Founded in 2013 by Rovio alumni, Seriously has rapidly made a name for itself in the mobile games industry.

The Helsinki startup quickly attracted major funding, before launching its debut game (and flagship IP) Best Fiends in 2014. 

The game went on to be a major success for the firm, not least due to creative marketing that makes use of YouTubers, a football club and even actress Kate Walsh.

A follow-up, the idle game Best Fiends Forever, was launched in late October.

Seriously is also currently hiring, so PocketGamer.biz reached out to the firm's Chief Creative Officer Petri Jarvilehto to talk current vacancies, company culture and advice for breaking into the industry.

PocketGamer.biz: Could you give us some background on Seriously and what you do/are currently working on?

At Seriously, we are focused on building entertainment brands through mobile gaming experiences.

We are capitalising on the trend of doing Hollywood backwards and have a broader vision that future entertainment brands will be built on mobile first given the audience shift to mobile and ability to have a direct-to-fan connection.

On October 20th, we launched the second mobile game in the Best Fiends trilogy, Best Fiends Forever - an immersive and interactive clicker game adventure set in the same Best Fiends universe.

Best Fiends Forever was downloaded five million times in its first week alone.

Our first mobile game and IP, Best Fiends, launched in October 2014 and has been downloaded 50 million times with over two million daily active players.

What specific areas/disciplines are you currently hiring in?

We’re always looking for great talent to join our team.

In our Helsinki studio, we are currently looking to fill positions in Game Design, Game Programming, Server Programming, Game Art and Data Science, across junior to senior roles.

In short, we’re looking for people with experience In all areas of mobile gaming. For more details on open positions and to apply, visit our careers page.

What do you look for in candidates at Seriously?

We are looking for candidates who are passionate about building great game content.

At Seriously, we have built an environment where people have a lot of freedom and responsibility, so we prefer candidates who can cover a wide area of expertise rather than just specialising in a single niche.

Our game teams are often as small as five to eight people, so it’s important that people are knowledgeable in various areas.

Being highly proactive is another important trait we look for in a candidate. With more junior roles, we also look at how much growth potential we see.

Why do you think Seriously/Helsinki is a good place to work? How will you be trying to encourage a strong company culture?

Helsinki is a great place to live and work. Finland consistently rates as one of the world’s leading countries in living standards, quality of life and education.

It’s a wonderful place for families and young adults. Our Helsinki office is located in the middle of downtown, so there are a variety of activities, restaurants and so on within walking distance.

At Seriously, we put a large emphasis on company culture. We believe in transparency, so most of the internal discussion is visible to everyone.

We try to emphasise the ‘why’ and trust the fact that we have a smart team that can figure out the ‘what’ themselves.

We’re also open about acknowledging failure and then learning from it. In general, we have a great company culture where people are able to create great games.

What advice would you have for someone trying to get into the games industry?

My advice would be to start making them! For almost any discipline, there are plenty of ways to start working on small concepts.

And by far the best way to learn is to build and ship. Starting any game is really easy. Finishing any game is what’s hard.

Shipping and publishing a game will teach you so much about how to work with various team members, how players interact with the game and how once you’re 90% complete, you’re only halfway there.

For a full list of vacancies, you can visit Seriously's careers page.