Recruiting volunteers!

IGDA Finland is looking for more volunteers! Are you crafty with words and love social media? Or do you have some graphic design expertise? Our wonderful Media Team wants you!

We are currently looking for Social Media Managers and an Art Director in Helsinki area.

Social Media Managers - produce quality content on our social media channels (Twitter + Facebook), including live coverage of our monthly gatherings

We appreciate solid skills on Twitter and Facebook, understanding on the principles of different social media channels, excellent English skills. A more technical background will be considered a plus.

Sounds like you? Super! Contact our Social Media Coordinator Noemi Cugudda: noemi.cugudda@igda.fi

As an Art Director you will - take care of the look and feel of our visual content - oversee and organise the work of our photographers and graphic designers - plan and coordinate various graphics projects

We appreciate experience in project management, diverse graphic design skills, photography skills and a sharp visual eye.

Interested? Great! Drop an email to our Media Team Lead Niina Pesonen: niina.pesonen@igda.fi

As well as a fun team with fantastic people we offer exclusive studio visits and the chance to meet all the cool people in the industry – not to mention the warm and fuzzy feeling inside you when you get to make the world a better place.

Not from the Helsinki area? Contact your local hub to volunteer! Everyone is welcome to contribute, no matter their skills and background.http://igda.fi/hubs/

IGDA Finland April Demo Corner Sign-up

We're organizing another demo corner at the April gathering. The demo corner is place for developers to show their games and get some feedback. The space is intended for everyone: from teams continuing something they started at game jams to commercial studios. Space is limited to eight spots. People demoing will get a table and power outlet. If you have special needs please mention them in the form.

Demo corner is free and open for all. Collected information will be used for event organization only.

NOTE: Provide your own laptops, phones, tablets or other devices your game needs to run. (Mobile devs might want to bring their own chargers.)

Sign up here!

IGDA Finland April Gathering with Electronic Arts

Goodbye winter, hello spring!

Yep, you guessed right: It sure is time for another amazing night with IGDA! And we have with us no other than Electronic Arts and their mobile development studio tracktwenty.

Tracktwenty is EA’s mobile development studio based in Helsinki. The studio’s first title, SimCity BuildIt, has seen tens of millions of downloads since its December 2014 release and received multiple awards like the Best of Apple 2015. As well as continuing to develop and support SimCity BuildIt, tracktwenty’s experienced team of programmers, artists, designers and analysts are also working on new projects.

Come join us and let the good times roll!

IGDA Finland April Gathering with Electronic Arts

Time: 05.04.2016 at 19:00
Place: Maxine, Urho Kekkosen katu 1 A, 6th floor, 00100 Helsinki

Please note that you need to be at least 18 years old to attend. The cloakroom service is offered free of charge.

IGDA Finland goes Game Dev Days

It’s almost April, and that means Game Dev Days are here again. The Estonian game conference is held now for the fourth time and it brings together game development professionals from all over the world to the lovely city of Tallinn. This year IGDA Finland will be there to attend the event in full force: we are working on bus rides from several hubs bringing people all over the country to Helsinki, where we’ll board a ferry to our southern neighbor. The participating hubs for this event are Oulu, Jyväskylä, Turku, and Kotka.

The buses are not the only thing we have in store for participants. IGDA members can get 20% off of Standard conference tickets with the code "IGDAFIN542”. There are also special discounts for both ferry trips as well as hotel accommodation. Note that some of the hotel discounts are only available until 25.3.2016, so make your reservations on the double!

The conference is held on 8.-9.4.2016 at Original Sokos Hotel Viru.

Our ferry of choice (Tallink) leaves on Friday, 8^th of April at 10:30 AM. Join us for some international good times!

Discounts

Remember to use your IGDA discount for conference tickets: you’ll get 20% off of Standard conference tickets with the code "IGDAFIN542”.

We have plenty of partners to help you get there and rest well. To travel cheaper, use the promo code GAMEDEV to get 30% off of Tallink Silja ferry trips to Tallinn from Helsinki and Stockholm. Offer is valid for travel between 06.04.2016 - 11.04.2016.

Those traveling from farther away can also get discount tickets from OnniBus. If you prefer flying to the conference, airBaltic also offers discounts. Both of these partners use the code GAMEDEV as well.

Discount prices for accommodation are available at the following hotels:

Original Sokos Hotel Viru

Standard Single room 81€/night Standard Double room 86€/night

To book your room send an email including your personal details and promo code GAMEDEV to viru.reservation@sok.fi or book by phone +3726809300

Estoria Solo by Sokos

Solo King Single room 85€/night Solo King Double room 95€/night

To book your room send an email including your personal details and promo code GAMEDEV to viru.reservation@sok.fi or book by phone +3726809300

Tallink City Hotel

Standard SINGLE room 65€/night Standard TWIN/DOUBLE room 75€/night

To book your room send an email including your personal details and promo code GAMEDEV to hotelbooking@tallink.ee

Additionally, those who favor even cheaper options, we have a pre-booking for 12 beds at  Center Hotel at very low price.

1 Family room (4 beds) - 48 EUR/night

3 Twin rooms - 30 EUR/night

2 Single rooms - 25 EUR/night

We need to confirm this reservation by 25.03.2016 or the reserved rooms are freed up. Contact your hub representative if you are interested in taking part in this deal.

Contact information

Each hub will inform their members on bus schedules in their own channels. To find out more, contact the representative of your local hub.

Jyväskylä

Tuomas Roininen – tuomas.roininen@igda.fi Sasu Louke – sasu.louke@expa.fi

Oulu

Anna Salomaa – anna.salomaa@igda.fi

Turku

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/221379864882537/ Natasha Trygg – arsparietis@gmail.com

Kotka

Mika Turkia – Mika.Turkia@student.kyamk.fi

For those departing from Helsinki area, your contact person is Katri Laine katrilaine147@gmail.com. Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/838553366255862/

IGDA Finland Turku Hub gathering with Rival Games and Shark Punch

The March gathering was back in Hunter’s Inn, and this time with presentations by Rival Games and Shark Punch. Also in the demo corner: BitByByte’s first game Planet Shock.

Romanced by Rival Games

The future is looking good for Rival Games. After a hard year 2015 they have received funding and are soon ready to publish the third and last episode of their game The Detail. The Detail has a very decent metacritic score and has been received with much delight by both players and critics. The company is one of the more successful ones in the Turku game development scene. And more success is sure to come for this hard working studio. Rival Games currently employs 16 people, and they will be hiring more people this year.

On Wednesday the audience had the pleasure of hearing CEO Jukka Laakso talk about sales figures for The Detail on Steam, and lead writer JD Sorvari gave us insight into the process of writing the game.

The Detail is a graphic novel style game reminiscent of Frank Miller. It was initially planned to be five episodes long, but now the story is going to have its closure in the third episode. Sorvari told us about the shock that he as a writer had, realizing that his story would be cut shorter. First he had thought he had plenty of space to develop the plot and “romance” the players – but it was not to be. However, being forced to compress and reduce can often lead to better storytelling, which Sorvari hopes to have succeeded with in the third episode.

Releasing a game in episodes gives the business model an interesting flair. Laakso was able to visualize this by showing us graphs from Steam sales. Firstly, Steam is the number one sales platform for Rival Games, and stands for 63-70 % of their sales revenue. Other distribution channels are nowhere near as fruitful, for example iOS sales is only at 14 %, and others (like humble bundles and such) stay at 24 % of total sales revenue. For every episode and sale period the sales spike increased, while almost flat-lining in between. We wish Rival Games good luck with their third episode release!

Playfield taking a punch at Steam

The company Shark Punch was presented by Tero Tapio and Peter-Erik Kiis. They told about the origins, team and philosophy of the company. Shark Punch employs 13 people and their HQ is in Helsinki. The founders managed to sell their previous company to Disney, and then they went indie.

They initially released a game called The Masterplan – a 70s style heist game. After this first release they have focused on another type of development project: a distribution platform for other game developers, www.playfield.io.

There are thousands of games being released every year, and a new game very easily drowns in the static. How can developers get visibility and find the right type of player? The focus in Playfield is on helping game developers get discovered by players. Shark Punch wants to achieve this by personalizing recommendations and having a great storefront. They also have partnerships with Twitch and YouTube users.

Currently Playfield has 2000 games, and 1000 developers on board. The community is mostly between 25 and 34 years of age, and also mostly male. Half are from English speaking countries.

Playfield will be coming out of beta in Spring 2016. The point is: they don’t want players to miss “gems” in the game avalanche. They urge game developers to bravely contact them and try out Playfield.

BitByByte and Planet Shock

In the demo corner we got some space ship shooting and cosmic eye candy. BitByByte Creations is a new game development team based in Turku, and the game “Planet Shock” is in Steam Greenlight at the moment, go check this link and give support!

Text: Jenny Wiik

Photos: Natasha Trygg & Toni Heinonen

IGDA Finland Turku Hub