Finnish Game Industry Crisis Causes

Finnish #gameindustry is at its worst economical point, and we need to have a reality check on the causes that has driven us here – this is important if we would want to achieve the vision Ilkka Paananen called out along with Suomen startup-yhteisö.

1. Lack of commercial sentiment & #leadership – after 2016-2018, the industry were left behind vs. how foreign businesses evolved:
– Studios have been too creative-driven & relaxed.
– IP & brand syndromes, e.g., many haven’t created new hits since their 1st nor been able to create new IPs / brands.
– Missed completely #hypercasual wave & its learnings; and, because of this, came late to #hybridcasual.
– Many don’t know how to publish & distribute games. Many early stage studios leaned on publishers, whilst after #IDFA there’s a clear gap between how foreign studios distribute games vs. our studios approach it.
– Finland had #F2P is ‘bad’ sentiment within devs., showcasing immaturity, which was a thing during the golden era of F2P.
– Not evolving when it was necessary or following shifts on best practices on e.g., #monetization on scale (if you look at e.g., Scopely, they really were heavy-lifting to became great on where they are today, whilst our biggest f2p player had to catch up years after on this).
– #AAA, #PC & #Console releases with misses lately; with additional layers of having budgets getting out of control, QA done poorly, etc.

2. Not knowing how to own companies + issues with buyers after exits:
– We have had #founders who knew how to build companies, whilst they exited early. Unfortunately, on many cases, the buyers have shut down the studios they bought.
– Additionally, buyers & foreign studios who are still operating tend to let studios optimize comfort over #commercialization (correlating with 1).
– #Games #millionaires not starting new companies.

3. Funding landscape:
– #VCs shifting to invest abroad, resulting to gates for cash inflow to #Finland.
– Games millionaires not participating on circulating cash back to the industry (e.g. security wins over games). If they have stakes on #funds, the problem stays same as long as above is valid.
– Evergreen Finnish funds have shifted away from games. This includes successful funds who made it, but don’t believe they will see new Supercell; thus they have shifted away as well.
– Government #financing entities investing in wrong trends and shifts, on top of moving slowly around them.

4. #Politics, #education and #economical issues:
– Highest taxation in the world, resulting also game millionaires moving out (correlates with 3).
– Some education programs have been shut down. Some don’t teach commercial side the right way. Some produce talent to wrong positions, resulting unemployment.
– Work-based immigration regulation.
– Etc.

While I love working here, I’m calling out a reality check that everyone needs to do to uplift our industry. I’m doing my best to improve the industry & sentiment here, but we need everyone on this cause.