Finnish Game Incubator 2024 - Tampere Game Hub

Finnish Game Incubator returns for its seventh batch—offering you the chance to learn top game business practices from industry-leading mentors and coaches! Free for all selected participants.

Do you have a game studio or a team eager to find the right market or attract publishers and investors?

Are you part of a Finland-based game team or company seeking top-tier mentoring from leaders in Finland’s game development industry? The Finnish Game Incubator returns in November 2024, offering expert guidance to game teams looking for direction in the industry. We provide support in everything from game production pipelines to fundraising.

Mission statement from Alistair Hatch during FGI 2023.

In collaboration with the City of Tampere and AhlmanEdu, Joni Lappalainen (Dreamloop Games) has crafted a business coaching program designed to equip you with all the knowledge needed to grow your budding game studio into a thriving business. Our visiting mentors include CEOs, marketing professionals, and other seasoned veterans of the game industry, carefully selected to meet your specific needs. This coaching is completely free for all selected participants, but spaces are limited—so act fast!

Fully remote on Discord, the 10-week coaching features best-in-business game developer mentors to hone your pitching skills, learn game business and get help from top gaming industry influencers!

Receive valuable advice through hands-on sessions with veteran mentors from the games industry.
A weekly crash course covering all aspects of game development—from concept to release.
Master the art of pitching and selling your games on any platform.
Receive critique and advice from senior industry professionals.
The program culminates in an online Demo Day event, where you’ll pitch to investors, mentors, and the entire industry.
Entirely remote via Discord, allowing you and your team to participate from anywhere.
During the coaching, you’ll gain the knowledge needed to earn a Further Vocational Qualification for Entrepreneurs from AhlmanEdu.
At the end of the coaching, game teams will showcase their knowledge through a skills demonstration, with the central document being the game studio’s business plan.

Throughout the coaching, you’ll learn everything necessary to run a game studio, with coaches and mentors supporting your team during the course and beyond. Graduates of the program will receive an Entrepreneurship degree from AhlmanEdu.

The format is straightforward: experienced mentors from the game industry share their knowledge in a weekly keynote with the selected teams. After the keynote, you’ll receive tailored guidance for your specific business case in scheduled 1-on-1 mentoring sessions.

The Finnish Game Incubator has successfully completed six batches, with 36 game studios participating. An impressive 98% of previous teams recommend the course to others. While we strive to select the teams with the highest potential during our application process, both the topics and mentor lineup are customized to meet the specific needs of the accepted teams.

Finnish Game Incubator 2024 begins November 2024. Applications are accepted from 28.08.2024 to 06.10.2024. Sign up today – we can only select so many!

The Finnish Game Incubator Team

The Tampere Game Hub and Ahlman team run the coaching program with weekly hands-on lessons and mentoring sessions.

Joni Lappalainen

Chairman of Finnish Game Developers

CEO of Dreamloop Games, a networking and game production expert with experience across the entire industry—from shipping games to B2B operations.

Mentors & Speakers

The mentors and speakers are experts in game business, marketing, and collaborating with investors and publishers.

Natasha Skult

MiTale

Natasha Skult is the CEO & Creative Director of MiTale, a game development company from Finland focusing on narrative-driven experiences and gamification. She is an active member of the Finnish and international games industry.

Katharina Schmidt

Rovio

Katharina leads sales at Rovio and she takes care of the company’s relations with several partners and manages business negotiations. She works with Rovio’s games and Angry Birds IP and focuses on growing the business through partnerships. Katharina works as a part of SEGA’s international sales organization.

Hind Toufga

Dashy

With a diverse background in game localization, QA, UI/UX design, and in-game marketing, Hind represent the EMEA region while serving as an Ambassador for Women in Games, advocating for corporate responsibility and greater diversity in gaming, aligning with my expertise in communication and community building.

Steve Stewart

Dreamloop

Steve is a 10-year games industry veteran, formerly from Ubisoft and co-founder of Dreamloop Games, ready to guide you through the world of gaming marketing and PR.

Application Period has Closed!

The coaching runs once a week from November 2024 to February 2025.

Further vocational qualification for Entrepreneurs degree period is 06.11.2024 – 31.05.2025.

Application period: 28.08.2024 – 06.10.2024.

Finnish Game Incubator 2024 begins in early November online on Discord. Please read the selection criteria below carefully.

Selection Criteria

– This coaching is intended for game teams or companies that are already working on a game project.

– You (the applicant) are in a decision-making, founding role in the team or company

– You are ready to attend the ten weeks curriculum (once a week) in Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 online on Discord. You and your team members participate in the included Further vocational qualification for Entrepreneurs degree (“Yrittäjyyden ammattitutkinto”)

– Your team or company will submit a skills assessment – game business plan (“ammattitaidon näyttö – pelialan liiketoimintasuunnitelma”) at the end of the course. The skills assessment must be done in the Finnish language.

– At least one member of the team needs to be able to speak Finnish; all other content of the program is in English.

– None of the participants is a student in a high school or vocational school.

Application Process

We look through each submission and rank them on values like potential investor interest, business potential and how the game project looks and feels like. After processing the application, we will select the best teams and/or companies to attend the program. Once your application has been processed, we will let you know whether your application was successful.

Curriculum

Note that dates and times are subject to change!

06.11.2024 12:00 – 14:00	Starting info / degree information
During wk 45 or 46	HOKS & Team mentoring
12.11.2024 12:00 – 17:00	Business Opportunities in the Game Industry
20.11.2024 12:00 – 16:00	Company Strategy/Communications
27.11.2024 12:00 – 16:00	Pitching (Pitch Deck)
04.12.2024 12:00 – 16:00	Closing Deals
11.12.2024 12:00 – 16:00	Marketing, PR & Press Releases
08.01.2025 12:00 – 16:00	Service sales and pricing
15.01.2025 12:00 – 17:00	Public funding
22.01.2025 12:00 – 17:00	Legal
29.01.2025 12:00 – 17:00	Pitch training & feedback
12.02.2025 18:00 – 19:00	Demo Day 2025

From March to April 2025, we will provide team-based mentoring for the Further Vocational Qualification for Entrepreneurs from AhlmanEdu, guiding teams as they develop and submit their game studio business plans. In May 2025, we will grade the submissions according to each team’s schedule.