The Oulu University of Applied Sciences (OAMK) in northwest Finland arranged a Game Spring event on Friday, April 10 to showcase Finland’s burgeoning gaming industry. Accomplished professionals and entrepreneurs were on hand to give advice and counsel to young people considering a job in the exciting world of internet games.
The gaming industry in Finland suffers from a lack of qualified staff. Some 300 new jobs are expected to open up in 2015 alone, indicating a ten percent growth in the field.
In addition to the labour shortage, the industry is highly competitive and the race to secure the most customers in the mobile phone market has clearly intensified. A handful of large companies have dominated the top-selling list now for a couple of years.
“It’s hard for a smaller-size company to enter their ranks without a very large marketing budget,” says KooPee Hiltunen, director of Finland’s non-profit gaming industry organisation Neogames.
He says game developers in Finland also encounter operational environment roadblocks, in the form of taxes and regulations.
“The valued-added tax reform is one example, and the myriad of regulations and privacy protection rules applying to ’free to play’ games as well,” says Hiltunen.
Good games need good marketing
The life cycle of a good game depends on the game itself. For example, the globally popular Angry Birds game developed by the Finnish company Rovio has been a major phenomenon for a long time now, even if its wings no longer carry it as high as they used to.
Hiltunen points out that over 20 different versions have been released of the Angry Birds game and the campaign to produce spin-off products has had enormous success.
Another Finnish gaming giant, Supercell, has also produced a long-lived game on the market: Clash of Clans has been on the best-selling charts for three years now. The game’s future is also looking bright, at least for the coming year.
On the other side of the spectrum are games that only enjoy a short week of success, with a few people downloading the game for a brief period before it drops off the radar.
“You have to remember that most games only attract about one thousand downloads. This isn’t even economically viable for the company selling the game. Those games that see some financial success are actually the tip of the iceberg, and those that really cash in are very few and far between,” says Hiltunen.
Nevertheless, the potential is there. The OAMK event in Oulu enticed a room full of students who wanted to know how to get to the tip of the iceberg. Hiltunen offers the following advice:
“One has to manage several different areas. The gaming business is about producing good games, but it is also about running a business. You need to have sufficient resources and the wherewithal for marketing, user acquisition and game promotion, too.”
