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Futureplay Games decloaks as Finland's mobile game dream team

Says video ads are the future

Futureplay Games decloaks as Finland's mobile game dream team

Jami Laes, formerly Rovio's EVP, has announced the launch of Futureplay Games. 

The new mobile games studio is based in Helsinki, and each of its five founding members has significant industry experience.

Indeed, you could call the combination a dream team.

His co-founders are:

  • Kai Auvinen was art director at Digital Chocolate and most recently served as VP Games & Executive Producer at Remedy,
  • Mika Rahko is a Rovio veteran, who programmed multiple Angry Birds titles, eventually overseeing production for all of Rovio’s external publishing,
  • Arttu Mäki worked on Valve’s Team Fortress 2, multiple titles at Rovio, and most recently was VP of Design at Boomlagoon, while
  • Tuomas Huhtanen boasts 10 years at leading Finnish software consultancy Reaktor.

The vision thing

Perhaps even more interesting than the big names, however, is the philosophy propping up Futureplay Games.

It believes video ad-based monetisation is the next big step for mobile gaming, a belief to which the studio commits fully with its focus on "view-to-play" experiences.

From left to right: Laes, Auvinen, Huhtanen, Mäki & Rahko

“Ads are providing clever new ways to enhance the experience for players and to develop engaging and successful games that attract a large and happy audience,” said Laes.

We are confident the veteran team we’ve assembled at Futureplay Games will be key in driving a new era of mobile games that take these exciting opportunities to the next level and create a new category of gaming.”

“We believe in view-to-play gaming for a simple reason - it’s faster, cheaper and more fun to watch an ad than pay for an in-app purchase,” he continued.

“I look forward to sharing more details about our company and first games in the coming months.”

Features Editor

Matt is really bad at playing games, but hopefully a little better at writing about them. He's Features Editor for PocketGamer.biz, and has also written for lesser publications such as IGN, VICE, and Paste Magazine.