Samuli Syvähuoko is an experienced veteran of the Finnish gaming industry, a former employee of Remedy Entertainment, as well as the founder of Fathammer and Recoil. App 2 Top met with him on the eve of the Slush conference in Helsinki to talk about his latest project – Game Brewery.
Tell us about Game Brewery, and why did you decide to name the project that way?And why not call it Game Brewery?
There is a cute symbolism in this. When you brew coffee, beer or anything else, it takes time to bring the product to perfection. The process involves cleaning. The essence of Game Brewery is to clean up the Finnish gaming industry.
The Finnish gaming industry has a rich history and is developing rapidly. Now we are looking forward to the next mega-successes that are already brewing.
There are currently 180 game studios in Finland. Their number has tripled over the past three years, and the number of employees has increased twice and now stands at 2,200.
In order to accelerate this incredible growth and raise the industry to a new level, a new type of organization is needed. A group of veterans of the gaming industry thought about this about a year ago. We have repeatedly discussed how to implement this. Finally, we have developed a concept that is different from all those that other companies have tried to implement, while preserving our distinctive Finnish way of doing business. And we called it Game Brewery. I can’t tell you anything more about him… yet. Only that it is a joint launch platform for the next pages of success of the Finnish gaming industry.
What exactly do you mean by a joint launch platform?I won’t tell.
(Laughs.) Try to guess what it might be. This is a grandiose idea, when I say these words, I hope that people present great ideas. Of course, there are some peculiarities, but we would like to make one big announcement for the whole project.
When do you think this will happen?Until the end of this year.
While we are discussing one important detail of this puzzle. As soon as she’s in place, we’ll be able to talk about everything. The case is progressing rapidly, and we hope to start work in the second quarter of 2014.