Look Back at 2006 - A Record-Setting Year

2006 was a Record-Setting Year for Finnish Game Industry. What a year it was!

Countless awards, great reviews for many Finnish developed games and the developers themselves. When was the last time you remember a Finnish game receiving 10/10 in any major review source? When was the last time Finnish developers & their games were nominated 17 times on IGN's Best of Year awards?

And IGDA Finland has done great as well. We have managed to grow in every area - memberships, size of invitation mailing list, maturity & size of volunteer organization and most importantly in our attendance.

In my earlier post, I was just looking at Fall 2006 numbers, due to the fact that we organize our IGDA activities based on seasons which run from August to July. So we usually track our activities in three periods: Fall, Spring and the full Season.

But if we take the numbers for the whole year, from January 2006 to December 2006, they are nearly as impressive:

- 11 organized events - total of 1301 attendees - Average attendance of 118.27 - Minimum attendance 53 - Maximum attendance 210 - Memberships grew from 87 to 180 (106.9% yearly growth) - Invitation list grew from 480 to 587 (22.29% yearly growth)

These growth numbers would not have been possible had we not developed our organization further during the year as well. Here's a list of the major changes in our organization:

- 6 person Advisory Board formed - 2 new people added to the Advisory Board - 2 Student Volunteers stepped up to become Chapter Coordinators - 4 new Student Volunteers joined - Total number of volunteers rose from 21 to 25 (includes Advisory Board, Chapter Coordinators & Student Volunteers)

A big thanks to all people who are involved and volunteer their free time with such dedication - You are the force that keeps IGDA Finland going! With a historically successful year like 2006 behind us, I look forward to the challenge of matching, maybe even exceeding, that success in 2007. Above all else, I hope you all keep coming to the IGDA Gatherings!

- Jyri Ranki, Lead Coordinator