I was awarded 1 of 25 student scholarships from IGDA. The scholarship initially included the following:

  • A Classic Pass to the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC)
  • A mentor from the industry for the GDC week
  • A visit to a game studio in San Francisco

This is an amazing package just by itself, but what they don’t tell you, what I really received, was a one-week backstage pass to the GDC. From soaking up session information to in depth conversation with the best and most brilliant in the industry, my week was packed. The GDC has many amazing sessions but for many the main focus of the GDC is “networking”. In fact, if you attend the GDC, you will probably hear this word 100 times before you leave. Explaining my whole week could take up a 200-page journal, so instead, I would like to explain the highlights of each one of my days.

Sunday: Although Sunday was not actually an official GDC day, I did meet with three Bugbear employees for pizza & beer in Berkeley. It was one of my first chances to really sit down and get to know a few people from the Finnish game industry.

Monday: My first official day at the GDC: I arrived relatively early to register and gather my pass. While the classic pass did not include any of the Mobile or Independent games seminars (Monday & Tuesday seminars/workshops) I still had a full day. As part of being a chapter coordinator for IGDA Finland, I was invited to an all day workshop and then dinner to discuss chapter issues and formalization. It was incredible to meet so many other people who were as motivated about IGDA and the game industry as me and my fellow coordinators and volunteers in Finland. Conveniently, I only managed to stick my foot in my mouth a few times, one occasion I remember in particular included telling Michael Capps, the CEO of Epic Games and Treasurer for IGDA, that I had no idea what Gears of War was (apparently the Game of the Year!).

Tuesday: Tuesday was the first official meeting of all the scholar winners and their mentors. Everyone had really amazing people to be their mentors, but I feel I was particularly lucky in having Don Daglow, CEO of Stormfront Studios as mine. As I had already been in contact with my mentor, this meeting was a chance to get to know the other scholarship winners. We spent about 2 hours talking, eating lunch, practicing our “pitch” and exchanging business cards. (Practice makes perfect) Afterwards most of the scholars went to visit a game studio in San Francisco. I, unfortunately, couldn’t make this. Lost luggage made a visit to the mall somewhat necessary. Tuesday evening was probably the most enjoyable evening of the whole trip. It was the night of the IGDA party. Apparently a bit more popular than expected, IGDA had over 2000 people RSVP for a max capacity 900 bar. I somehow managed to do more networking this evening then my whole week combined, I would guess partially because Michael Capps was kind enough to introduce me to a ton of people. Also, I have to admit, it was interesting being one of the 5% female population in the lounge.

Wednesday On Wednesday I was finally able to attend sessions. I spent the morning and the afternoon attending some wonderful and some so-so producer and business management orientated seminars and roundtables as well as the Sony Keynote. However, the highlight of this day was not a seminar, roundtable or keynote. It was the IGDA VIP luncheon. I had the distinct embarrassment of commiserating with a neighbor at my table about how neat it would be to win an award at this luncheon, when IGDA Finland and specifically Jay Ranki were announced as one of three MVPs for this year. After Jay also pointed out Lasse Seppäinen and me as part of the award, we were surrounded by congratulatory handshakes. This moment was definitely incredible. After this I had a one on one talk with Michael Capps on the way back to the Moscone Center. He let me pick his brain and ask all the questions I could think of in the 5 minute walk back. Very cool of him.

Thursday I spent this morning in another round of sessions including the Designing Gears of War: Iteration Wins session. I was a tad curious about the makings of the Game of the Year, and apparently everyone else was as well, the room was packed. For the last two days, I made it my focus to get some one on one time with people I knew and respected in the industry. I wanted to discuss my future and figure out that ever present question, “Where do I go from here?” To this affect, I requested Jay Ranki from Bugbear and IGDA Finland to sit down to lunch with me. We had a great discussion about what I could do/read and what I should look for. In the afternoon I met up with an old friend, Jason McCord, who works for Treyarch (part of Activision). We spent the afternoon perusing the Expos. He also introduced me to some great people from both Treyarch and Activision, who in turn got us tickets to the Microsoft party that evening. Dinner that night was a sit down with 2 level designers, a tools programmer and an associate producer for a long discussion about the skills of a good producer in their eyes. To their amusement, I took pretty extensive notes on their opinions, but 5 pages of notes were definitely worth it. After our discussion we headed to the Microsoft party; a flashy but relatively disconnected party. It felt like there were more business people there then actual game makers, but on the other hand I was a bit socially exhausted at this point!

Friday Friday was a day for one on one talks. I attended a session first thing in the morning and after met with Jeferson Valadares, who recently moved from Digital Chocolate to EA Mobile, to get some feedback and suggestions. He was able to give me excellent advice and nudge me towards some assistance with my goals. After my meeting with Jeff I met up with my mentor, Don Daglow, to have a long lunch. We had a great discussion about my thesis and made sure that we would keep in touch in the future. As this was the last day of the GDC, I spent the rest of my afternoon searching out my friends to say goodbye. Overall the experience was beyond incredible. There was so much knowledge gathered in one place just waiting to be picked up. Perhaps most importantly, every burning question I had about the game industry was answered, of course they also created 1000 more but that’s to be expected. Most specifically this trip allowed me to really get an idea of what is important and what is not for my next GDC.

Photos taken by Tommi Hartikainen Article written by Liz Lehtonen Formatted and posted by Miikka Luotio

G&S lecture Tue 24th April : Emma Westecott "Play as a Performance

Emma Westecott "Play as a Performance" Tuesday 24th April 2007 17:15-19:00 University of Tampere, lecture hall 1096, PinniB Video venue: University of Art and Design Helsinki, Media Lab, 3 rd floor Lecture Room, (please note the room has changed).

About Emma Westecott: Emma Westecott has worked in the game industry for over ten years. She achieved national and international recognition for working closely with Douglas Adams as producer for the best-selling CD-ROM Adventure Game, Starship Titanic (1998, Simon & Schuster). Since then, Emma has gradually built up a worldwide reputation for developing original as well as popular projects and products, establishing herself as a figurehead and spokeswoman for a more emotional approach to gaming. Emma has been invited to present her vision and philosophy at many prestigious venues including BAFTA, the Tate, the Banff Centre and the Interactive Entertainment Conference LA. She has spoken alongside the ?big players? of the industry such as Peter Molyneux (Lionhead) and Will Wright (Maxis) of The Sims fame. Emma?s focus is based on a belief that the current boom of the industry is not sustainable without a creative evolution of game form, both in terms of creating new experiences and new markets. Most recently she directed the Zero Game studio in Sweden, where an impressive body of work was created under her leadership, see the list of practice-led projects.

The lecture will be in English. Free admittance.

All welcome!

More information:

Web pages: http://www.gamesandstorytelling.net/

TODAY in G&S "Not game to gaming: Cybercultures and the Indian State"

TODAY in Games & Storytelling lecture:Nishant Shah, Expert of Asian cybercultures "Not game to gaming: Cybercultures and the Indian State"

Tuesday, 13th March 2007 17:15-19:00 University of Tampere, lecture hall 1096, PinniB Video venue: University of Art and Design Helsinki, Media Centre Lume, Sampo Auditorium

A particular form of state support and marketing of digital technologies in India renders the otherwise accepted Western ideas of cybercultures as encouraging new public spheres and subcultures like gaming or open source movements, obsolete. This lecture looks at the historico-political ideologies that shape the emergence of cybercultures in India and look at the few sites of gaming which are slowly growing in unexpected areas. In the process we also look at how technologies get integrated into existing social paradigms to create certain patterns of continuities and interruptions.

Free admittance.

All welcome!

-Posted by Miikka Luotio

G&S lecture Tue 6.2.07 Eric Zimmerman

In next Games and Storytelling lecture 6th Feb at 5:15-7 pm. we'll have Eric Zimmerman talking about“Gaming Literacy: Game Design as Model for Literacy in the 21st Century”

Venue: University of Art and Design Helsinki, Media Centre Lume, Sampo auditorium, Hämeentie 135 C. Videoconference venue in Tampere: University of Tampere, lecture hall 1096, PinniB, Kanslerinrinne 1.

In his lecture Eric Zimmerman will talk about how game design can be seen as a model for an emerging set of literacies that are centered on systems, play, and design.

Eric Zimmerman has been working in the game industry for more than twelve years. He is the co-founder and CEO of Gamelab, a game development company based in New York City that focuses on experimental and innovative games. Gamelab creates and self-publishes award-winning singleplayer and multiplayer games that are distributed online, on mobile phones, and through retail, including the hit downloadable game Diner Dash. Pre-Gamelab titles include SiSSYFiGHT 2000 and the PC title Gearheads. Eric has taught courses at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, and Parsons School of Design. He has lectured and published extensively about game design and game culture and is the co-author with Katie Salen of Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (MIT Press, 2004) and The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (MIT Press, 2006), as well as the co-editor with Amy Scholder of RE:PLAY: Game Design and Game Culture (Peter Lang Press, 2004).

The lecture is in English.

Free admittance.

Welcome!

More information:

Web pages: http://www.gamesandstorytelling.net/

Association to represent Finnish Game Developer Companies

NEOGAMES ANNOUNCES: It´s time to establish Association to represent Finnish Game Developer Companies. Meeting in RTI auditorium in Pasila Radiokatu 5 D monday 5.2 at 15.00.

Idea about association representing Finnish Game Developer Companies has been discussed several years. Because of the recent years economical growth of Finnish Game Industry and the rise of creative industries generally it seems that now is an appropriate time to actually do something to this matter. Join us in founding meeting of Finnish Game Developers Association (working title). The founding meeting is held 5.2 .at 15.00 in Pasila Radiokatu 5D.

More information on the spot. and also from Neogames website: http://www.neogames.fi/tiedotteet.htm (in Finnish) Meeting is hosted by Neogames

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

G&S lecture Wed 13.12. Beth Kolko: "Playing Off the Beaten Path"

Please notice that we have the next Games and Storytelling lectureexceptionally on Wednesday, December 13th at 5:15-7 pm.

Professor Beth Kolko's lecture is titled 'Playing Off the Beaten Path'.

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

As games and gaming systems become increasingly sophisticated, they also grow increasingly pervasive, both in terms of geography and the terrain of everyday life. In many less developed regions that are resource and infrastructure constrained, games have a remarkable presence. In the public access spaces that dominate Internet and computer access in such regions, children fill Internet cafes playing bootlegged games in foreign languages, teenagers cobble together city-wide LANs to play MMOs, and self-taught programmers try their hand at creating local game content. This talk discusses what gaming looks like in places like Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Cambodia, and elsewhere. Based on several years of fieldwork about general patterns of technology usage in developing regions, this talk focuses on patterns of gaming, the general ecology of information and communication and information technology, and how individuals interested in games leverage scarce local resources to build local gaming communities.

Beth Kolko is an Associate Professor in the Department of Technical Communication at the University of Washington where she leads the Design for Digital Inclusion group and Digital Games Research group.

She has been studying the intersection of technology and communication since 1990, beginning with work on text-based virtual communities and moving to include visual representations of users in online environments and issues related to community fragmentation online. That work was tied to her long-term interests in how identity and diversity impact people?s use of technology.

Her current research explores how design and culture play a role in people?s adoption and adaptation of technologies. She travels with some regularity, studying diverse populations and how they adopt and adapt information and communications technologies (ICTs). In recent years she has conducted field studies in Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Hong Kong, and she has also done short visits to Greece, India, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, and throughout Europe. Her games work is situated under the broader umbrella of her Design for Digital Inclusion project, which applies theory-based analyses of culture and technology in order to examine how technology is used in diverse settings. The goal of this project is to demonstrate how technologists, social scientists, and humanities scholars can collaborate to think more broadly about how to create devices, software, and services to better meet the needs of users. She is the co-editor of Race in Cyberspace, editor of Virtual Publics, and the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters.

Free admittance.

Welcome!

More information:

Web pages: http://www.gamesandstorytelling.net/

Application is open for Games and Storytelling workshops

Application is open for the Games and Storytelling workshops.The workshops will be given in Helsinki and Tampere 5-9 Feb 2007 and 23-27 Apr 2007. Please apply latest 4 December 2007 via e-mail: registration@gamesandstorytelling.net

You can apply for the workshops with either a game or interactive storytelling concept, or with a research plan, and a CV. Rather than sending in large files as attachments, you should preferably provide URL links in your email applications.

(Please note: your game or interactive storytelling concept, or research plan, will not necessarily be used in the workshop, but is rather used to provide further information about your previous experience; it is used both for evaluation and as your background information for the workshop leader.)

Selection will be based on previous studies, career and diversity in the workshops. Selections will be conducted by the Games and Storytelling steering group. Central criteria of selection is applicant's capability to bring forward a believable new perspective to games and new media in the concept.

Application deadline for the workshops (Eric Zimmerman, 5 - 9 Feb 2007 and Larry Friedlander, 23 - 27 Apr 2007) is December 4, 2006. Applicants will receive an acceptance decision by 15 Dec 2006.

More information: http://www.gamesandstorytelling.net registration@gamesandstorytelling.net

A report from Digiexpo 2006

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