September Gathering: Farewell System Rock

[singlepic=337,120,90,,right] Media has been full of news about global economical recession. Unfortunately game industry is not free of its impact even though the editor in chief of Pelit-lehti said that the economic slump is always good for the game industry because people tend to stick indoors playing games during the insecure times instead of spending their money elsewhere ;)

[singlepic=338,120,90,,left]

Luckily the worries didn't show in attendance to the September IGDA Gathering which attracted nearly 100 visitors. The casual chat went from challenges in the gaming industry and global economics to funding, networking and interesting game releases. For example Little Big Planet is around the corner. Also Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was one of the releases people were eagerly waiting for. There are number of things happening in Finland as well but we have still some way to go until large domestic productions such a Alan Wake will be finalized.

Thank you all who joined the Gathering in September and be sure to join the party again on 7th October. October Gathering will be the "housewarming party" at Cuba bar sponsored by Lapland Studio.

IGDA together with its partners has also been planning exciting program for November and December Gatherings. Mark the coming Gatherings to your calendar and follow the IGDA forum and web site to keep track with the news.

Finnish Games Association joins ISFE

http://www.figma.fi/

http://www.isfe-eu.org/

Europe's Interactive Software Federation announced that the Finnish Games and Multimedia Association is the 26th member to join the ISFE.

FIGMA counts eleven members in its association, all of them big software companies operating on the Finnish market," said Patrice Chazerand, secretary general of the ISFE.

Its presence in the ISFE strengthens the industry's voice in Europe. It will help us do several things: push on with our mission to secure effective legislation for the protection of intellectual property rights, achieve adequate enforcement of the legislation and win unrestricted market access both on and off line.

I am delighted to announce that with the arrival of the Finns virtually the entire Nordic block is now on board."

ISFE membership will bring my member companies more scope to get their voices heard by the legislators in areas such as intellectual property, e-commerce, the fight against piracy, WTO negotiations, protection of minors and the environment," said FIGMA's Managing Director, Riku Olkkonen.

The members of FIGMA include AMO/Nintendo, Atari, Electronic Arts, K.E. Media, Microsoft/Xbox, Nokia, Nordisk Film/PlayStation, Plan 1, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Toptronics/PAN Vision, and Vivendi Games.

The ISFE was established in 1998 and represents the interests of the interactive software sector throughout the 27 EU Member States plus Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It has been running the Pan-European Game Information ratings system since 2003.

IGDA Finland gets a new student club - Score

Score is an IGDA student club that goes deep into video gamedev and is also formally known as TAMK University of Applied Sciences Game Development Club. Score aims to be the very first Finnish Student game development club of IGDA.

The idea of Score was founded in the beginning of the year 2007 and the constitutive meeting, also as the first official meeting was held in August 18th.

The head of Score is called ”Scoreboard”, the members of which were voted in the first meeting. Scoreboard consists of four members: president, vice president, board member and secretary. Predictably, Teemu Haila, the founder of Score was voted as the president. Juho Hartikainen was voted as the vice president, Niko Kosonen as board member and Essi Nieminen as Score's secretary. The whole Scoreboard happens to consist of second year Interactive designers.

Score has almost 30 members, 15 of whom can be considered as active. The majority of Score members are from Tampere's universities and the age distribution is from 18 right up to 30. Score membership isn't dependable on being student. The most important thing is desire to work within games and especially gamedev.

Score aims high

Even though Score is brand new as an association and everything had to be started from the scratch, aims the first project reasonably high: 20-minute-lasting FP(S) horrorgame, Frayed. As most of the Score members study in TTVO (The School of Art and Media), setting for the videogame production is fairly decent.

Most of Score members creating Frayed have no formal training on gamedev. One of Score's main goals is to give its members a chance to improve and gather skills to become for example a game developer, game designer, producer or graphic designer for real – Score wants to make an effort to initiate its members into gamedev as a possible and desirable future career.

More information on Score itself and its projects and actions can be found on http://score.igda.fi

Writer: Essi Nieminen / Score secretary

From the web: IGDA proposes game credits standards

Credits Standards Committee chair to speak at GDC 08 The International Game Developers Association is pushing for an industry-wide adoption of professional standards in game credits.

A public "beta" of the proposed IGDA standards was posted online for member feedback in September, but the issue has recently come to the forefront with the news that Rockstar Vienna was snubbed in the credits for Manhunt 2.

"Accurate, complete, and fair credits are essential to ongoing employment, professional development, and artistic fulfillment for all developers," said the IGDA's executive director Jason Della Rocca.

"Further, having accurate credits helps employers make informed hiring decisions."

The IGDA has established a Credit Standards Committee with the goal of establishing generally accepted guidelines that all studios and publishers can use.

John Feil, the chair of this committee, will be hosting a roundtable session during the 2008 Game Developers Conference entitled "The IGDA Credits Movement: The Revolution Is Already Here.

Article from GamesIndustry.Biz

GDC Scholarship Notification

It’s GDC Scholarship time again! All students interested in the game industry should really take a moment to check it out. On the surface the scholarship includes a main conference pass, a local studio visit, and an industry mentor. But what it really includes is access to a huge network of people with the same interests as you, chances to meet your favorite people in the industry, and loads of information to get your game industry career off the ground. As a 2007 scholarship recipient, I highly recommend students to take advantage of this opportunity. If you would like more information, you can check out the reports from previous winners or take a look at the article I wrote for IGDA Finland after my GDC visit.

-Liz Lehtonen, Chapter Coordinator