Are You the Next UA Superstar?

The Games Growth Hacker program aims to train new UA and mobile marketing talent for the Finnish gaming industry. 

During the program, trainees will work full time for 6 months at gaming companies and go through an 18-day training program held by industry professionals from companies such as Google, Rovio, Yousician, and Seriously.

No previous experience in UA, mobile marketing, or growth hacking is required. This program will train the participants, however applicants must be Finnish and unemployed to qualify. This is a good opportunity for unemployed members because past experience in the games industry, demonstrating a passion for games, and a positive attitude will help during the selection process. 

For more information visit: http://www.digitalexcellenceacademy.fi/koulutustrackit/games-growth-hacker/ 

Application deadline: June 4th

Wargaming Party 2017 and Bus Transportation Registration

Wargaming will be sponsoring bus transportation to the Parola Tank Museum from IGDA Finland Hubs. The buses are being coordinated by your local IGDA hubs.

In order to ensure a spot on a bus please do the following:

1. Register for the Wargaming 2017 Party on Eventbrite (registration is now closed)
2. Once you have a ticket to the event, register for bus transportation via one of the forms below.
3. Bus registrations are individual, you cannot reserve bus seats for multiple people.
4. Only register if you know for sure you can attend.

Bus transportation registration is now closed.

Bus transportation is free of charge, however a small fee of 5 euros will be collected from participants in Parola and donated to the Parola Tank Museum.

More info about the Wargaming Party 2017 here: https://www.igda.fi/new-events/2017/wargaming-party-2017

White Nights St. Petersburg June 14-15

IGDA Finland members get 15% off the White Nights St. Petersburg conference registration fee. The WNConf attracts unique blend of industry professionals and developers from Russia and other CIS countries as well as delegations from Israel, Greece, India, and Finland.  Attendees will include representatives from Game Insight, App Annie, Playrix, Unity, Pixonic, Epic Games, VK.com, Starbreeze Studios, Electronic Arts, Google, Goodgame Studios, Facebook, MoPub, Appodeal, and IBCC.

The Developer Exhibition is a great place for studios to showcase their games in order to meet and get feedback from leading publishers, industry gurus and fellow colleagues.  The best of the best will receive a trophy and receive prizes at the Indie Game Cup Awards Ceremony. The organizers are accepting applications for the Developer Exhibition and for the Indie Game Cup until May 19, 2017. Participation is free. Use the following form to apply: https://goo.gl/forms/xIFq8uIclmXxkbFr2

Use the promo code IGDA-Finland to get your 15% discount when registering here: http://wnconf.com/#registration

Finnish Game Awards 2017 - summary

Last evening at incredible Finnish Game Awards gala, "IGDA Finland Volunteer of the Year 2016" award went to - one and only - Minna Eloranta!!!

More detailed information about the awards and event can be found at Neogames-pages:

http://www.neogames.fi/suomen-peliparhaimmisto-palkittiin-the-finnish-game-awards-gaalassa/

Kajaani aiming for the stars with E-Sports!

It's gathering day 28th of March and Rock House Kulma is full of enthusiastic game industry veterans and students.

Kajaani is aiming to become the E-sports capital of Finland.
We are already famous for Critical Ops published by Critical Force Entertainment and a brand new Critical Force Academy starting next summer.
But it´s not all. Kajaani University of Applied Sciences in collaboration with Vuokatti
Ruka Sports Academy, is arranging the NORDIC eSports Academy Bootcamp
during the summer 2017.

We had a pleasure to have Touko Möttönen, former Kajaani University student and
Niklas Pehkonen to tell us more of this magnificent opportunity in our IGDA March
Gathering. Unfortunately our supposed guest Noel McAvennie couldn’t make it to the
event, but we took care of extra drinks for him.

Touko enlightened us about upcoming bootcamp.

The Nordic eSports Academy is a new Finnish summer school and tournament,
which takes place in Kajaani from 12.6 to 6.7 and culminates in 3-day CS GO
tournament in Vuokatti at the end (7.7 – 9.7). The bootcamp includes a series of
lectures, workshops and coaching sessions on a full time basis at KAMK for 80 to
100 students. The total prize pool for the tournament is 10,000€ and we’ll be bringing
approximately 10 to 12 of the best of the bootcamp teams together with a selected 8
to 10 guest teams. We’re hoping to bring some international teams as well as some
top Finnish teams to create something special. The camp is targeted especially for
amateur players, who aim to become professionals.

The bootcamp will be broken down into 5 modules: Business coaching, Physical
coaching, Mental coaching, Gameplay coaching and Testing. The Testing feature is
a new system developed by KAMK that measures a range of performance indicators
for each gamer while playing in a team. The end result will be a radar chart, much
the same as other athletes in traditional sports have to monitor ongoing performance
changes. This Testing system will be developed and exported with the idea that it will
become an industry standard so this is an opportunity for bootcamp teams to be
involved right at the start.

The various lectures, workshops and hands-on coaching classes will be undertaken
by a mix of local experts and international “gurus”. Ville “CISU” Leppälä, the former
Counter Strike player will do the coaching, while Mia Stellberg, a psychologist of
CS:GO team Astralis will handle the opening week lectures.

This is only the beginning of a new surge in local support for eSports, with major
plans afoot to develop eSports as an official sporting discipline that will be coached
at the Vuokatti Ruka Sports Academy, so we expect to see significant national
interest in what we’re doing as we launch the first bootcamp and tournament this
summer.

Samuli and Pauliina, after a hard evening of an IGDA Gathering

Written by:
Pauliina Lammi
IGDA Finland Kajaani Hub volunteer