The North Karelia region, in addition to offering education that benefits the Finnish game industry, is home to 9.8% of the total number of game companies in the country. The local industry focuses on the development of games for mobile devices, PCs, online use, serious games and games for health.
Game Education
In the area of game development, the Vocational Education and Training Consortium Riveria offers a degree programme to qualify as a media assistant. The game studies programme, offered at Outokumpu, was established in 2005 and is thus the longest-standing professional training programme aimed specifically at the game industry in Finland. Here the emphasis is placed on graphics and game design, while other courses focus on photography, video recording, image processing and entrepreneurship. A qualification in this field prepares the student for work as a 3D graphics artist, level designer or animator. Students who have graduated from this programme have gone on to secure positions at top Finnish game companies, such as Remedy Entertainment, Rovio, Housemarque and Frozenbyte.
The Degree Programme in Business Information Technology at Karelia University of Applied Sciences attracts around 100 students annually. The programme has offered game programming studies, with a focus on the programming section of game development, since 2009. Other aspects of game development, such as game design and game art, are addressed through joint projects carried out by Karelia’s own media degree programme as well as Riveria and UEF students. The BIT degree programme has produced several Bachelor theses covering different areas of game programming.
The School of Computing is one of the biggest departments within the University of Eastern Finland and maintains facilities on both the Joensuu and Kuopio campuses. The School actively co-operates in the development of digital games in the region. In 2006, the first doctoral studies with a focus on game design–particularly contextual games–were launched and today the School of Computing holds game design lectures, carries out IT projects and produces numerous theses and publications related to digital games.
Oasis Game Studio
The Oasis Game Studio is a pre-incubator studio, where your own ideas can be developed into publishable games.The Joensuu Science Park Incubator is helping game startups to start their business in the Oasis Game Studio, later assisting them with services included in the Joensuu Science Park Business Incubator.
The Oasis Game Studio is located on the 4th floor of the Joensuu Science Park, which offers beautiful views of the surrounding area and boasts top-notch café, kitchen and sauna facilities to ensure that making games is fun. Oasis Game Studio personnel work in close co-operation with the Finnish game industry to ensure that the latest industry knowhow is used in all productions developed in the studio. The Oasis Game Studio also has full-size auditorium facilities for hosting large-scale game workshops and a motion capture system for producing high-quality animation.
The Joensuu Science Park business incubator helps implement business ideas and expertly guide companies through the challenging early years onto a path of growth.
Game industry events
Illusion is an annual professional game/music industry event held in Joensuu, Finland. It is held every year in July at the same time as the local Ilosaarirock festival. Illusion participants have access to the Ilosaarirock festival, which is one of the biggest rock festivals in Finland.
More about game industry: http://www.joensuugames.fi/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BMS-2015140815_VED.pdf