The success story of Finnish game industry and IGDA Finland

My presentation at Colombia 3.0. Fantastic event, go-go Colombia!

The success story of Finnish game industry and IGDA Finland from Sonja Kangas

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.

IGDA Finland presenting Finnish game startup companies

IGDA Finland chapter will organize "Startup stories" presentation session on Tuesday 8th June at 5PM (GMT +3). Check out the live stream at Igda.fi web site. The recording will also be available through the site later on.

Ookoohko, Rocket Pack, Relationship Games, Uplause, Fantastec and Ironstar Helsinki will be sharing their stories with us.

After the IGDA Finland Presentations session it is IGDA Finland Gathering as usual at Cuba Cafe. Mighty Housemarque “The First Game Start-up still alive” together with Rocket Pack, Relationship Games, Uplause, Fantastec and IronStar Helsinki are sponsoring special drink ticket game. Also Microsoft Lipshack singing booth is open! Let’s celebrate current and upcoming Finnish game success stories and one of the most active IGDA chapters in the world!

IGDA Finland November event, Finland Game Jam kick off

Do you want to know how the leading game studios do their demo? Or are you interested in Global Game Jam event which shall take place in January 2010? Game Jamming will happen in over 50 location around the world at the same time. It will be 48 hours of sweat, ideation, game mechanics, coding, sound and graphic design, team work and networking.


Remedy Entertainment will give a demo of Alan Wake and Gorm Lai will talk about Global Game Jam (GGJ) event. The talks will take place at the IGDA Finland Presentations session (venue: K13, time: 5PM). At 7PM the crowd will move to Cuba Cafe for after session networking. We will also show some GGJ videos and games at the bar. Join us on 17th November!

More information from: http://igda.fi/

Finnish gamers in the limelight

Hello world from Stockholm Sweden. Today I am visiting Jadestone and Paf in Stockholm. Last week I gave a presentation on "video gaming trends" and I am about to put those thoughts into a slide set format shortly. I have also been putting together a presentation for EIG09. And what's EIG you might wonder? EIG is the European iGaming Congress and Expo that will be held in Copenhagen mid September. I was asked to give an Innovation keynote (focusing on online gambling and future of iGaming). It has been fun to put the presentation together. I will put both of the slide sets to Slideshare as soon as I have given the presentation / finalized the trends slides (mid September most likely).
IGDA Finland season 09-10 will start officially next Tuesday. We have really superb season coming up. We'll start with Everyplay session on September the 8th. Everyplay is a social games startup. Currently they are developing Kamu World for social networking sites (Facebook at first). It is a new virtual hangout featuring playful Kamus. Check it out! Early version of it is already online and Finnish speaking readers might also like to check out newest Pelaaja magazine. September issue focuses on Finnish game development scene and there is a couple of words about Everyplay and the future of gaming as well. All in all IGDA is a perfect context to catch up what's the latest with Finnish game developers and well as to network with all the bright minds. More information about the event from Igda Finland site. IGDA will also organize Presentations series. The first session will be in October and focus on Global Game Jam. Finland will get our own Game Jam next January! More information available in October at Igda.fi.

Another nice games related event is Social Gaming night at Villi Wäinö (Kalevankatu Helsinki city centre). It is held every Tuesday at 7PM by Jolly Dragon.

Btw. I noticed that I have been writing this blog since Feb 2006 and managed to put together some 200 posts. I started using Twitter in in Dec 2008 and I have already sent over 400 posts. The benefits of both blogging and microblogging are starting to show. I will continue doing both also in the future. Check out Twitscoop.

Btw2. Found this pic. Mobile social networks (UK).

IGDA Finland Presentations: Killer games from Finland

If you are in Finland (Helsinki) on March 10th, I would warmly recommend you to join IGDA Finland Presentations session. We have an excellent line-up of speakers talking about iPhone gaming (Zenbound is doing well!), Finnish MMO development (Tweehouse) and indie innovation Crayon Physics Deluxe. It won Seamus McNally Grand Prize last year and is great!

Presentations will be held at Diana auditorio from 5.30 to 7pm. Check out further information from IGDA Finland. After presentations we'll continue the evening at Cuba Café.

Seminar on game design and usability in Helsinki

Those who are not at the Igda-mailing list but are interested in games design and usability issues, this event might be interesting for you?
From the Igda.fi:

Would you like to know what Insomniac has learned from Ratchet & Clank or Resistance: Fall of Man on game usability and interaction design? How to test mobile and online game community MoiPal? What are the best usability and interaction design practices at Sulake?

Welcome to IGDA Finland Presentation session organized in association
with SIGCHI , Remedy Games and Sulake! This time the theme is game interaction design and usability.

We have a mind blowing lineup of speakers:

Ryan Schneider (Insomniac)
Ryan works as Community Director at Insomniac. Insomniac is famous for Ratchet & Clank series and Resistance: Fall of Man which was one of the PS3 launch titles.

Joakim Achren (IronStarHelsinki)
Joakim is the CEO of IronStarHelsinki. Ironstar Helsinki is the first company in the world to have successfully launched a cross-platform game that allows branded virtual goods in both online and mobile environments.

Inka Vikman (Sulake)
Inka works as Concept Designer at Sulake. Sulake is an online entertainment company focused on virtual worlds and social networking. They run popular online community service Habbo in 32 countries.

Olli Sinermä (Heavy Metal Helsinki / Pelit magazine)
Olli works as lead designer and game analyst. He will talk about usability from game reviewer's viewpoint.

After the presentations we will have open microphone session where YOU can give quick presentations (max 5 minutes) on your usability challenges or solutions! If you would like to have you 15 seconds of fame: let us know by 6th November. E-mail: sonja.kangas@igda.fi

NOTE: This time pre-registration to the IGDA Finland Presentations session is mandatory. Please register at: http://igda.fi/?page_id=16

The IGDA gathering aka after party is at Cuba cafe!

* IGDA FINLAND PRESENTATION *

Place: Valkoinen sali, Aleksanterinkatu 16-18, follow the IGDA signs
Date: Tuesday 11th November
Starts: 16.00
Ends: 19.00 — the chat will continue at Cuba cafe!

* IGDA FINLAND AUGUST GATHERING & AFTER PARTY *
Place: Cuba Cafe, Erottajankatu 4, 00120 Helsinki (map: http://igda.fi/?page_id=5 )
Time: Tuesday 11th November, doors open at 19.00