Get 15% off from #XmasJKL - The Industry Business Seminar, Fri 10th of Nov + "Day Zero" 9th of Nov

Get 15% OFF! from #XmasJKL - The Industry Business Seminar, Fri 10th of Nov 2023

Join us for an exciting in-person event, #XmasJKL 2023 – The Finnish Game Industry Business Seminar, on Fri Nov 10, 2023 at 10:00 AM. This seminar will take place at Ilokivi, Keskussairaalantie 2, 40100 Jyväskylä, offering a fantastic opportunity to network and learn from industry experts.

Discover the latest trends and insights in the Finnish game industry, as well as valuable business strategies. Gain valuable knowledge from renowned speakers, engage in interactive discussions, and forge new connections with like-minded professionals.

Whether you’re a game developer, entrepreneur, investor, or simply interested in the gaming world, #XmasJKL 2023 is the place to be. Don’t miss out on this incredible event that promises to inspire, educate, and entertain.

Mark your calendar, and get ready to level up your game industry expertise at #XmasJKL 2023 – The Finnish Game Industry Business Seminar!

Get -15% OFF - USE CODE: XMASLOVESIGDA

Get ticker https://www.xmasjkl.com

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“Day Zero“at Digi & Game Center!

We shall have a day before the main event a “Day Zero” networking event at multiple times awarded Coworking space and Ecosystem Digi Game Center (DGC). Digi & Game Center is also the place where IGDA Finland Jyväskylä Hub Meetups happens now days.  The Premises are just 15 min from Matkakeskus by walking or about 5 min walk from Jyväskylä city center .

Get to know the premises and network: 14.00-18.00 (2-6pm)

Sauna at the DGC 20:00-23.00

Read more about: Digi & Game Center

This is day event is open for all, but we would like to know how many is visiting so please do sign via Eventbrite too: Day Zero ticket

Need more details?
Please feel free to contact
Tuomas Roininen, tuomas.roininen (at) expa.fi

IGDA Member Get -10% off or even -15% off! #XmasJKL - The Game Industry Business Seminar 27th of Nov 2019

IGDA Member Get -10% off or even -15% off! #XmasJKL - The Game Industry Business Seminar 27th of Nov 2019

#XmasJKL – The Game Industry and Business Seminar is the annual game business seminar in Jyväskylä, Central Finland. And it is already 5th time already!

Seminar speakers, networking and business in an open, relaxed event.
Learn, share, co-operate!

Organized by Expa Game Business Co-Operative (IGDA Finland Jyväskylä Hub)

- Let’s make awesome game business!

Top lineup of spekeakers again with various topics from industry experts.

Lineup:

- Mikko Toivanen, Customer Engineer, Google Finland
- Mark Cochrane, CEO, Lightneer
- Elina Arponen , CEO, co-founder, Quicksave
- Felicia “Licia” Prehn, Head of Production, Nopia Oy
- Luai Mahjneh, Manager, Game Development Partnerships & Jani Eronen Lead Developer, Veikkaus Game Studio

Remenber there are 35min +10min QA speaker slots so you get the deep view in topics surely!

The event is K18

Check tickest and more event info at the website:

www.xmasjkl.com

Join to the Facebook event:

https://www.facebook.com/events/2432988880359155/

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IGDA members USE THE CODE get -10% off: XMASLOVESIGDA

Get even -15% with Group Deal with min 5 people sent email for more details: sales@expa.fi

Get -10% off or even -15% off! #XmasJKL - The Game Industry Business Seminar 14th of Nov 2018

#XmasJKL - The Game Industry Business Seminar 14th of Nov 2018

#XmasJKL – The Game Industry and Business Seminar is the annual game business seminar in Jyväskylä, Central Finland. And it is already 4th time already!

Seminar speakers, networking and business in an open, relaxed event.

Learn, share, co-operate!

Organized by Expa Game Business Co-Operative
- Let’s make awesome game business!

Top lineup of spekeakers again with various topics from industry experts like Global Business, Game Development, Human Resources, Adaptive Music Design, Taking over the world with YouTube etc:

Opening words:
The opening words by Suvi Vuojolainen, Business and Marketing Manager, Business Jyväskylä, City of Jyväskylä

Lineup:
- Mika Rahko, Co-Founder, Futureplay
- Lauri Vuohensilta, Hydraulic Press Channel
- Adam Sporka, Adaptive Music Designer, Kingdom Come Deliverance
- Mirella Keto, Head of Organizational Development, Ubisoft RedLynx
- Jussi Immonen, COO, Nitro Games
- Timo Soininen, CEO, Small Giant Games

The event is K18

Check tickest and more event info at the website:
www.xmasjkl.com

Join to the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/321368438598749/

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IGDA members USE THE CODE get -10% off: IGDAGOESXMAS

Get even -15% with Group Deal sent email for more details: sales@expa.fi

Source:: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/xmasjkl-the-game-industry-seminar-2018-tickets-50903992211

Tekes Skene Roadshow & EXPA May Gathering with JES

The Tekes Skene Roadshow visited Jyväskylä just one day before our monthly meeting. It ended up being a very personal visit, with Kari Korhonen talking about how the Skene program works and answering questions from game developers from Jyväskylä.

We were happy to arrange our May Gathering with our good friends, Jyväskylä Entrepreneurship society. The Gathering was at the Jyväskylä Train Depot, a great space all kinds of cultural events at Jyväskylä.

We had two great guests, with Kati Heljakka and Samuli Syvähuoko, who also visited us this time last year.

Kati Heljakka is a toy and games researcher, with a PhD from the university of Turku. She is also a creative director at the Finnish board game company, Tactic. Tactic was a very exciting example of a Finnish games company, since it does something most of us are not that familiar: board games. It also manages to be international and still make the games in Pori, Finland, when most board game companies have outsourced the production into Asia. Very inspirational to hear someone with both the theoretical training and practical experience about making physical games.

Samuli Syvähuoko is veteran of the Finnish game studies, having been involved with starting such game companies as Remedy. He’s been touring Finland, talking about the Game Brewery, a project for “refining the Finnish games industry.” On top of that, they managed to make actual beer for the games industry! He also argued at length that Finland is the best place to be making games. The numbers he showed us of Finnish games industry’s growth seemed pretty convincing.

The evening came to a great end at the Bar Paja, with the games industry’s own beer. This was also the last gathering this spring, with the next one waiting us in September.

Thank you JES, Kati and Samuli and see you all in September!

EXPA & IGDA Finland Jyväskylä Hub April Gathering

This month Expa put local game companies on the stage to show their talent, projects and games. We got four great guests making games in Jyväskylä. First on the stage was Patty Toledo from FanART Games. Their game Mega FAN! is a combination of music and games, giving fans new way to interact with their favorite bands and giving bands a chance to connect with their fans. They already have an impressive roster of bands and first game features on the way.

Next, we heard from Juuso Hietalahti, the designer of The Infected: 28 Cards Later. The Infected is a card game in the vein of Werewolf or Mafia, with survivors trying to survive in a world of zombies with a traitor in their midst. He was also in the middle of converting The Infected to a digital card game.

We also had the pleasure of seeing what the brand new Zaibatsu Interactive had made in just a few short weeks. They recently moved to new offices and have worked furiously making a new prototype that was for now called simply Game#1. Game#1 was a co-operative game of moving small slime-balls around on a tablet device.

Our last invited guest was Olli Rundgren from Pisamala, working on bringing games to education. They were just a couple of short months away from publishing their game. Olli has experience from being software developer and shared stories and experiences of what is it like to run a business.

We also got to try out a soon-to-be-published Windows Phone game Goldfish in the Sewer, from our good friend Tuomas from Add Inspiration.

Next month we’ll join the Tekes Skene Roadshow. See you there!

- EXPA & IGDA Finland Jyväskylä Hub

Expa Game Lab & Expa Game Club & Expa Gathering

Last Tuesday was an eventful day, with the ending of Expa Game Lab, Expa Gathering and Expa Game Club on the same day. Expa Game Lab was a half year project with participants making game prototypes from ideas they had. In the beginning there was 13 game ideas, but they were ranked in two votes down to four. In the end, there were four teams making games. None of the games were finished in the limited time frame, but that wasn't a surprise to anyone. The games presented were: Buggers, COMA,CyberAfrica and Seth.

Probably the most positive outcome of the Expa Game Lab was the birth of a new game company, Zaibatsu Interactive, soon developing more games in Jyväskylä. You can find them on Twitter. Expa Game Club was a more focused project, with a group of first­timers making a small game in three weeks (plus polish) under the guidance of an experienced producers, our own Klaus Kääriäinen. Klaus' direction helped them limit the scope of the game to a product that can be finished in the time given. Their game, Back from Afar looks pretty impressive.

Our guest at the Expa Gathering was Jussi Autio from Oulu Game Lab and Viima Games. Oulu Game Lab is what sparked the inspiration for our own Expa Game Lab so we were eager to hear things were going in Oulu. Oulu Game Lab seemed to be a pretty autonomous part of Oulu University of Applied Sciences, with a multidisciplinary game education program teaching everything needed to make games, from programming to art. They've already managed to create seven new start­ups, with one more to come. They've helped make 16 game demos, got investors and millions of downloads for the games made there. Pretty impressive!

Expa doesn't have the institutional backing, but we'll our best to catch up next round, when we start a new Expa Game Lab later this year. We'll put everything we learned from the previous Game Lab and from Jussi to use and make the next one even better.

Stay tuned for next month, when we put the local talents on stage. Do you have game company or a team making games in Jyväskylä? If we haven't already contacted you, drop us a message and come show your projects at next months Expa Gathering.

EXPA & IGDA Finland Jyväskylä Hub Volunteers

Jyväskylä February Gathering

Expa’s second gathering this year was held on its usual spot and time, on a Tuesday at Shaker. We had two great guests, researchers from the Gamecloud-project from Lappeenranta University of Technology and Lasse Seppänen from PlayRaven.

Before the gathering we had a workshop with Gamecloud, connecting game projects to the cloud service developed in the project. Janne Parkkila, Kati Järvi and Timo Hynninen helped us figure out Gamecloud and get the service running. It is now in closed beta, but the API is open and on Github. At the gathering, we heard a bit more on where their research is now and how we can use it for making games.

Our other guest was Lasse Seppänen, CEO of PlayRaven, which just received $2.3M in seed investment. Lasse told us about his history at Remedy, for example about making Alan Wake. He also told us more about PlayRaven, and the game they are currently making, Spymaster. A game about managing spies in mid-war Europe? Can’t wait for it to be out. Everyone was eager to hear tips from a games industry veteran, so we almost didn’t let him off the stage after the questions started pouring in.

Thank you everyone for a fun gathering and we hope our guests visit us again soon!

Expa & IGDA Finland Jyväskylä Hub volunteers

Jyväskylä Expa, now also an IGDA Finland Hub!

Expa's December Gathering had both a great guest and lots of cause for celebration. Formally, Expa is registered in 2013, but actually, it was already alive and well in 2012. This means that Expa is now one year old!

Congratulations Expa!

But there is more: Expa is now officially an IGDA Finland hub, representing game developers from Jyväskylä around Finland and the world.

As a guest, we had Joachim Achrén, formerly the lead analyst at Supercell and now running his own company, Next Games. Joachim gave us great tips on what kinds of numbers to crunch in games.

We also heard about the game projects that are part of Expa Game Lab. Four games in total are on their way to completion in 2014, and we heard what Buggers, Seth, COMA and CyberAfrica had been doing.

In January, Expa kicked the year off with Unity and Microsoft, when the LevelUp-tour came to Jyväskylä. First, developers spent the day doing games for Windows 8 and Windows Phone. It was a great chance to hear tips and tricks for Unity, and then have a chance at publishing a game on the Windows platforms.

Later in the evening, we played Tekken Tag Tournament 2. There was a tournament of 12 players, with Sami Sorvo taking the lead with an unbroken chain of wins. Congratulations!