Finnish gaming cluster is on the threshold of hyper-growth

Habbo Hotel, Max Payne, and Angry Birds are examples of the international success stories created by Finnish gaming companies. The community award received by Finnish gaming cluster was presented to three organizations that are active in the field: Finnish Game Developers' Association ry., which represents gaming companies, IGDA, which brings together game developers in Finland, and Neogames, which represents business, training and research in the games industry.

"The task of organizations is to serve as a spokesperson for the industry and promote company activities by creating structures for matters like training and financing. Game companies are always aware that they have to be international. They participate in tough international competition right from the start, so the operating field for organizations is also international," explains KooPee Hiltunen, Director of Neogames Centre of Game Business, Research and Development.

In economic terms, the rapidly growing game industry is Finland's most important cultural export, and it produces top international products and success stories. More than 90% of the market for Finnish game companies is in the United States and Western Europe. Companies that develop games and provide game services are at the heart of the industry. The game industry employs approximately 1,300 people in Finland. The combined turnover of the 70 companies operating in the industry was more than EUR 165 million in 2011, and the industry is the largest of its kind in the Nordic countries.

This post is a partial copy of this press release

IGDA Finland February Gathering: Finnish Game Jam gems!

It's time for us to gather around in the lovely Cuba Bar and talk about life and stuff. And games! The year started with a bang and thank you to everyone for making it possible. Let's continue that way!

As most of you might know, last weekend a bunch of hard-working people participated in the Global Game Jam and gathered all around Finland to create cool games in just 48 hours! If you haven't seen those games yet (and even if you have) come to Cuba next Tuesday to take a look.

We'll also be announcing the winners of Finnish Game Jam 2012. So don't miss this!

IGDA Finland February Gathering Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 7PM Cuba Bar, Erottaja 4, Helsinki Finland

IMGAWARDS - time to vote!

Vision: Mobile Games are the driver of innovation in the smartphone industry and the most successful category in the apps economy. Mission: Manage and market the world’s largest competition for mobile games and recognize and reward the best mobile game developers.

Great games nominated from Finland: Bike Baron, Shadow Cities, Death Rally, Draw Race 2 and WildChords amongst the best of the best. Vote now and bring People's Choice Award to Finland :)

The competition is now the mobile entertainment industry’s leading showcase for groundbreaking innovations, displaying exceptional quality and new trends in mobile entertainment, whether the games are made for the iPhone, for Android Phones, Windows Mobile, Bada (Samsung), BREW MP, for Blackberry, WebOS, J2ME, Flash, HTML5 or any other widely spread Operating System for mobile handsets.

Job satisfaction survey (by Univ. of Jyväskylä)

WELCOME TO THE SURVEY OF JOB SATISFACTION IN THE FINNISH GAME INDUSTRY: I am Tuomas Roininen, Digital Culture (MA) student from University of Jyväskylä. I am doing a research for my MA thesis based on IGDA's Quality of Life White Paper (2004) but from the point of view of Finnish game companies. The purpose of this research is to carry out a similar survey as in Quality of Life White Paper (2004). Idea of this survey is to find material for my research about the job satisfaction in the Finnish game industry. This is valid way to find issues in the industry that need fixing to better in Finland. I hope that many as possible working in the Finnish game companies would respond to the survey, so that research should be comprehensive, reliable and useful for anyone who works in the field.

The themes of the survey are: - General Satisfaction - Job Stability - Work Load - Work Organization - Job Quality

I wish that you could answer as truthfully as you can, because that is the way to find the real pittfalls of the industry and also there can be done valid conclusions. All of the survey respondents will be treated as anonymously.

Survey takes about 10 - 15 mins and it includes multiple-choice questions.

Regards, Tuomas Roininen E-mail: tuomas.roininen@jyu.fi University of Jyväskylä Department of Arts and Culture Studies Master's Programme in Digital Culture

Thesis supervisor: Raine Koskimaa, Professor of Digital Culture

Survey is open until 17th of February 2012.

IGDA Finland February Gathering: Finnish Game Jam gems!

It's time for us to gather around in the lovely Cuba Bar and talk about life and stuff. And games! The year started with a bang and thank you to everyone for making it possible. Let's continue that way! As most of you might know, last weekend a bunch of hard-working people participated in the Global Game Jam and gathered all around Finland to create cool games in just 48 hours! If you haven't seen those games yet (and even if you have) come to Cuba next Tuesday to take a look.

We'll also be announcing the winners of Finnish Game Jam 2012. So don't miss this!

IGDA Finland February Gathering Tuesday, January 7, 2012 at 7PM Cuba Bar, Erottaja 4, Helsinki Finland