October Gathering Rocked!

With coldness in the air things got a whole lot warmer at IGDA’s gathering last Tuesday (Oct. 3) at Cuba. As always the gathering was full of action with 101 friends and colleagues networking and enjoying rich conversation and in the back Retro games ruled with players rocking out with Contra and Super Mario Bros. [singlepic id=711 w=320 h=240 float=] See the Gallery here.

We are also please to congratulate EveryPlay’s Amplifier for winning Mindtrek’s Launch Pad. Applifier helps social game and app publishers of all size to grow their social applications through cross promotion. Over 100 apps use Applifier to promote their application to over 55 million monthly active users on Facebook. Congrats EveryPlay!

Also cool news, TAIK (Aalto University School of Art and Design) started a Game Design and Production Master of Arts program. It is a 2-year degree program that provides unique possibility for building game design skills while building theoretical and conceptual understanding on games. More Info.

Well that's it from here. Our next gathering will be Nov. 9th so keep your eyes open for more information.

September Gathering kicked off IGDA Finland season 2010-2011!

Busy fall started along with IGDA Gatherings! The first Gathering attracted 130 people to Cuba Cafe. We had a lot of good networking, students visiting Igda Chapter from Aalto University and Outokumpu college and good news from Recoil & Colossal Order! Good to see positive things happening at the game startup scene as well. Thanks to everyone joining the fun and see you again at the October Gathering! IGDA FINLAND OCTOBER GATHERING Place: Cuba Bar, Erottajankatu 4, 00120 Helsinki (map) Time: Tuesday, 5th of October, doors open at 19:00

Invitation: September Gathering

Back to work - back to work and to IGDA Finland Gathering! We'll kick start the Season 2010-2011 on Tuesday September the 7th. Despite the sunny weather Finnish game developers worked hard over the summer. There were several good news and impressive progress. Join us at Cuba bar to catch up the latest news from fellow game developers. Besides chatting and cheap drinks, we'll have also some retro games (on Wii)!

See you next Tuesday!

IGDA FINLAND SEPTEMBER GATHERING Place: Cuba Bar, Erottajankatu 4, 00120 Helsinki (map: http://igda.fi/?page_id=5) Time: Tuesday, 7th of September, doors open at 19:00

You can find the preliminary dates for IGDA Finland Gatherings 2010-2011 here.

PS. The 2nd round 2010 of Nordic Game Development Support is closing on 1st October. Check out Nordic Game website for more information and don't forget to apply! http://www.nordicgameprogram.org/?id=23

IGDA Finland May: Talking about project management

IGDA Finland Presentations in association with Sulake was organized along with the usual IGDA Finland Gathering at the Cuba Cafe. This time we teamed up with Sulake, the company behind Habbo Hotel. Sulake kindly offered a venue for IGDA Finland Presentations at the city center of Helsinki. Project Management issues were discussed by Jon Leslie from Hansoft, Joonas Tamminen from Redlynx and Jan Storgårds from Aalto University. The presentations session was also streamed online and the recording can be found from: USTREAM.

On a general level Hansoft talked about agile project management, Scrum as a process and Hansoft tools. RedLynx has over 10 year of experience in game development and their CTO Joonas Tamminen gave a nice overview of different attempts, different type of projects, platforms and technologies as well as described how their take on project management has changed over time. Jan Storgårds is a PhD candidate at the Aalto University in Finland. He has been studying brand value creation process. In his presentation he went through results of the study based on interviews conducted in 19 Finnish game studios and 26 persons representing the game industry. If you want to get more in depth with the topic, see the interviews with Joonas ja Jan IGDA volunteer Reina Magica made after the presentations.

The IGDA Finland Presentations session got fully booked (nearly 100 people joining) within first 12 hours and the room surely was packed! Still everything worked smoothly. A big hand goes to Sulake for hosting this and future IGDA Finland Presentations sessions.

After the presentations, it was time to head to the Cuba Cafe just a few blocks away. This time IGDA Finland Gathering attracted 115 developers. The evening continued with topics touching project management. All lecturers were present at the Cuba Cafe. There were also lots of people from Remedy due to the fact that Alan Wake was done and shipped. Congratulations Remedy!

The last Gathering before summer holidays will be on Tuesday June the 8th. See you there!

Invitation: IGDA Finland June Presentations & Gathering

IGDA Finland Season 2009-2010 ends with a blast! The last IGDA Finland Gathering before holidays will take place on Tuesday 8th of June. We will provide everything and more! The evening starts with IGDA Finland Presentations titled “Startup Stories” in association with Sulake and continues as IGDA Finland Gathering at the Cuba Café. On top of that IGDA Finland is collaborating with AVEA research project (by Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT). They will organize a seminar on virtual economy at Kiasma seminar room. The seminar will start at 12PM and you are most welcome to join the event. Sign up here: http://bit.ly/9blTED.

AVEA Seminar on Research in Virtual Economies 12.00 Opening words Kai Huotari, Research programme Manager, HIIT

12.15 Virtual Consumption Dr. Vili Lehdonvirta, Researcher, HIIT

12.50 Virtual goods sales as a business model Juho Hamari, Researcher, HIIT

13.25-14.25 Coffee Break

14.25 A micro-economic approach to MMOs Juha Tolvanen, Researcher, HIIT

15.00 Does a player driven virtual world need economic management? CCPs approach to managing the economy of EVE Online. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, Chief Economist, CCP

15.35-16.00 Closing discussion

IGDA Finland evening starts with IGDA Finland Presentations on “Startup Stories”. Finnish game startups will share their thoughts how and why they founded the company, what lessons have they learned and what are they up to at the moment. We will have six startups: Relationship Games, Rocket Pack, Ookoohko, Ironstar Helsinki, Uplause and Fantastec sharing their stories and inspiring the rest of us. Also Ilari Kuittinen (Housemarque) and Trip Hawkins (Digital Chocolate) will share their stories how they got started!

IGDA FINLAND PRESENTATIONS Place: Sulake auditorium, Korkeavuorenkatu 35, 00130 Helsinki Time: Tuesday, 8th of June, 17:00 Obligatory registration SORRY BUT THE EVENT IS FULL! The room will fit first 100 so act now! Only the ones replying “yes” will be on the list. Do follow the video stream at http://igda.fi on Tuesday 8th of June (5PM>)!

IGDA Finland Presentations will also be streamed online at igda.fi. The live stream starts on 8th June at 5PM.

After IGDA Finland Presentations, it is time to head to the bar – super-super party at Cuba! Singing! Drinking! Having fun! Chatting! Chilling!

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 JUNE GATHERING Place: Cuba Bar, Erottajankatu 4, 00120 Helsinki (map: http://igda.fi/?page_id=5) Time: Tuesday, 8th of June, doors open at 19:00