IGDA Finland Seminars + December Gathering with InMobi

It’s pre-Christmas party season, folks! And we know it wouldn’t be the same without IGDA Finland December gathering, so worry not: ‘tis the time to get festive, end the fall season in style and prepare for a well-earned rest over the holidays.

This year’s pre-Christmas celebration is sponsored by InMobi, a global mobile advertising platform that reaches over 1 billion mobile devices every month. InMobi recently launched Miip, their user first discovery platform. Because users come first to them and they obsess about delivering the right user experience, we’re confident you’ll not be disappointed by the special treats and speeches they have prepared for the event. And not only are you in for epic fun times, there is also a seminar before the party.

The seminar this time is all about strategies for monetizing with ads and how to implement ads in a non-intrusive way. Our speakers come from Futureplay and Next Games, both studios that have succeeded in pulling off this “impossible” feat.

After all the special events this season and hopping all over Helsinki we’re also finally ready to announce our new gathering venue: IGDA Finland will be settling in at Maxine. Judging by the general feedback after our last invasion to this venue, we think quite many of you will approve of this.

Besides the seminar and party goodies, we have yet another special little something planned for the event: devs will have a chance to showcase their games during the evening. Read more here and sign up if you want your chance in the spotlight!

So prepare your party gear and join us on Dec 8 – it’ll be a blast!

IGDA Finland Seminars presents: Ad Monetization Strategies, Sponsored by InMobi
Time: 8.12.2015 at 17:30 – 18:30
Place: Maxine, Urho Kekkosen katu 1 A, 6th floor, 00100 Helsinki

- Jami Laes (Futureplay): View To Play Games - The Next $100B Market - Mitchell Smallman (Next Games): Rewarded Video Ads in Midcore Mobile: Blazing Trails Where We Were Told Not To Tread

IGDA Finland December Gathering with InMobi
Time: 8.12.2015 at 19:00
Place: Maxine, Urho Kekkosen katu 1 A, 6th floor, 00100 Helsinki

Please note that you need to be at least 18 years old to attend. The cloakroom service is offered free of charge.

Seminar agenda

Jami Laes was previously in charge of Angry Birds and everything else in games as the Executive Vice-President of Games at Rovio Entertainment. He has been leading global game studios at EA, Playfish and Digital Chocolate over the past 10 years. Laes first started in mobile games in 2000 as a game designer at Riot-E and his first games he developed on his Amiga 500 in 1988. He is currently the CEO and co-founder of Futureplay Games.

View To Play Games - The Next $100B Market The mobile ads market is estimated to top $100B in 2016. And no developers are focused on it. While everyone is still staring at the TOP-grossing chart, Futureplay Games is building a new generation of View-to-Play games. Jami will talk about Free-to-Play & View-to-Play and how in their debut game Farm Away! they have successfully leveraged ads in a rewarding, fun and non-intrusive way that make our games more fun, faster and cheaper for the players to play and the players love it.

Mitchell Smallman is a Senior Product Manager at Next Games. A six year Free to Play veteran (yes, including MySpace) has worked as Story Writer, Game Designer, Consultant, Pro Wrestling Referee and Product Manager throughout his career. He is a passionate advocate of free to play and casual gaming.

Rewarded Video Ads in Midcore Mobile: Blazing Trails Where We Were Told Not To Tread Rewarded ads have not been widely used as a central feature in mid-core titles due to fears of effecting IAP conversion and audience engagement. Mitchell will share lessons learned from Next Games' mid-core title Compass Point: West, along with practical examples from other developers. He will include how to tie rewarded ads into your core gameplay mechanic in a meaningful way, how rewarded ads can be regarded as a feature instead of an interruption, A/B testing to get the right value for advertisers vs IAP spending, balancing a game economy with heavy ad value, and analyzing player behavior to understand ad watching players.

IGDA Finland November Gathering with Omniata, Redlynx and Slush

IMPORTANT: Slush passes are NOT valid for entry, nor is one required to register to this party. To ensure a faster sign-in at the door, please either print your ticket or have it ready on your mobile device.

One of the biggest events of the year is approaching fast: Slush 2015 is almost here. For those not in the loop, Slush is a 2-day conference bringing together tech startups, investors and media. Last year there were over 14 000 attendees so you can expect quite a crowd!

IGDA Finland will be organizing the official game industry party – which doubles as our November gathering – on Wednesday, November 11, sponsored by Omniata and RedLynx. You can expect food, drinks and live music as well as something special on the side…

Note that registration is required for this event, so head on over to the event sign-up and secure your access right away to our biggest event yet!

IGDA Finland November Gathering with Omniata, Redlynx and Slush
Time: 11.11.2015 at 19:00
Place: Messukeskus, Messuaukio 1, 00521 Helsinki (Yellow Area in Slush)

Please note that you need to be at least 18 years old to attend. The cloakroom service is offered free of charge.

IGDA Finland October Gathering with Remedy

October is almost upon us and you know what that means: it’s gathering time! Mark October 6th on your calendars and prepare yourself for a night of awesome: the gathering is sponsored by Remedy, taking a (well-deserved) break from developing Quantum Break and equipping their party hats to have a good time with fellow devs.

We’ve hopped places a lot during the past couple of months, and this time is no different: our venue for the event will be Virgin Oil Co. – so make sure not to default to our usual spot! Little birds have also sang their sweet songs of swag to be handed out…

See you all there!

IGDA Finland October Gathering with Remedy
Time: 06.10.2015 at 19:00
Place: Virgil Oil Co., Mannerheimintie 5, 00100 Helsinki

Please note that you need to be at least 18 years old to attend. The cloakroom service is offered free of charge.

We are also organizing something special in addition to the gathering: IGDA Finland is proud to take part in Pelit kiertoon, a campaign to donate games and gaming devices to charity. The games and consoles will find their way into such places as hospitals, sheltered homes, women's shelters and refugee centers.

October gathering will have a designated drop-off table where you can bring your unneeded games for any platform (board and card games are fine, too!) and any old consoles you want to pass on. All donations delivered to us will be forwarded to Hope ry, an association supporting poor and struggling families, giving the children and youth in these homes a chance to have hobbies.

Help us help others, and give your old gaming gear a new life! Any questions about the campaign can be sent to niina.pesonen@igda.fi (IGDA Finland) or mikko.merilainen@helsinki.fi (Pelit kiertoon, campaign coordinator).

Umbra Ignite & IGDA Finland September Gathering with Umbra

The September seminar and gathering were sponsored by Umbra, and what a day it was! We had an amazing seminar for the whole day with mind-blowing presentations about some of the latest ideas, trends, research and innovations in the industry. Here we want to share a few moments from that day with you:

It was morning and the seminar space was almost ready.

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Finally the doors were open!

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The seminar space was full and it was time for words of welcome from Umbra.

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The seminar started with a presentation by Rulon Raymond, Sr. Engine Programmer from Infinity Ward.

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Raymond talked about skinning and the evolution of the hardware of consoles, and how skinning should or should not be technically implemented. He identified problems in skinning such as “candy wrapper effect” (means that a joint is bending when animating) and "flat ass syndrome". Raymond then presented different technical solutions for the problem, such as GPU friendly Dual Quaternion Blend skinning. At the end Raymond reminded the audience that “Skinning is not a solved problem”.

Next on stage was Graham Wihlidal, Sr. Rendering Engineer from Frostbite.

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Wihlidal presented Frostbite engine and the challenges that different usage, platforms and genres produce and how the team found solutions. Wihlidal told that at Frostbite each team can decide what features will be implemented and how this customizability keeps the performance good because only important parts are kept. Frostbite’s solution is to have the engine close to the hardware which makes it easier to work with and increases the quality.

Next in the spotlight were Remy Chinchilla and Kevin Cerdà from Tequila Works.

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Chinchilla and Cerdà presented AAA production tips and solutions for indie studios. They talked about combining creativity with business. The freedom of creativity is the most important thing, but the producer has to be able to recognize the important features for the project and prioritize the implementation. Creative chaos in organization doesn’t make a game and Chinchilla and Cerdà told it’s important to move to production and to learn to close things. They talked also about how recognizing the abilities that each member of the team has and how letting them use their skills leads to a better working environment. And they reminded how a studio should always plan ahead their problems.

Then Jérémy Virga from Arkane Studios came on stage.

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Virga presented Dishonored 2 rendering and engine architecture. He told about their rendering pipeline and that they wanted to move towards multithreaded game logic and rendering. Virga explained how pipeline changes to multitasking makes the organizing of the data more difficult, but they found many benefits for the change. They split the render loop which saved duration time and gave good results and they still continue to evolve their engine.

Next up on stage were Thor Gunnarsson and S. Reynir Hardarson from Sólfar studios.

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Gunnarsson and Hardarson presented their virtual reality AAA game studio. They talked about VR challenges and their design principles for a good virtual reality game. Virtual reality performance requirements need resources that will easily lead to major compromises in implementation and that is when a strong artistic and technical knowledge are very necessary skills. Gunnarsson and Hardarson endorsed the future of small agile teams that have no room for egoism, but many responsibilities and strong participation which all creates greater work satisfaction.

Then it was time for the presentation by Balázs Török, Lead Engine Programmer from CDProjekt RED.

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Török talked about memory management in open world games and the challenges and what solutions they found while making Witcher 3. Török talked about GPU pool defragmenting and how they made three iterations to the engine. First they tested CPU memcopy but decided they can do better. The second iteration was a compute shader, but they still weren’t satisfied and made the third iteration: DMA engine.

The last presentation was by Alex Evans from Media Molecule.

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Evans talked about their journey and technical challenges when they were developing a new game engine for their new game Dreams on Sony PlayStation. Media Molecule presented Dreams engine at Siggraph this year. They made four versions that evolved from polygons to voxels and then to froxels and finally to splashes in cooperation with art director and artists to test and find the final visual style. Creative minds put together resulted in an amazing outcome.

After the mind-blowing seminar the attendees got some special treats and drinks before the doors were opened for the monthly gathering. Umbra sponsored also the gathering which continued until the late night...

Thank you Umbra for the exciting day! And thank you Circus for the good service! Stay cool and awesome and see You in October!

Photos by Janne Karvinen.

IGDA Finland September Gathering with Umbra

As most of the developer scene is undoubtedly aware tomorrow is a big day: at 11:30 we’ll be opening the doors at The Circus for Umbra Ignite. While the seminar, featuring speakers from renowned studios around the world, has long been sold out, everyone is welcome to the September gathering held at the same location from 19:00 onwards.

Umbra will be sponsoring the gathering as well, we have a special drink offer available and a small surprise for all attendees. So even if you missed the registration for the seminar, drop by and enjoy the after party!

IGDA Finland September Gathering with Umbra
Time: 01.09.2015 at 19:00
Place: The Circus, Salomoninkatu 1–3, 00100 Helsinki

Please note that you need to be at least 18 years old to attend. The cloakroom service is offered free of charge.