Joonas Laakso

Finland's game industry. My perspective on the good, the bad, and the ugly from 3,400 km / 2,100 miles away. Neogames Finland ry has published its annual report, filled with character art and positive vibes. But between the lines, you could read the structural challenges in what used to be an undeniable ecosystem. The Good 1️⃣ There are more studios and employees than ever before 2️⃣ The quality of talent is good, while the wages are low 3️⃣ Finland offers high living standards for the average person The Bad 1️⃣ Revenues are rapidly declining. Blaming the "market downturn" is a copout. Overall revenues are up on a global scale. 2️⃣ Increasing dependency on Supercell. One company accounts for well over half of the revenues and is also sucking up all the talent. 3️⃣ Investors don't find fundable studios in Finland. How long will the newly spawned studios last? And what does this tell us about the new wave of founders? The Ugly 1️⃣ Exited founders (Supercell, Seriously, Reworks, Small Giant, Rovio...), apart from a few, have not set up new gaming companies. The generation that built this world-class ecosystem has mostly retired. 2️⃣ We lost our winning formula. Turks blast puzzle games. Montreal develops AAA. Tel Aviv ships casino and tech... sticking to Supercell's "small teams, big dreams" formula for too long made us fall behind. 3️⃣ Unforgiving climate, extremely high taxes (stock options included), and very high living costs make the country unattractive for world-class talent. How to turn this slide into growth? Get the generational builders out of (full) retirement. Build fundable companies. Not passion projects. And whatever you do, don't get sucked into "the Supercell playbook". What worked then will not work now.

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Puzzle Game Features Tier List Together with Playliner (by SensorTower), we made a list that answers one critical question: What actually works in puzzle games? 𝗦-𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 = Features that boost retention and monetization  𝗔-𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 = Strong value, but depends on execution  𝗙-𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 = Players hate them, and they don’t pay off Here’s the full breakdown: 🔥 𝗦-𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 (𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁) • Win Streak 🥇 • Tournaments 🏆 💚 𝗔-𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 (𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁) • Season Pass 🎫 • Task-Based Rewards 🎁 • Mini-Games 🎮 • Co-Op Events 🤝 🟩 𝗕-𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 (𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗱 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀) • Daily Tasks 📅 • Decoration Meta 🏡 • Daily Bonus ☀️ • PvP Events ⚔️ • Collections / Albums 📚 🟨 𝗖-𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 (𝘄𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀) • Narrative Meta 📖 • Global Map 🌍 • Clans 👑 • Bonus Levels ✨ 🟫 𝗗-𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 (𝗹𝗼𝘄-𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 / 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱) • Social Gifting 🎁 • Facebook Connect 🔗 • Rate Us 👍 🟥 𝗘-𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 (𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀) • Gacha 🎰 • Lucky Wheel 🎡 • Chat 💬 • Profile Customization 🧑‍🎨 🚫 𝗙-𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 (𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁... 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁) • Pay-to-Win Events 💸 • Overpriced Offers ⚠️ ---- More mobile game references at: https://playliner.com

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Last week I sat down with the genius Jonas Tyroller to talk about Indie game development and the culture around it. According to Jonas, "It is less about technical mastery and more about creative problem-solving and smart planning." "Success emerges when you prioritize what feels meaningful, learn from mistakes and stay open to feedback." "Instead of striving for perfection, focus on refining ideas and working mindfully to avoid common pitfalls." Jonas emphasizes keeping things simple and scope manageable. Start with appealing concepts, test early and don’t be afraid to cut unnecessary features. Sustainable progress comes from short, focused workdays and always centering your project around what players truly enjoy. Some key highlights: ✅ Prototype broadly, let quantity lead you to quality. ✅ Playtest as soon as possible to guide real improvements. ✅ True indie success is about having the freedom to keep creating. ✅ Collaborating with experienced creators can amplify your reach far beyond just building your own channel. ✅ Feature creep and burnout are common traps, keep teams small and maintain work-life balance for healthier progress. Watch the full episode, you will love it. Link in the first comment below 👇 #IndieGameDev #gamedev #entrepreneurship #storytelling

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In almost 25 years of working in this industry, one thing has always been true: our industry never stands still. New platforms, new formats, new communities - change is the constant. What matters is how we respond: by listening closely, anticipating what’s next, and focusing our energy where we can create the most impact. That’s why we’re sharpening our focus on what defines us: broadcast productions, events and booths, brand consulting, and esports ecosystems like our League of Legends Prime League. These are in our DNA - and where we’ll continue to push boundaries for our partners. By concentrating our talent and resources here, we ensure we can deliver even greater impact, faster response times, and the production value our partners rely on. For everything beyond this core, we’ll team up with trusted specialists and partners, ensuring the same seamless quality our clients expect - and grow as we identify demand. Part of this focus also means making difficult structural changes. We are grateful for the contributions of those affected and are supporting them through this transition - while continuing to hire in defined focus areas. This is not just adaptation. It’s the next chapter in growing with our industry, our partners, and our communities.

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Creating a new IP on a “triple A” scale for under $30 million might sound impossible, but Cronos: The New Dawn from Bloober Team proves otherwise. The game cost less than $30 million to make, thanks in part to Poland’s lower development costs and Bloober’s refined production pipelines. Some might call it a regional advantage, others a skill issue. Either way, the result is a major new release built on efficiency. Several factors explain how a studio like Bloober can deliver a large-scale, ambitious game without reaching the massive budgets seen in the U.S. or Western Europe. First, Poland has a lower cost of living compared to major game development hubs such as California, London, or Montreal. This immediately reduces the baseline cost of production. Second, Bloober has built up deep expertise and production pipelines over years of development. With titles like Layers of Fear, The Medium, and the ongoing Silent Hill 2 remake, the studio has refined workflows, asset pipelines, and in-house tools. That efficiency means less wasted time and fewer resources spent reinventing the wheel for each project. Third, Polish studios often benefit from favorable tax incentives and government programs designed to support the country’s growing video game sector. Grants and subsidies help reduce risk and keep budgets lean, even on ambitious projects. Fourth, Bloober has developed a reputation for focusing on tightly scoped experiences. Rather than sprawling open-worlds with endless side content, the studio delivers narrative-driven games with carefully designed environments. This creative discipline means production resources can be concentrated, reducing the need for ballooning teams or endless content creation. Finally, Bloober’s strategy has always emphasized specialization. By focusing on psychological horror and atmospheric storytelling, the studio can reuse its technical expertise, motion capture setups, and even some core design philosophies across projects. That specialization keeps development costs down while still producing games that feel fresh and unique. All of this adds up to a situation where Cronos: The New Dawn can be built for under $30 million, a fraction of what AAA publishers often spend, yet still position itself as a premium release targeting console players. Can't wait to play.

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Two formalized resources: Amir Likes Me and Complete Job Search Playbook Folks, all the time we are tinkering with new resources for Amir Satvat's Games Community. Sometimes what we add is brand new. In other cases, we have run extensive trials and, based on consistent and strong feedback, decide to formalize them. Today is one of those times. The first is Amir Likes Me. Once a month, you can let me know about a job search post that is at least partially for a role in games. I will add a supportive comment to help boost its visibility. Over the lifetime of our community, I have done about 200 of these. The feedback has been uniformly positive, so I am formalizing it as a resource. This is not a miracle fix, but it is one more way to get more eyes on your post and more connections. It is now on our homepage with a Google form for tracking. I am also adding statistics for this to our bi-weekly community updates so you can see the data on its impact. I will start the tracking at 200, per the data above. Link: https://lnkd.in/gUUuRSjd The second is the Complete Job Search Playbook. This PDF checklist, distilled from a LinkedIn post that received very positive feedback, outlines everything I would consider before calling a job search complete. I know the list is long and that not every candidate can do everything on it for many reasons. This is respected and that is not the goal. It is meant to be a short, printable document you can use to check off actions over any period of time and find new ideas you may not have tried, whether that is just one of them or all of them. Link: https://lnkd.in/gF_gj4rS Neither of these will be numbered resources, but both are now in our resource library, which is linked from our homepage. I hope many of you will use Amir Likes Me to boost your search posts and the checklist to expand your job search activities. Link to Overall Resource Library: https://lnkd.in/eE9EXB5M A big thank you to Desirée R., who helped with UX, resource planning, branding, and design. She did an excellent job. I appreciate your engagement and amplification of this post so we can get this help into the hands of as many games jobseekers as possible. Thank you games community for the continued privilege of serving you.

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What Is Unreal Fest? 🎉 It's a series of offline events dedicated to Unreal Engine. They are happening in different locations of the world, for example, Orlando, Stockholm, Shanghai, etc. Nowadays, Unreal Engine is not only about games, but films, architecture, transportation, and many more industries. So the event might be beneficial for different professionals. You can learn about how to overcome UE challenges and best practices. One of the latest Unreal Fest editions was held in Stockholm. Insight from the event: - Launch of Epic developer's assistance in UE directly - Procedure content generation (PCG) is twice as fast in the new Unreal version - Introduction of an improved engagement payout formula for Fortnite creators You can watch a full video from the opening ceremony: https://lnkd.in/diDXwgUY Some of the session recordings will be available online later. Learn more about Unreal Fest: https://lnkd.in/dfAf4K7j Do you use Unreal Engine? Did you know about the event? P.S. consider this a confession, but i love working with UE

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