Finland Times

Oulu has just taken the globally acclaimed tradition of collaboration in the Finnish game industry to a higher, futuristic level by launching Game Brewery.

Game Brewery is a BusinessOulu project focused on increasing business in the game industry through expert coaching and mentoring in company-specific key areas. The project includes three 5-month cycles of which the first has now officially begun. Companies benefitting under the project can receive focused expertise assistance in practically any area of their business – from day-to-day business practices to getting their games published, marketed and sold to the public.

The Game Brewery concept has been bouncing around for some years now in several cities in Finland, and negotiations with other regional business development centres for either adopting the system or collaborating with Oulu are underway.

“What’s significant is that even if their start-ups fail, the key persons [of the beneficiary companies] stick to the game industry instead of looking at something completely different. This leads to experience and expertise, which in turn means maturity in business – something very important to investors,” explained Heikki Tunkkari from BusinessOulu.

With a regional IGDA branch of its own and company development projects on the rise, the game industry in Oulu now seems to be in pretty good hands. In the last few years, Finnish game companies like Supercell, Rovio and Grand Cru have been basking in international limelight. Rovio aims to be the next Disney while Supercell has launched two games that are still at the top 10 for both Android and iOS – and that’s not measured by downloads alone, but actual profit.

Another success story is Fingersoft of the Hill Climb Racing fame. Based in Kempele, 10 kilometres from the Oulu centre, Fingersoft has helped new start-ups in dealing with publishers, and is frequently co-hosting creative industry events.

A key catalytic role in this case has been played by Oulu Game Lab, absolutely one of a kind, by offering training and development services tailored to the needs of the game industry. Established in 2012 at the Oulu University of Applied Sciences, the Lab has already helped create 11 new game companies.

Oulu Game Lab supports development of game prototypes, products and start-ups. The process is fair but ruthless. “The ideas are developed and evaluated in three separate gates, and those ideas in development that won’t evolve well enough are dropped and the teams move on to the projects that passed the gate,” explained OGL Project Lead Patty Toledo.

It’s not a wonder that Oulu Game Lab and Game Brewery are in close terms. “The current buzz is very good here,” said Ilkka Immonen, Game Brewery’s business expert. “Business development is very determined, especially for new companies.”

“The most exciting thing is to see that OUAS, BusinessOulu, the City and the University of Oulu are all joining forces to accomplish something here. That’s how it should be,” remarked Patty Toledo with obvious satisfaction.