June Gathering: Goodbye Jyri, Hello Sonja!

Even though the heat wave is not exactly here yet, Finnish game developers are preparing for summer holidays and IGDA Finland will quiet down for a couple of months. At the June Gathering invitation we promised that Remedy will give a presentation. That started the rumor mill and draw people 45 minutes too early to the bar! Around 7PM there was already a queue forming at the door and total number of visitors climbed up to 147 (12 new). Thanks to the (wrong) rumors people were expecting to see Alan Wake demo but had to satisfy with a trailer video and photo travelogue from E3. The demo was not shown because Cuba Café have limited audiovisual devices but Remedy promised to show the Alan Wake demo in a more proper place in fall. Patience!

After the presentation Jyri gave a talk and told that he will have less time for IGDA Finland chapter due to the fact that Alan Wake will be released on spring 2010. He will anyhow follow the IGDA Finland chapter activities from the Advisory Board. From now on the Lead Coordinator will be Sonja Kangas who has been organizing IGDA Finland events for the last couple of years. Besides changing the Lead Coordinator there will also be some additions to IGDA Coordinators gang. New IGDA Finland Coordinators group and Volunteers will be introduced in fall.

IGDA Coordinators, Volunteers and Advisory Board wanted to thank Jyri for his efforts in supporting IGDA Finland chapter to become one of the most active IGDA chapters in the world. One outcome of the work is MVP Award which IGDA Finland Chapter got at GDC07.

After the speeches it was time for relaxation and chatting as usual. Even if Finnish game developers are starting their summer holidays soon, there was a lot of networking and discussions on the fact that K30 is currently the address for many Finnish game companies and that several interesting Finnish game productions will come out during the summer and fall 2009.

In fall we’ll give you more insights on what people can expect from IGDA Finland during the season 2009-2010 as well as how upcoming Finnish game releases will be shown at the pub nights. Until then, have a nice and relaxing summer! Game on!