Contest: ask a question about investing in games and win a ticket to White Nights

The search for money for the development and promotion of the game is one of the most important industrial topics. It will be discussed at Finnish Game Day by representatives of Small Giant Games, Aii Corporation, Epic Games, Mail.ru Games Ventures, Futureplay and Yoozoo Games. We suggest coming up with questions for them. Two authors of the best questions will receive a premium ticket to the White Nights Conference in St. Petersburg.

What is Finnish Game Day?

This is a networking event for game developers. It takes place every year at the Consulate General of Finland in St. Petersburg as part of the White Nights summer session.

At Finnish Game Day, mainly Finnish publishers and developers share their experience with Russian colleagues. They tell how their processes are debugged, how it is customary to solve certain tasks.

This time the event will be built around four large-scale discussions. One of them will be devoted to investing in games.

Who will be?

Timo Soininen
Timo Soininen is the CEO of Small Giant Games and a consultant for Critical Force.

Both Finnish studios are well known in the mobile market. The first is the author of Empires & Puzzles, who earned $33 million in the first year of operation. The second is the developer of the C-OPS shooter, whose worldwide downloads amount to 34 million.

Pekka Vilyakainen
Pekka Viljakainen’s nickname is “The Bulldozer”.

He founded his first company at the age of 14 in 1986. Today he is listed on the board of directors of Skolkovo and Russian Post. Including investing.

Alexey Savchenko
Alexey Savchenko has been in the gaming industry for 19 years.

I started as a project lead, then I was in PR, engaged in producing. Today Alexey is responsible for licensing at Epic Games.

Ilya Karpinsky
Ilya Karpinsky is one of the central figures in the gaming division Mail.Ru Group.

He is the deputy head of the company for games, as well as the director of the investment division Mail.ru Games Ventures. By the way, Ilya is the founder of the Hobby Games board game store chain.

Jami Laes
Jamie Laes started out as a journalist on Finnish television.

He started developing in 2004. Since that time, he has managed to work in leadership positions at Digital Chocolate and Rovio. Today he heads his own studio Futureplay Games.

Yuli Zhao
For several years, Yuli Zhao has been involved in international investments in Qihoo 360, one of China’s largest cybersecurity companies.

Then she headed her mobile gaming division. Yuli is now a senior vice president at Yoozoo Games. In 2017 alone, the company’s revenue amounted to more than $500 million. One of her biggest games is Legacy of Discord.

What will it be about?

The key purpose of the discussion is to talk about how to attract investment, what investors expect from gaming projects. It is assumed that the participants of the round table will share their experience and give some advice.

Terms of participation

To participate in the competition, you need to come up with a question on an investment topic. He or they can be addressed to all speakers or to someone individual. Questions should be written in the comments to this text.

We will announce the names of the two winners after 19.00 next Monday, June 18, right there in the comments.

We remind you that the summer session of the business conference for developers, publishers and marketers of White Nights games will be held in St. Petersburg on June 28-29. Finnish Game Day will take place on the eve of June 27 — to participate in it, you need to apply here.