The traditional gala evening of the Finnish game industry, The Finnish Game Awards, was held in Helsinki tonight. The biggest winner of the evening with two awards and the people’s choice trophy by the Pelit magazine was an indie game developer studio Colossal Order and their building game Cities: Skyline.
Finland’s 2,7 billion dollar game industry is still growing more rapidly than the rest of the global game business. Global growth of nine percent in 2015 was overshadowed by Finland’s amazing growth of 33 percent! The ongoing year 2016 is also looking very promising with hit games that have already been published like Supercell’s Clash Royale and Remedy’s long-awaited Quantum Break. Several new hits are still in the pipeline and coming out later this year.
A total of nine awards were presented during the gala evening. The Finnish Game of the Year 2015, the Small Screen Game of the Year 2015 and the Big Screen Game of the Year 2015 were selected by the members of the Finnish Game Developers’ Association. The Applied Game Award 2015 was selected by the Serious Gaming Cluster Finland Association. The Creative Achievement of the Year 2015 and the Finnish Rookie of the Year 2015 were chosen by the board of the Finnish Game Developers’ Association. And finally the Sensation of the Year 2015 was picked by the Neogames Finland Association.
IGDA Finland also presented their recognition to volunteers of the year 2015 and the gaming magazine Pelit gave away their traditional “Kyöpeli” trophy to the people’s choice game of the year 2015.
Like the previous two years, The Finnish Game Awards was organized by the Finnish Game Developers’ Association and the Neogames Finland Association. The gala evening was sponsored by the game studios Dodreams, Next Games, Supercell, Rovio Unity, Colossal Order, Fingersoft, Redlynx, Rovio and Seriously and velocity capital company Pollen VC.
This year’s winners at The Finnish Game Awards were:
The Applied Game Award 2015: Afterlife Entertainment Oy (development) & RealMatch Invest Oy (concept) / Money Flow Challenge
Serious games are a growing industry for games and game-like elements that have a primary purpose of other than pure entertainment. This year for the first time, the Applied Game Awards was given as a recognition of not only to the award-winning game and its developers, but also to the entire serious gaming sector. Money Flow Challenge is the first educational game in Finland aimed for students that helps them understand personal finances.
The Finnish Rookie of the Year 2015: Koukoi Games, Oulu
The Finnish game industry grew by about 30 new game studios in 2015. The Finnish Rookie of the Year 2015 award went to one of those, Koukoi Games that comes from the Northern Finland’s capital: Oulu. Despite of the company’s young age, Koukoi has already received significant external funding and company’s first game, Crashing Season, was soft launched in December 2015.
The Sensation of the Year 2015: Pasi Hytönen / Little Knight Arthur
Sometimes game development or finalizing the game release can take a long time. The development of Little Knight Arthur took place 1985-1986 in era of Commodore 64 and it was published 30 years later in January 2016 to the original platform. However, the most important thing is probably that the game was released and is now available to all consumers as a reminder of the time when the game development first began in Finland.
The Best Creative Achievement of the Year: Frozenbyte / Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power
Like its predecessor, Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power is visually, gameplay-wise as well as musically a breathtakingly beautiful game. Playing Trine 3 is an experience on several emotional levels.
The Big Screen Game of the Year 2015: Colossal Order / Cities: Skylines
Colossal Order game studio’s Cities: Skylines is the game that has been written and talked about a lot. Cities: Skylines is Colossal Order’s mighty vision of the game genre which was previously dominated by the giants of the game industry. However, Cities: Skylines’ success shows that a small, but professional indie team can develop a game that even the giants have to recognize as their superior.
The Small Screen Game of the Year 2015: ZORG Entertainment / AG Drive
Zorg Entertainment’s futuristic racing game AG Drive has wrongly remained rather hidden from the public. AG Drive is an epic action-packed racing game where too much speed is still too little. AG Drive is very much a game made for players.
The Main Award – The Finnish Game of the Year 2015: Colossal Order / Cities: Skylines
Colossal Order´s triumph continued also in The Finnish Game of the Year category. The future will tell whether the Cities: Skylines is going to be one of the true classics of Finnish game industry or not. At least it has all the qualifications to become one.
More information
KooPee Hiltunen / Neogames Finland Association / +358 40 5324176 / koopee@neogames.fi
A few gala photos and a theme photo collage in high resolution: http://bit.ly/1Vnm3yS
More gala photos coming later: www.neogames.fi/gaala
More info about Finnish game industry: http://www.neogames.fi/en/industry-info/
Neogames Finland Association
Neogames Finland is a member-based non-profit game industry organization. Our mission is to accelerate, coordinate and support the development of the Finnish game cluster. Neogames’ members represent all sectors of the game industry from business to education and research. Neogames is an impartial umbrella association, and we serve the shared interests of all industry players. Our aim is to provide a solid and growth-oriented operating environment for the Finnish game industry as a whole.
Suomen Pelinkehittäjät ry / Finnish Game Developers’ Association
Suomen Pelinkehittäjät ry – Finnish Game Developers’ Association in English – is the national association of Finnish game studios. Our mission is to serve as a cooperative body, promoter and trustee of the Finnish game developer studios.