White Nights Helsinki 2016: how it was

Who was there?

There were a lot of people. The day before the official part of the event – at the pre-party – the organizers even had to open the second floor of the restaurant so that it would not be crowded. In just two days – already the official part – White Nights hosted more than 800 guests from all over the world.

Proximity to Russia turned out to be a big plus of the first Nevosoft conference abroad. The event turned out to be a new window to Europe, a platform that was comfortable for both Western market participants and Russian teams to reach.

The share of both at the event was significant. Of the tickets sold, more than 60% came from foreign companies,” the organizer of the event, Yulia Lebedeva, told us. The remaining 40% of the participants, respectively, were from Russia and the CIS.

MORKWA shows cute Time Manager TEA: The Tiny Paradise
Slightly more than half – 57% – of all conference guests were developers.

For those who were ready to show their game, the organizers allocated a stand in the exhibition area for free. In total, we counted about 70 occupied booths, where game projects were demonstrated for two days in a row.

We didn’t manage to stop near each stand and thoughtfully play each game. Corny didn’t have enough time. But there were a lot of good projects, in our opinion. In particular, I really liked the Bubble Multiverse from A-Steroids. In what other battler does the action take place against the background of Peter drowning in fire? The second “Dictator” from Tigrido surprised with its complexity. In a game about world politics and balancing between political factions, there was a place for a construction manager and a collectible card game. I was interested in Galaxy Rangers from RagCat Games, which is, in fact, a cartoon Heroes Charge about tanks and robots.

There were enough publishers. According to Nevosoft, their share of all participants of the event was 17%. The remaining 26% came from representatives of platforms, analytics services and advertisers.

Girls from Nitro Games show “art” from Raids of GloryWho were you listening to?

Among the central speakers of White Nights this time were the authors of Angry Birds, who actively shared insiders. In particular, Wilhelm Taht, executive vice president of the company’s gaming division, spoke about ARPDAU Nibblers and Angry Birds Stella POP ($0.25 and $0.17, respectively). Moreover, he said that at the moment the company has already released a new midcore project in the soft lunch.

Julia Lebedeva (Nevosoft) “fireball” with Marika Appel (Supercell)
How are community managers managing these millions?

In fact, they are not really controlled. Supercell comes from the fact that the best community managers are the players themselves. The company’s community managers work directly with community leaders, and the latter are already solving “problems on the ground”.

A Viber representative at White Nights said that the platform is actively looking for developers for its platform. Moreover, we are talking not only about casual, but also about midcore projects. The platform is ready to talk to developers if the retention of the second day is at the level of 50%, and the seventh – 15-20%.

Viber also noted that today Russia is the main market for the platform. However, the opposite is also true: Viber is one of our most popular messengers.

There is no good photo from the Viber performance, but there is this one, will you find a representative of the platform here? 
A very interesting lecture was given by the CEO of My!

Gamez by Mikael Leinonen. His company is primarily famous for bringing Western games to the Chinese market. In particular, Hill Climb Racing from another Finnish company – Fingersoft – achieved through the efforts of My!Gamez has over 54 million downloads.

Mikael was just talking about how to work in China. He noted that Western projects are in great demand on Android markets. Only, going to this market, it is important to understand that the game should be squeezed – ideally – up to 20 MB, and the number of intermediaries is very large (you can easily receive 10% of the amount paid by the user). He is also the author of the main joke of the conference: in China copy right is right to copy.

What else did you do?

Of course, we talked a lot.

When they talk about the benefits of participating in conferences, first of all, they mention networking. And this is understandable. Meetings and new acquaintances are what drives the business. From the very first White Nights, held in April 2012, its organizers focused on this component, which, in fact, allowed them to create one of the most important gaming events in Eastern (and now Northern) Europe.

In other words, the main thing that has always distinguished White Nights is the opportunity to sit down quietly in a comfortable environment and talk about business, agree on cooperation or even a feature. And, of course, just to make useful acquaintances.

This time was no exception.

Meeting space at the conference
We personally know the team that agreed on a feature with Google Play in Helsinki.

At least one more team has found a reputable publisher. The guys of the gothic buttler received a lot of feedback, and one producer checked the correctness of the idea and, it seems, would have taken up the implementation of the project.

It is clear that there were many more such stories, but this is only what we accidentally and casually learned about, running from one hall to another, trying to post the most interesting reports on Twitter.

There were also parties. This is another big side of White Nights, which has no competitors in Europe at all. But, probably, this is a completely different conversation. But, you know, you’re unlikely to hear Arthur Shakalis discussing Warhammer 40,000 anywhere else, and a reporter PocketGamer.biz figachit almost moonwalk.

By the way, we also caught Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen at the conference.

Something like that. The next – summer – White Nights will be held according to tradition in St. Petersburg (from June 28 to June 29).