It is now just under a month until Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki returns to the mobile gaming motherland of the Nordics for it’s sixth iteration and we’re putting the finishing touches to the incredible speaker lineup.

Held on October 1st and 2nd at The Cable Factory, these new faces join an already jam-packed list of amazing speakers comprised of the world’s leading authorities from the games industry.

Following the likes of Remedy Entertainment, Small Giant Games, Zeptolab, Square Enix Montreal and many more - which you can find out more about here, here and here - these speakers will share their key industry thoughts, insight, advice, experiences and analysis to 1,500 games industry professionals from all around the world.

And you can see them for a discounted price of up to $150 off the price of tickets if you book before midnight this Thursday, September 5th. Don’t wait around and grab your tickets now!

Without further ado, here are our latest speakers.

We’re thrilled to reveal that Rovio’s Jan Lidtke shares a superstar session on how to increase your audience, using Angry Birds as an example. Following its original launch in 2009, Angry Birds has evolved into a world-renowned brand with more games, multiple animated series, two movies, and countless partnerships and licensing agreements.

Lidtke will focus on the visual evolution of the smash hit mobile game, analysing the various ways they have been stylized throughout the years to suit different purposes and products.

Another Superstar Session we’re looking forward to is Tenjin’s Matthaus Krzykowski, as he suggests new ways to optimise revenue in hypercasual games. Krzykowski has over 10 years of experience in building technology companies and we’re sure his seminar will be unmissable for any budding entrepreneur.

Behind the curtain

Colossal Order’s Mariina Hallikainen explores why audiences keep an interest in a specific genre for such a long time, especially city simulation games, using Cities Skylines as an example and explaining the key elements on how the team and community has kept Cities growing.

Get a behind-the-scenes account of the development of Frozenbyte’s highly anticipated title, Starbase, as Anna Narinen explains how expanding one of the core features during the project has drastically changed the gameplay and how the project was built from the beginning to allow big changes during development.

And diving deeper into the nuts and bolts of making games, Jani Kahrama of Secret Exit brings his expertise to the stage with the seminar ‘Herpderping with Dismount’, in which he explains vertex color physically based rendering for Unity’s high definition render pipeline.

Panel discussions are always interesting and this one exploring one of the key trends of the moment is no different, with Outplay Entertainment’s Francisco Casanova Parra, Softgames’ Alexander Krug and Gamee’s Bozena Rezab discussing the ups and downs of working on instant platforms.

Another trend in the spotlight in Helsinki is streaming, as Kast’s Max Sjöblom delves into some of the phenomena we are seeing with streaming and media in general, while also talking about how the public and private aspects influence this form of entertainment as it increasingly becomes a large part of the online media landscape.

CEO of ENCE eSports Mika Kuusisto takes part in a panel of esport specialists discussing the industry, and whether it’s a marketing tool or a real opportunity for companies to grasp.

As part of the all-new Big Screen Gaming track, Housemarque’s Mikael Haveri and Eevi Korhonen join forces once more, this time for a panel to discuss what big screen gaming means in 2020 and how technology advances shape the market and user behaviours.

UA and ROI

Sharing User Acquisition lessons from launching 30 games in nine months, Lightneer’s Gustavo Viegas suggests that releasing games is all about small common sense lessons - and with the more lessons developers remember at a time, the better they get at this. Along with Farhan Haq of SYBO Games, they’ll both also take part in a panel discussing strategies for dealing with an ever more expensive UA funnel.

Speaking of UA, Murad Musakaev of Full HP highlights some of the easy but not obvious ways to increase mobile game audiences without marketing, for alternative mobile platforms as well as the Google Play and Apple App stores. Musakaev also discusses balancing priorities between growth and retention with a panel of other speakers.

Quicksave’s Elina Arponen, Neogames’ Suvi Latva and Aurora Berg of Megacool team up for a panel dedicated to the challenges of games as a business, while Makers Fund’s Michael Cheung and a panel of experts look at how mergers and acquisitions are changing the face of the gaming business and how it influences investors, developers and publishers.

In her seminar, Unicorn Pirates Studio’s Nikolina Zidar discusses leaving a big company and setting up your own team. And an invaluable panel session for anyone eyeing the international market, Wargaming’s Barbara Leal, Vida Starcevic of Remedy Entertainment, Pengfei Zhang of Unity and Housemarque’s Greg Louden share their thoughts about being a foreign entrepreneur in a new country.

We’re not done yet!

Much like how Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki has grown over the years, our speaker lineup continues to grow bigger than ever in the last weeks before the October 1st and 2nd event.

Not only do we have senior representatives from Exit Games and Chilli Connect coming onboard, but we’re getting ready to share the full schedule any day now…

Fringe events and networking opportunities galore!

At Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki, we also run a whole host of networking opportunities and events alongside the conference talks and seminars:

• Free online meeting scheduler
• The Big Indie Zone
• Publisher SpeedMatch
• The Very Big Indie Pitch
• Investor Connector
• The Global Connects Party

Book now and save up to $150

You have until midnight this Thursday, September 5th to save up to $150 on the price of tickets for Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki. This is your last chance to save - tickets are full price from Friday. Book now!

Want to speak to our audience?

We’re running out of space for Helsinki, but if you’d like to speak to our audience, we'd love to hear from you! Submissions are also open for future Connects events in MENA this November - and even London in January 2020. If you’d like to speak at any of our international events, get in touch using this form or email patty.toledo@steelmedianetwork.com.