IGDA Finland Gatherings are organized by a group of volunteers. By joiningIGDA Finland ry you support the work we are doing and get great benefits: starting with cheaper drinks at the IGDA Finland Gatherings!
For more information: http://igda.fi
One major goal for the IGDA Finland in 2013 is to improve and broader our offering across Finland. Brand new IGDA Finland board is putting together a plan how to support local communities at its best and support their growth. As part of that effort we will be presenting local game development hubs on igda.fi. We'll start this series with Kouvola. Mika Lammi from Kinno - Kouvola Innovations Oy focusing on regional development, was kind enough to give an overview of the Kouvola scene.
Facts and figures, Kouvola scene in a nutshell Mika Lammi: We have 10-12 active game companies and about the same amount of indie developers at the moment. The companies employ roughly 30-40 people all put together. The scene is quite young, and thus developing rapidly - it is expected that the numbers will go up fast due to the healthy education structure we have in place. The local vocational school KSAO (Kouvolan seudun ammattiopisto) is offering both degree studies and adult education in game development and design. Kymenlaakso University of Applied Sciences will start offering international game design studies in 2013.
The number of student in all of the above programs will total 50 in 2013 and should double in 2014 as freshman classes are rolled in. Kouvola Innovation Oy, the local city-owned development company has several initiatives and projects in place to support game industry employment and entrepreneurship potential. Our tools include the national Protomo network of innovation incubator initiatives, amongst other projects.
Game dev companies from Kouvola
Mika Lammi: Presently the scene can be described as young, enthusiastic and rapidly growing. Liquid Flower Games made a good entry into the scene by releasing Qubeh and gaining very positive mentions in the international industry blogosphere. Another group, Blight Games, are preparing their entry and have already entered negiotiations with several interested parties.
Main factors for regional growth
Mika Lammi: The biggest factor is naturally the incredible success of Finnish companies worldwide, and the following growth of the national initiative. Secondly, our strategic choice of focusing our resources into high quality education and maintaining education-industry interfaces has already started to pay off.
What is Kinno?
Mika Lammi: Here's a handy quote from our web site: "Being a political player in the economic life of the city, the company provides services prescribed by the economic strategy, develops the economic life, creates networks of cooperation partners, and is in charge of marketing the region for economic purposes. The company focuses on the structural change of the region, the local SMEs and entrepreneurship in general, not to mention making efforts to increase the income from tourism and develop the local business environment including workforce, premises, services and infrastructure"".
The company provides services in:
I work in the development services related to creative industries, which of course includes game industries as a whole, publishing and distribution and all. What we are trying to do is to create a clear and defined path for ideas to come to light, help develop them into services and products, and guide them directly to the most potential marketplaces, regardless of the immediate geography. The mid-term big goal is to create a national game industry related education quality system, which would benefit the education system and industry companies immensely - required skills, competences and talents would find the best place both in terms of getting the best possible education and making the best possible hiring decisions, respectively.
Future? Five years from now?
Mika Lammi: We will have a healthy and vibrant game industry campus, which is structured in the way of commynity-curriculum-capital come together. By this I mean the studios, schools & students and your everyday consumer gamers working and playing together for the benefit of every party included. Also, our great geographical position right next to St.Petersburg will have it's influence in ways of having a healthy dose of international co-operation and joint projects with the Russian scene as a whole.
Must-haves when building long lasting game industry to Kouvola?
Mika Lammi: Patience, tolerance and long term vision! We do try to build things to last, and that often means taking the longer and more difficult route than some would like. The real foundation on which we all build are naturally the skilled and talented developers - without them we would have nothing at all. Therefore our most important mission is to support them both in ways of day-to-day problem solving as well as long term structural industry environment building.
IGDA Finland is proud to be the first IGDA chapter outside North America to formalize as a legal entity. IGDA Finland has registered as an association under the Finnish law and its relationship with main IGDA in United States will be governed by a contract signed in September 2012 between the parties. How to become a member or renew your membership? Here! Here!
IGDA Finland will remain an official part of the international IGDA family and members of IGDA Finland will enjoy the full membership benefits. This new arrangement enables IGDA Finland to better serve the interests of the local IGDA members in Finland. This also means that more of the membership fees can be directed to better cater local needs.
As the first actions, IGDA Finland will start expanding its service offering beyond Helsinki. IGDA Finland wants to provide support to game developers across Finland. The first step is to build a network of IGDA Finland Student Club initiatives across the region.
“IGDA Finland wants to facilitate the exchange of ideas and best practices, help new talent to get into the local industry as well as attract foreign talent to Finland. With Student Clubs we are able to drive regional development, support local game development hubs across Finland and promote entrepreneurship”, states Sonja Ängeslevä, the first Chair of the IGDA Finland association.
IGDA Finland ry works closely together with Pelikehittäjät ry (Finnish Game developer Companies association) and Neogames Finland ry, to form Finnish Game Cluster which aims to help the Finnish game development business to develop and grow. The cluster aims to push Finnish game industry to it's present state to be even greater economical value. Finnnish games industry aims to be billion € industry by 2020.
For more information on IGDA Finland and details on how to become a member, please visit http://www.igda.fi.
Contact: IGDA Finland ry Chair: Sonja Ängeslevä Sonja.Angesleva@igda.fi Tel. +358 400 759 817
IGDA Finland ry is a legally registered association under the Finnish law. The mission of IGDA Finland is to promote the development of careers and professional skills of individual game developers (and individuals of related industries) based in Finland, and to further develop the international recognition of the Finnish game developer community.
International Game Developers Association (IGDA) is the largest non-profit membership organization serving individuals who create video games. IGDA advances the careers and enhances the lives of game developers by connecting members with their peers, promoting professional development, and advocating on issues that affect the developer community. These core activities advance games as a medium—and game development as a profession.
Tekes Skene-program & Finnvera Venture Capital proudly presents: Angels Game matchmaking event. It brings game companies and business angels to the same table.
How to be part of it: 1. Fill out a form at the Finnvera site by 31th October 2. Angels Game jury will go through the applications on 5th and 6th November 3. Selected game companies will be notified on 7th November 4. Companies will be provided some pitching coaching (date TBD)
The Angels Game event will be on 13th November at Finnvera, Eteläesplanadi 8, Helsinki.
As a summer job, UGDA Finland team put together ARTtech seminar for Assembly 2012! :) This year IGDA Finland put together the ARTtech seminar @ Assembly2012! The theme is "Tinkering" of games and electronics and you'll have a chance to hear on playful prototyping by Tuomo Tammenpää (Fri 3rd August, 12AM), why Theory Interactive build an entire engine instead of a indie game (Fri 3rd Aug 7PM) and how MiniVegas team uses game engines and C++ frameworks with traditional CG animation (Sat, 4th August 1PM). You'll also learn about 3D printing, building a arcade cabinet, Unity4, Adobe tools and so on.
Full program Thursday - Saturday - bring your sleeping bag with you! We have some presentations not to be missed :)!
The Finnish chapter of International Game Developers Association.
IGDA Finland Linktree
IGDA Finland Billing Information: billing@igda.fi, Turku
Created with love and understanding by IGDA Finland volunteers.
