Finland reports and market data
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Pushing the boundaries of game development with JamBike and other experiments
Finnish Game Jam, a non-profit organization, promotes game development through experimental, high-intensity game jams that push the boundaries of traditional game creation.
- Finnish Game Jam utilizes extreme physical and environmental constraints—such as limited electricity, remote locations, and physical exertion—to catalyze innovative problem-solving and creative development.
- The organization hosts unconventional, high-intensity events like the JamBike initiative, which involved coding while cycling 660 kilometers, and the Quantum Game Jam, which pairs developers with theoretical physicists to crowdsource research.
- Finland maintains a leading global position in jamming culture, exemplified by a 2016 event that hosted nearly 1,000 participants.
Game Music Collective concert at Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2017
The Game Music Collective serves as Europe’s first professional orchestra dedicated exclusively to the performance and production of video game scores.
- The Game Music Collective is Europe’s first professional orchestra dedicated exclusively to the production and performance of video game scores.
- The ensemble provides a full-service production chain for game developers, including composition, arrangement, recording, and mixing services.
- The collective bridges traditional orchestral arrangements with modern electronic production to create bespoke musical assets for interactive media.
Turning a mobile game from Highway To Hell into Stairway To Heaven
The development of competitive mobile games requires a lean, iterative approach that prioritizes market validation from the first day of production.
- Prioritize market validation from day one by integrating user acquisition and discoverability strategies into the initial project inception rather than treating them as post-development tasks.
- Utilize rapid prototyping and continuous market testing to iterate on visual styles, UI, and core mechanics simultaneously, allowing for real-time performance measurement.
- Measure project viability through key performance metrics, specifically day-one and day-seven retention rates, to determine whether to pivot or refine concepts early.
Critical Ops: A success story for mobile gaming
Critical Force achieved significant growth for its mobile first-person shooter, Critical Ops, by prioritizing community-driven development and grassroots engagement over traditional paid user acquisition.
- Critical Ops achieved over 28 million total downloads by prioritizing community-driven development over traditional paid user acquisition.
- The game sustains 65,000 to 75,000 daily organic downloads through a strategy that treats the player base as a development partner.
- Critical Force scales its community by supporting smaller content creators with resources and in-game promotion rather than relying on expensive, high-profile influencer marketing.
Working with big partners: The PlayRaven way
PlayRaven, a Helsinki-based mobile game studio, has shifted its strategic focus toward developing large-scale multiplayer experiences in collaboration with major industry partners.
- PlayRaven pivoted from single-player mobile games to a multiplayer-first model to overcome high user acquisition costs and poor long-term retention.
- The studio maintains a business development pipeline of approximately 20 potential partners to ensure a consistent flow of collaboration opportunities.
- Project viability is determined by a proprietary forecasting tool that evaluates seven core performance metrics, including long-term retention and ARPDAU, against external analytics data.
5 things Next Games learned from The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land
Next Games, a mobile developer specializing in licensed entertainment franchises, identifies five core strategic pillars for successfully translating global intellectual property into engaging mobile experiences, based on the development and operation of The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land.
- Synchronize game updates, marketing, and community management with the source material's broadcast schedule to maximize user acquisition and retention.
- Integrate IP owners as core partners rather than external entities to gain access to exclusive content and ensure authentic brand representation.
- Conduct deep audience research to identify specific demographics, such as younger fans prone to FOMO, and tailor game mechanics to their behavioral tendencies.
Building brands over time: The story of Best Fiends developer Seriously so far
The development of the Best Fiends franchise serves as a case study in prioritizing long-term intellectual property (IP) growth over short-term mobile game performance.
- Seriously prioritized long-term IP growth by conceptualizing the Best Fiends franchise as a multi-game trilogy and cohesive world rather than a standalone mobile title.
- The franchise achieved significant scale by 2017, surpassing 70 million downloads and hitting record revenue months.
- The studio allocates approximately 50% of its marketing budget to creative content, such as high-quality animations and short films, to build a lasting brand legacy.
Superstar Session: A few words from Angry Birds developer Rovio
Rovio Entertainment’s strategic evolution centers on its transition from a premium game developer to a "games-first" entertainment company powered by the free-to-play model.
- Rovio has transitioned to a 'games-first' entertainment model, shifting from one-time premium purchases to a free-to-play service strategy that extends game life cycles to three years or longer.
- The company’s financial stability relies on a portfolio approach where its top five titles generate approximately 80% of total revenue.
- Rovio aggressively scales user acquisition, having increased performance marketing spend from 20 million euros in 2016 to 45 million euros over the following 12 months.
Lifetime value for mobile apps
This discussion explores the methodologies and strategic applications of Lifetime Value (LTV) modeling within the mobile gaming industry.
- Lifetime Value (LTV) serves as the primary predictive metric for determining sustainable customer acquisition costs to ensure paid marketing efforts remain ROI-positive.
- Industry strategy is shifting from basic Cost Per Install (CPI) metrics toward Cost Per Action (CPA) models, which optimize campaigns by targeting high-value behavioral milestones like tutorial completion or PvP engagement.
- Effective LTV modeling must move beyond simple retention curves and average revenue per daily active user to incorporate organic uplift (K-factor) and specific in-game events.
Nasdaq Nordic on access to capital and visibility for games companies
Nasdaq Nordic serves as a primary hub for gaming companies seeking capital, visibility, and international growth through public listings.
- Nasdaq Nordic has surpassed London as the leading European venue for IPOs, with companies raising nearly 8 billion euros through the exchange in the previous year.
- Gaming companies like Paradox Interactive, Remedy, and Nitro Games have successfully utilized the exchange to secure capital, with Remedy’s offering notably oversubscribed by a factor of 8.5.
- Public listing on Nasdaq Nordic provides gaming firms with a 'quality stamp' that enhances international negotiation leverage and facilitates future acquisitions.
Meet the games investors and discover what they look for in developers
Securing investment in the gaming industry requires a disciplined approach that balances creative vision with rigorous business acumen.
- Investors prioritize developers who demonstrate a balanced capability to manage both creative game design and the commercial realities of the marketplace.
- Pitch decks must be grounded in verifiable performance metrics, specifically focusing on cost per install, lifetime value, and day-28 retention to prove long-term sustainability.
- Funding strategies must be stage-appropriate, shifting from a focus on prototype strength and team experience at the seed stage to robust financial performance and monetization strategy for later-stage growth.
Rovio's VP of Finance for Games on UA and finance – A match made In heaven
In the current mobile gaming landscape, characterized by intense competition and a saturated market with nearly 800,000 games on the Apple App Store, user acquisition (UA) has become the primary engine for growth.
- Scaling a mobile game to a top-grossing position requires a capital investment typically 10 to 15 times higher than the initial development cost.
- The mobile gaming market is highly saturated, with nearly 800,000 games on the Apple App Store and approximately 750 new titles launching daily.
- Financial governance must treat each game as an independent business case, prioritizing the segmentation of spenders from non-spenders to accurately assess profitability.