IGDA Finland March Gathering with Lexia and PlayRaven

It’s almost time for the March Gathering! This month we’ll have three awesome speakers for you in IGDA Finland Presentations. These guests of honor represent the mobile games marketing platform developer Applift, mobile services developer and operator DeNA and one of the world’s six Tier 1 Internet operators, Level3. More details about each of their topics will be announced later this week on Facebook and in the reminder email. The presentations start at 17:00.

As always, we also have sponsors who make sure everyone can enjoy the gathering to the fullest! This month our fun time is boosted by one of our rising startup stars, PlayRaven, and the legal superheroes at Lexia. They’ll have some words to share with us around 20:00 so keep your eyes fixed on the stage at that point.

PlayRaven is a Helsinki-based mobile game studio on a mission to serve uncontested gaming audiences in app stores worldwide. PlayRaven has just completed a $2.3 million seed investment round and is backed by Creandum as well as early-stage Supercell investors Jari Ovaskainen and London Venture Partners.

Lexia has advised several Finnish games developers on significant investment rounds, including the $2.3 million seed funding round of PlayRaven. Lexia offers its clients a business minded approach and attitude that brings competitive edge.

For Lexia legal is not just about avoiding problems – it is also adding value by ensuring business goals are met efficiently.

About Lexia:

Lexia Attorneys is a Finnish law firm offering high-quality expertise in all areas of domestic and international business law. Lexia is internationally recognized as one of the leading Finnish law firms in the field of Technology & Media, Intellectual Property, and Finance. Lexia’s international networks enable effective and reliable execution of assignments worldwide.

Lexia also provides the Lexia Growth Program (LGP) for supporting new potential growth companies. LGP includes different elements that are coordinated by Lexia and provided by us or by our exclusive partner network for fixed and project based fees.

IGDA Finland Presentations Time: 11.03.2014 at 17:00-19:00 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland

IGDA Finland March Gathering Time: 11.03.2014 at 19:00 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland

 The lovely people of Club Adams offer the cloakroom service free of charge!

IGDA Finland September Gathering and Presentations with Bitsquid

IGDA Finland is back and we start the the new season with a kick! We have a special treat from Bitsquid as they come to Helsinki to the next IGDA Presentations to present their game engine and open up for Q&A as well as mingle afterwards.

Please take note that we start the Presentation at 18:30 and Gathering starts a bit later at 19:15!

Have a look at their showreel at http://www.youtube.com/bitsquid and gallery at http://www.bitsquid.se/gallery.html.

Bitsquid was founded in Sweden 2008 by four game industry veterans who have built a new high-end game engine from the ground up to focus on excellent multicore performance, cache friendly data layouts and advanced rendering techniques. Bitsquid is a multiple platform engine running on PCs, consoles (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360) and high end mobile devices (Android, iOS).

IGDA Finland Presentations - Bitsquid Engine and Q&A Time: 3.9.2013 at 18:30 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland

IGDA Finland September Gathering Time: 3.9.2013 at 19:15 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland

Optional clock room service (starts at 19:00): 3€

IGDA Finland June Gathering and Presentations

Midsummer is right around the corner and there was just enough time for the season's last IGDA Finland Presentations and Gathering! IGDA Finland Presentations focused on several important aspects of game design. We had three presenters, the first one being Kai Rosenkranz from Nevigo. He showed us how Articy:Draft, the first professional game design tool, helps with the design process.

At this point the Presentations was hijacked by couple of guys from company called RILBITS who presented us with tools to create merchandise from our games.

Miikka Junnila from Aalto University gave us a lecture on the basics of game design, starting from the definition of a game.

And lastly we got some advanced curriculum from on free-to-play and its impact on game design process at Digital Chocolate.

After the two hour back-to-school we got drink tickets out and had a blast by the courtesy of our sponsor, Grand Cru. They showed us a cool trailer of their upcoming game Supernauts along side mansized logo!

Because this was our last Gathering of the seasons we had something special for the partiers, Oculus Rift and Leap Motion! These cool gadgets were on the floor for everybody to test and experience.

All good things come to and end, although for us this means just a two months rest before we kick off season 2013-2014. Check out the coming Gathering dates HERE!

IGDA Finland Presentations and March Gathering with Symbio

UPDATE! The Gathering will be sponsored by Symbio. They will provide us with drink tickets and a presentation! We are being pampered, aren’t we?

Helsinki is still snoozing under a blanket of snow, but IGDA Finland brings you a breath of fresh spring air!

On March 12th IGDA Finland will host a set of presentations in Club Adams. The hot topic of the day is game testing and automatization of testing process. To explore the subject we have managed to lure in Kalle Raita from drawElements, Babar Hussain from Paf and Ton Wolting from Symbio.  The presentations are as follows:

Kalle Raita: Quality Assurance - A Practical Introduction Babar Hussain: Importance of Testing in the Agile Release Process Ton Wolting: Work with test professionals and maximize your app’s quality NEW!

Don’t miss this unveiling of mysteries, come get your questions answered!

After the presentations we continue the fun with the IGDA Finland March Gathering, and you are all cordially invited to have a drink with us. Thanks to our new venue you don’t have to tarvel anywhere - all of the action takes place under the same roof! See you there!

- IGDA Finland Presentations Time: 12.3.2013 at 17.00 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland - IGDA Finland March Gathering Time: 12.3.2013 at 19.00 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland

IGDA Finland Presentations & Gathering: from the very start to exit

IGDA Finland May Gathering focused on the typical legal issues game companies have to deal with from the very start to exit. The evening was kicked off by a panel discussion led by Timo Skurnik from Aldea Attorneys at Law. Aldea is a Helsinki based law firm specialized in commercial law, which has been advicing Finnish game companies for over a decade and has a firm understanding on the business and the legal issues corporated therein. Together with Timo, Janne Snellman from Supercell, Markus Pasula from Grand Cru and Ville Vesterinen from Grey Area were sharing their experiences on various topics from founding a company to making contracts, setting up responsibilities and distributing shares to keep the company in a good shape for exit.

The Panelists shared their own experiences regarding the legal aspects associated with setting up, operating, funding and exiting a games company. Panel discussion was very practical and the audience took part in the conversation actively. After the panel it was time to head to Cuba bar for some drinks by Aldea, discuss and network with other professionals.

I personally felt the IGDA Finland Presentations session was one of the best ever. Yet for some reason there were empty seats. For those who missed the session for a reason or another, here's a video clip to give you some idea what was discussed at the panel.

IGDA Finland Gathering was as crowded as usual. This time we had nearly 150 people at the Cuba bar. It was perfect, there were enough room to move around and have discussions with people but still very good atmosphere and industry buzz going on. Finnish game development scene surely is hot at the moment and it was clear that when you do your legal stuff right from the start, your life will be a lot smoother when your game studio grows and blooms.