Play it today: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zombie-lane/id444441750?mt=8
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Internationalization Awards of the President of the Republic go to Finnish gaming cluster
Press release February 9, 2012 President of the Republic of Finland
Tarja Halonen has presented the 2011 Internationalization Awards to the Finnish gaming cluster, which promotes the creation of a new growth industry.
The aim of the internationalization award is to promote companies' activities in an international environment and their ability to develop and implement new operating models. It is also intended to encourage the winning companies' internationalization and that of other Finnish companies. The 2011 internationalization awards were presented today in Helsinki.
"One of the purposes of the Internationalization Award of the President of the Republic is to highlight concepts and business models as examples to other internationalizing Finnish companies and to encourage internationalization. Export is very important to Finnish well-being – after all, we are the most export-driven country in Europe. Recent export development has been weaker than in competitor countries, and Finland's trade balance is showing a deficit for the first time in 20 years. Now it is essential to encourage growth entrepreneurship and internationalization, and to give companies the preconditions needed to grow and be successful globally. All of the recipients represent a high level of specialized Finnish competence and have shown strong internationalization," says Finpro's President and CEO Kari Häyrinen.
Each year, Finpro performs the search and preliminary assessment of internationalization prize nominees, on the basis of which Finpro's Board of Directors, in cooperation with the Association for Finnish Work, prepares a proposal concerning the award recipients to the President. The President selects the Internationalization Award winners on the basis of these proposals. The award is now being granted for the 44th time. The prizes are donated by the Finnish Fair Foundation.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Pelijammailu & luovuus 28.1. ilmaistilaisuus Helsingissä
Hapessa järjestetään yleisötilaisuus pelinkehityksestä lauantaina 28.1.2012 klo 12–15. Keskustelua käydään mm. ruohonjuuritason toiminnasta ja indie-pelien matkasta menestykseen. Puhujina kuullaan pelialan ammattilaisia. Tapahtuma on kaikille avoin, tervetuloa!
Tule kuulemaan mitä pelijammailu on, miten opettajat voisivat soveltaa sitä arjessa, mikä rooli itsenäisillä ja isoista julkaisijoista riippumattomilla pelikehittäjillä on pelialalla, miten alalle pääsee ja miltä tulevaisuus näyttää.
Tilaisuus on osa Finnish Game Jam -tapahtumaa.
Lisätietoja: Peliteollisuuden kynnyksellä avoin yleisötilaisuus Helsingissä 28.1.
Tule kuulemaan mitä pelijammailu on, miten opettajat voisivat soveltaa sitä arjessa, mikä rooli itsenäisillä ja isoista julkaisijoista riippumattomilla pelikehittäjillä on pelialalla, miten alalle pääsee ja miltä tulevaisuus näyttää.
Tilaisuus on osa Finnish Game Jam -tapahtumaa.
Lisätietoja: Peliteollisuuden kynnyksellä avoin yleisötilaisuus Helsingissä 28.1.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Book: "Digital Pioneers. Cultural drivers of future media culture" (download for FREE!)
My new book (anthology) is out! You can download it for free!DIGITAL PIONEERS Cultural drivers of future media culture Sonja Kangas (ed.) Digital media are central in youngsters' lives, both time-wise and culturally - creating meanings, strengthening relationships and pondering values. Digital activities are gaining a bigger share of youths' everyday life. The Internet provides several ways for them to express themselves, find friends or dating partners and likeminded people. It is a mass medium for everyone, providing the possibility of becoming a celebrity, being politically active, joining international networks, watching television, chatting with friends or just spending time online. It is a channel for expressing where I am, what I plan to do and what type of information or contacts I am looking for. Ten years ago young communication acrobatics in Japan, South Korea and Finland were sovereign, fearless and experimental pioneers of mobile phones and the Internet.
Currently youngster's use of digital media has globally been described as snack size or remix culture in that they combine pieces from here and there, follow several information and communication channels simultaneously and utilize social networks. This book will provide an overview of the online life and values of 15-25 year olds in countries that were pioneers of digital services at the end of 1990s and describe the change that has happened within the past 10 years. Digital Pioneers looks at social networking among the youngsters, covering a wide spectrum of topics from media use, social networking, trust, and friendships to motivational factors. The book also looks at the development of so-called gaming lifestyle. Japan, South Korea and Finland are no longer far ahead of the rest of the world. But do these pioneer countries of the 1990s still have some special qualities that can generate novel digital cultures in the 21st century? Where will the next generation of online brands develop?
2011. Finnish Youth Research Society, internet publications 49. ISBN 978-952-5464-99-3 (PDF). ISSN-L 1799-9219. ISSN 1799-9219. http://www.nuorisotutkimusseura.fi/julkaisuja/digitalpioneers.pdf
Monday, May 30, 2011
Urbanization is shaping the future forms of gaming
My article from the upcoming Future play project report (Tampere university's Tekes project).
Urbanization and the development of various types of locative games are giving hints of the shape of things to come. Research projects have piloted locative, pervasive and urban games (e.g. Magenkurt et al, 2005, Ballages et al 2007) for years already. Lately, locative games have become commercially available. Strengthening this trend is not only urban development, but also games’ software.
In his article, Hiltunen (2010) identified three contributing factors to the strong growth of the video-game sector: 1) demographic change in consumer groups, 2) the introduction of new gadgets, content and distribution channels, enabling proliferation of online playing and game distribution and 3) social playing facilitated by them. Introduction of new gaming gadgets, improved content and social playing are the factors linked with more general cultural and industrial development.
One such global development is the urbanization that is both a driving force in the current business environment and also moulding the future shape of the game industry and culture. According to statistics, just 100 cities account for 30% of the world's economy and almost all its innovation. Many of these engines of globalization, which gain their enduring vibrancy from money, knowledge, and stability, are world capitals that have evolved and adapted over decades of dominance (Foreign Policy, August 2010). Urban areas – not only capitals - are currently driving this development around the world.
Urban areas also play a key role when looking at consumers' spending habits and the foundations for novel consumer cultures. To give just a couple of examples, according to Ericsson’s recent research report (2010), the lifestyle of urban Chinese consumers has changed from a survival mentality to a pleasure seeking mentality, with 54% now pursuing a more pleasurable lifestyle. Similarly, research carried out by Bundle (2010) highlights that the average Manhattanite household spends 59% of their food budget on dining out, compared to the 42% of an average American household.
Urban consumer culture has changed, and will change, the way people spend time and entertain themselves. Terms like urban hustler, coined by Harris Research, or flâneur, defined by Charles Baudelaire when describing a modern person "who walks the city in order to experience it" (Benjamin 1997), both refer to a person strolling leisurely through either the Parisian arcades of the nineteenth century or in contemporary cities, as an aimless shopper with no intention of buying anything, an intellectual parasite of the public space. The traits that mark out a flâneur or an urban hustler are wealth, education and idleness. This type of cultural change has an impact
on consumption and entertainment. People are not only able to have pleasant experiences but are also looking for ways to further entertain themselves by seeking out social experiences having already got used to operating socially and sharing experiences and moments on the move.
But what is even more relevant is that, consumption-wise, the fast pace and ever-changing nature of urban life guarantees an endless number of social connections, experiences and commercial services. This evolution provides rich possibilities for the digital games industry that, during the last 10 years, has moved from marginal to mainstream, offering various types of experience to an increasing and diversifying group of players.
So far, the strongest development within the game industry has come from within, as an organic growth and evolution of the industry. Game genres founded in the 1970s and 1980s have slowly matured. This evolution was firstly driven by technical evolution and, secondly, by cultural and contentual development. Lately, technical development, both within the mobile sector and overall in consumer electronics, has made advancements verging on the phenomenal with location based gaming using mobile handsets and social party gaming, represented by motion tracking devices like Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Kinect and Playstation Move. Only recently, due to the development of mobile technologies, location tracking and trends like gamification that refer to the utilization of game mechanics as a motivational factor, we have seen signs that significant developments can come from outside the game industry. Diverse companies and parties are currently participating in formulating the future of the game industry and culture.
When looking at the future trends in game culture and urban consumer culture, mobility, public environments functioning as social interactive spaces and entertainment driven information and leisure consumption are becoming increasingly central. Mobile and social location specific gaming trends will be key drivers in which the motivation to participate comes from outside the game itself. ‘Snack size culture’, ‘always on’ and ‘always with’ and participatory content development are just a few indicators of this development.
Mobile games have been commercially available for over 10 years and have matured into an easy to use and easy to find form of entertainment. Social gaming - referring here to massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), all manner of quiz show, karaoke, music and sports party games in which practically anyone can play and playing is a socially acceptable way of spending time – has shaped the game industry for several years already. Finnish companies like Uplause and Grey Area offer very different services from each other but both provide their own answer to urbanization and the social mobile trends described here. One believes in massively multiplayer audience games in public places and the other in using locational technologies and a local attitude in gaming. The next big thing in gaming could very much be a big story or shared location specific experience instead of a typical game.
A relevant fact is that both of these examples focus on issues that are valuable for players from outside the game world. Uplause's game provides new, playful social experiences for festival audiences and ice hockey fans. Grey Area has realized that people are proud of their ‘hoods’ and find it motivating to compete against other suburbs. People become motivated when something valuable to them is at stake. This is something different from previous digital game offerings that provided virtually generated experiences in which the generated values, if not social or related to self- expression, were relevant only within the context of a game.
According to trend reports, urban consumers are addicted to here-and-now experiences, choice and freedom, flexibility, rawness of service and unrestricted opportunities. Based on this reasoning, I claim that urban culture is the main branch of contemporary culture, providing rich possibilities for game developers. Instead of simply generating virtual experiences, game developers could start development from motivational factors and issues already valuable to the players outside of game worlds. This links the game industry more closely to global trends, such as urbanization, and opens up a whole range of new possibilities for game developers.
Besides the usual examples, such as location-based games (LBGs), there are also various city projects in which the city itself becomes an arena for play. Festivals and art events, such as Come out and Play, as well as companies like Google, have experimented with urban games. In late 2010, Google installed digital screens into 20 bus shelters across San Francisco with which commuters could play video games against each other. Passengers identified which neighborhoods they would like to represent when playing, and that which won the two month long contest was rewarded with a block party. Also in late 2010, Adidas launched a game challenging footballers to capture cities. Connecting via Facebook, players pick their city and then try to claim each segment of it through one-on-one battles (Trendwatching 2011).
Experiments like these offer new experiences and values to urban gamers on the move. By bringing gaming into natural living environments, it normalizes gaming as a way of spending time, not only for gamers but for anyone. Similar to the Finnish examples, these two instances are originated in location and a feeling of belonging to something, and then these values are bundled into a game. The motivation comes from outside the game itself.
Even if the population, or flow of traffic, is not as dense in the Nordic capitals as it is in the big cities of China, Japan or the USA – similar trends arise, even if on a different scale. Instead of production, location is relevant, when thinking of distribution models, new ideas and interesting game experiences to broaden the range of potential gamers. Location, changing social situations and mobility give gaming one future direction.
According to industry analysts, mobile gaming for smart phones and handheld devices will continue its strong growth in the future. Urban dwellers, hustlers or flâneurs represent ever-increasing wealth and power, as well as participatory urban culture and the specific values related to it. Location, when it comes to development, becomes less relevant. Instead location as functionality, or feature, in a game is becoming more and more crucial. In this sense, urbanization is the key enabler for new kinds of gaming innovations, normalizing game cultures by being an integrated part of urban life.
Urbanization and the development of various types of locative games are giving hints of the shape of things to come. Research projects have piloted locative, pervasive and urban games (e.g. Magenkurt et al, 2005, Ballages et al 2007) for years already. Lately, locative games have become commercially available. Strengthening this trend is not only urban development, but also games’ software.
In his article, Hiltunen (2010) identified three contributing factors to the strong growth of the video-game sector: 1) demographic change in consumer groups, 2) the introduction of new gadgets, content and distribution channels, enabling proliferation of online playing and game distribution and 3) social playing facilitated by them. Introduction of new gaming gadgets, improved content and social playing are the factors linked with more general cultural and industrial development.
One such global development is the urbanization that is both a driving force in the current business environment and also moulding the future shape of the game industry and culture. According to statistics, just 100 cities account for 30% of the world's economy and almost all its innovation. Many of these engines of globalization, which gain their enduring vibrancy from money, knowledge, and stability, are world capitals that have evolved and adapted over decades of dominance (Foreign Policy, August 2010). Urban areas – not only capitals - are currently driving this development around the world.
Urban areas also play a key role when looking at consumers' spending habits and the foundations for novel consumer cultures. To give just a couple of examples, according to Ericsson’s recent research report (2010), the lifestyle of urban Chinese consumers has changed from a survival mentality to a pleasure seeking mentality, with 54% now pursuing a more pleasurable lifestyle. Similarly, research carried out by Bundle (2010) highlights that the average Manhattanite household spends 59% of their food budget on dining out, compared to the 42% of an average American household.
Urban consumer culture has changed, and will change, the way people spend time and entertain themselves. Terms like urban hustler, coined by Harris Research, or flâneur, defined by Charles Baudelaire when describing a modern person "who walks the city in order to experience it" (Benjamin 1997), both refer to a person strolling leisurely through either the Parisian arcades of the nineteenth century or in contemporary cities, as an aimless shopper with no intention of buying anything, an intellectual parasite of the public space. The traits that mark out a flâneur or an urban hustler are wealth, education and idleness. This type of cultural change has an impact
on consumption and entertainment. People are not only able to have pleasant experiences but are also looking for ways to further entertain themselves by seeking out social experiences having already got used to operating socially and sharing experiences and moments on the move.
But what is even more relevant is that, consumption-wise, the fast pace and ever-changing nature of urban life guarantees an endless number of social connections, experiences and commercial services. This evolution provides rich possibilities for the digital games industry that, during the last 10 years, has moved from marginal to mainstream, offering various types of experience to an increasing and diversifying group of players.
So far, the strongest development within the game industry has come from within, as an organic growth and evolution of the industry. Game genres founded in the 1970s and 1980s have slowly matured. This evolution was firstly driven by technical evolution and, secondly, by cultural and contentual development. Lately, technical development, both within the mobile sector and overall in consumer electronics, has made advancements verging on the phenomenal with location based gaming using mobile handsets and social party gaming, represented by motion tracking devices like Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Kinect and Playstation Move. Only recently, due to the development of mobile technologies, location tracking and trends like gamification that refer to the utilization of game mechanics as a motivational factor, we have seen signs that significant developments can come from outside the game industry. Diverse companies and parties are currently participating in formulating the future of the game industry and culture.
When looking at the future trends in game culture and urban consumer culture, mobility, public environments functioning as social interactive spaces and entertainment driven information and leisure consumption are becoming increasingly central. Mobile and social location specific gaming trends will be key drivers in which the motivation to participate comes from outside the game itself. ‘Snack size culture’, ‘always on’ and ‘always with’ and participatory content development are just a few indicators of this development.
Mobile games have been commercially available for over 10 years and have matured into an easy to use and easy to find form of entertainment. Social gaming - referring here to massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), all manner of quiz show, karaoke, music and sports party games in which practically anyone can play and playing is a socially acceptable way of spending time – has shaped the game industry for several years already. Finnish companies like Uplause and Grey Area offer very different services from each other but both provide their own answer to urbanization and the social mobile trends described here. One believes in massively multiplayer audience games in public places and the other in using locational technologies and a local attitude in gaming. The next big thing in gaming could very much be a big story or shared location specific experience instead of a typical game.
A relevant fact is that both of these examples focus on issues that are valuable for players from outside the game world. Uplause's game provides new, playful social experiences for festival audiences and ice hockey fans. Grey Area has realized that people are proud of their ‘hoods’ and find it motivating to compete against other suburbs. People become motivated when something valuable to them is at stake. This is something different from previous digital game offerings that provided virtually generated experiences in which the generated values, if not social or related to self- expression, were relevant only within the context of a game.
According to trend reports, urban consumers are addicted to here-and-now experiences, choice and freedom, flexibility, rawness of service and unrestricted opportunities. Based on this reasoning, I claim that urban culture is the main branch of contemporary culture, providing rich possibilities for game developers. Instead of simply generating virtual experiences, game developers could start development from motivational factors and issues already valuable to the players outside of game worlds. This links the game industry more closely to global trends, such as urbanization, and opens up a whole range of new possibilities for game developers.
Besides the usual examples, such as location-based games (LBGs), there are also various city projects in which the city itself becomes an arena for play. Festivals and art events, such as Come out and Play, as well as companies like Google, have experimented with urban games. In late 2010, Google installed digital screens into 20 bus shelters across San Francisco with which commuters could play video games against each other. Passengers identified which neighborhoods they would like to represent when playing, and that which won the two month long contest was rewarded with a block party. Also in late 2010, Adidas launched a game challenging footballers to capture cities. Connecting via Facebook, players pick their city and then try to claim each segment of it through one-on-one battles (Trendwatching 2011).
Experiments like these offer new experiences and values to urban gamers on the move. By bringing gaming into natural living environments, it normalizes gaming as a way of spending time, not only for gamers but for anyone. Similar to the Finnish examples, these two instances are originated in location and a feeling of belonging to something, and then these values are bundled into a game. The motivation comes from outside the game itself.
Even if the population, or flow of traffic, is not as dense in the Nordic capitals as it is in the big cities of China, Japan or the USA – similar trends arise, even if on a different scale. Instead of production, location is relevant, when thinking of distribution models, new ideas and interesting game experiences to broaden the range of potential gamers. Location, changing social situations and mobility give gaming one future direction.
According to industry analysts, mobile gaming for smart phones and handheld devices will continue its strong growth in the future. Urban dwellers, hustlers or flâneurs represent ever-increasing wealth and power, as well as participatory urban culture and the specific values related to it. Location, when it comes to development, becomes less relevant. Instead location as functionality, or feature, in a game is becoming more and more crucial. In this sense, urbanization is the key enabler for new kinds of gaming innovations, normalizing game cultures by being an integrated part of urban life.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Pelisuunnitteluklubi Helsingissä kesäkuussa!
Onko kipinää pelien suunnitteluun, mutta ei riittävästi tietoa tai oikeita kavereita hommaan? Tule suunnittelemaan ja kehittämään pelejä ammattilaisten johdolla. Sinun ei tarvitse olla itseoppinut osaaja, kunhan olet kiinnostunut hommasta ja innokas tekemään. Klubissa lähdetään tutustumaan pelisuunnitteluun kevyesti valmiita työkaluja hyväksi käyttäen. Ohjelmassa käydään läpi kattavasti koko pelinkehitysprosessi suunnittelusta toteutukseen ja tuottamiseen. Meillä ei tarvitse pönöttää tai pelkästään koodata, vaan kaikki tapahtuu innostavassa ilmapiirissä, kevyellä otteella.
Klubi aloittaa toimintansa kesäkuun kestävällä kurssilla.
Ajankohdat: Kesäkuun kaikki maanantait kello 17.00 – 20.00.
Ilmoittautuminen osoitteessa: pelitalo.nettiareena.fi/pelinkehitys
Mukana järjestämässä Bugbear Entertainment Ltd., Helsingin nuorisoasiainkeskuksen Pelitalo ja International Game Developers Association (IGDA Finland)
Monday, August 16, 2010
Youth, digital media and games: Future challenges in a nutshell
I will be giving a couple of ´youth/games/digital media´ talks this fall. I thought of sharing some points I will make in those presentations.
1. Playfulness a way to gather, process and share information
What this means to service developers?
Value web is broad, things should happen fast and be specific or different to be interesting.
2. Life style driven consumption
Organizations need to change to meet the way changed way of doing things. New generation has learned to use digital media by playing. 10 000+ hours of gaming should be considered as an advantage. Work place is part of self expression and way of life decisions. Too organized or defined way of working does not work anymore.
3. Co-shopping and utilizing web to search for deals, offers etc.
Youth are interesting group of users (compared with e.g. adults) that they are searching for themselves, identity, values, friends, lifestyle, partners, experiences, information, appreciation or admiration etc. New potentials are seen as positive possibilities. Thus it is easier to provide novel services to this type of consumers.
I will post the slides to Slideshare (late September), please do check them out and comment if you find these ideas interesting.
1. Playfulness a way to gather, process and share information
- Games and entertainment in different forms is the typical way children and youngsters learn to use digital media
- This is already visible in digital marketing (see e.g. Coca Cola Happiness factory games) and social applications such as Facebook, Tripadvisor or Foursquare
- Playful features are a way to generate interest, make long term commitment and urge to participate and stand out of the masses
- Indie game developers are interesting in a way that they present different / novel game mechanics and experimentation introducing a sort of “out of the box” thinking but within social networks = more visibility than ever before
- Augmented reality (AR) gaming (see e.g. Finnish company Grey Area), Sony Move, Microsoft Kinect or Nintendo Wii and Pokemon Pedometer (Silver & Gold, Nintendo DS game) bundles and other such…
- Playfulness visible in social online services where one can get activity or popularity points (Youtube), reach goals (Twitter), make score/levels, gain rewards, prizes, taking roles, making memes or do storytelling (Dyson vacuum cleaner)
- Always on beta and more generally speaking beta-attitude – it is ok to play around with services and also clear that it is not yet 100% done
What this means to service developers?
Value web is broad, things should happen fast and be specific or different to be interesting.
2. Life style driven consumption
- Role of work and the value gotten from traditional work is decreasing, people look for alternative ways to be and live
- Creative entrepreneurship is on the rise at the moment which is supported / boosted within various networking events/initiatives (see also Ycombinator and other clubs, Open coffee, IGDA…)
- Mass networking >> quantity is everything
- Individuals making revenue over web (e.g. etsy.com, virtual goods in Second Life, online services) >> anyone can make business casually
- Crowdsourcing and networked activity to brand one self, define and share the field of interest and/or personal values (e.g. Carrot mob).
- Playful real world gaming example: Uplause.com
Organizations need to change to meet the way changed way of doing things. New generation has learned to use digital media by playing. 10 000+ hours of gaming should be considered as an advantage. Work place is part of self expression and way of life decisions. Too organized or defined way of working does not work anymore.
3. Co-shopping and utilizing web to search for deals, offers etc.
- Japan is a good example of a country where such co-shopping clubs already exists -- clubs where co-shoppers can get special offers
- Social networking and collaboration is generalizing in “real world” as well. People get benefit for doing things together (e.g. shopping, activity or sport, traveling etc.)
- Location based data and instant location based events will be part of this (urban lifestyle, spending time in the city)
- Companies can collect information based on movement or location and give specific offers based on location and/or time (potentials: GPS, pedometers, altitude, distance, group actions etc.). This data could be linked together with consumption habits (for example: playing in a mall, expo games, sport events etc.)
- Generally speaking brand centric consumption linked with more personalized or location based offers and digital services >> consumption (what you consume) is part of identity, socialization, spending time, making a statement…
Youth are interesting group of users (compared with e.g. adults) that they are searching for themselves, identity, values, friends, lifestyle, partners, experiences, information, appreciation or admiration etc. New potentials are seen as positive possibilities. Thus it is easier to provide novel services to this type of consumers.
I will post the slides to Slideshare (late September), please do check them out and comment if you find these ideas interesting.
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