Illusion + IGDA Finland Hubs

During the past year new IGDA Finland Hubs have been popping up all around Finland. Thus, we felt it was a good time for the Hub volunteers to meet, discuss and have fun during Illusion 2014, held in Joensuu Science Park on July 10 through July 12. In the midst of the buzz of Ilosaarirock right next door, Illusion emphasized in game music but introduced interesting talks in all areas of game development. Right from the start everyone was eager to share their experiences and bounce around ideas for the future of regional hubs. The relaxed atmosphere of the event itself was genuinely inspiring for gathering new ideas and getting to know new people – in other words, a perfect event to brainstorm! For the hub volunteers the event culminated on Friday evening at the IGDA Finland Round Table, curated by Suvi Latva from Neogames. Every hub area except Rovaniemi was attending the event. From the left: Tommi Virolainen (Joensuu/East), Tatu Laine (Turku), Mikko Kähärä (Kotka), Jonne Harja (Jyväskylä), Minna Eloranta (Tampere), Anna Salomaa (Oulu), Vesa Raudasoja (Helsinki) and Suvi Latva (Neogames)

When Illusion was over, the rest of the games industry folks drifted to Ilosaarirock right next to the event venue. Our hub volunteers, however, continued their gathering to share ideas about the future, tackle common matters in hub volunteering as well as celebrate the success of the active volunteering all over Finland. With all the new ideas and energy we are ready for another great year of hub activity!

IGDA Finland East Hub sharing the love.

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Pictures: Anu Malm

IGDA Finland June Gathering with Rovio

The final IGDA Finland Gathering for the spring period of 2014 was hosted by Rovio and a bunch of their Angry Birds Star Wars plushies. Loads of you showed up and Adams was packed by the end of the evening. We also had a special guest from the IGDA Japan chapter attend the Gathering this time!

During the evening the guests had the opportunity to see a presentation from Rovio's Executive Vice President Jami Laes who talked about Rovio's operations and future plans. Jami also revealed that Rovio would have some new releases and news in the next few weeks and in the coming summer months so keep a lookout for information on their website.

Thank you to all of you who came to Club Adams to say hi and wish happy summer holidays to your friends and colleagues. Thank you also to everyone who attended the spring Gatherings in 2014. You, sirs and madams are awesome! Now it is time for IGDA Finland to go on vacation and prepare for the autumn season of IGDA Gatherings. Welcome to the next IGDA Finland Gathering in September!

Tekes Skene Roadshow & EXPA May Gathering with JES

The Tekes Skene Roadshow visited Jyväskylä just one day before our monthly meeting. It ended up being a very personal visit, with Kari Korhonen talking about how the Skene program works and answering questions from game developers from Jyväskylä.

We were happy to arrange our May Gathering with our good friends, Jyväskylä Entrepreneurship society. The Gathering was at the Jyväskylä Train Depot, a great space all kinds of cultural events at Jyväskylä.

We had two great guests, with Kati Heljakka and Samuli Syvähuoko, who also visited us this time last year.

Kati Heljakka is a toy and games researcher, with a PhD from the university of Turku. She is also a creative director at the Finnish board game company, Tactic. Tactic was a very exciting example of a Finnish games company, since it does something most of us are not that familiar: board games. It also manages to be international and still make the games in Pori, Finland, when most board game companies have outsourced the production into Asia. Very inspirational to hear someone with both the theoretical training and practical experience about making physical games.

Samuli Syvähuoko is veteran of the Finnish game studies, having been involved with starting such game companies as Remedy. He’s been touring Finland, talking about the Game Brewery, a project for “refining the Finnish games industry.” On top of that, they managed to make actual beer for the games industry! He also argued at length that Finland is the best place to be making games. The numbers he showed us of Finnish games industry’s growth seemed pretty convincing.

The evening came to a great end at the Bar Paja, with the games industry’s own beer. This was also the last gathering this spring, with the next one waiting us in September.

Thank you JES, Kati and Samuli and see you all in September!

IGDA Finland June Gathering with Rovio

Welcome to the IGDA Finland June Gathering on Tuesday 10^th June! Summer holidays are right around the corner but before it is time to run off to the beach with those plastic shark fins to scare all of your friends, there is still time for the IGDA Finland June Gathering. The evening will be hosted by none other than the enormously successful entertainment company Rovio! As usual the gathering will begin at 19:00 at Club Adams.

What are you waiting for? Come to connect and have a relaxing evening. Be there, or be a bad piggy.

IGDA Finland June Gathering Time: 10.06.2014 at 19:00 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland

As usual, the cloakroom service is offered free of charge on behalf of Club Adams.

Jobs site moving to Games Jobs Finland

Since IGDA Finland started offering our jobs site it has grown into the important platform it is today, making it easy for game companies to reach new recruits and talents seeking positions in the industry to find where they are needed.

However, as you all know, IGDA Finland is run by volunteers. The amount of responsibilities has also grown in size over the years and the gatherings alone take a huge amount of effort to organize. Running the jobs site is no longer something that is viable for us to keep around eating away our resources and thus the IGDA Finland board has decided to focus our efforts to events and community activities. This means that from now on all of our attention will be on Helsinki and the other hubs all over the country.

Fear not though, this will not be the end of a safe haven for game industry related jobs posting: IGDA jobs site functions will be transferred to our industry partner Games Jobs Finland/Barona IT for further development and maintenance.

The IGDA jobs site will be closed by end of May 2014 and all traffic will be guided to Games Jobs from now on. Before that all active job ads will be posted to Games Jobs Finland. Games Jobs Finland will contact the current and future partners.

We’d like to thank all the companies who made the jobs site an important employment tool for the industry and hope you keep utilizing it after the transfer! May you find the best talent out there.

http://gamesjobs.fi/