Team Apprien and PHZ Game Studios will be again in GDC 2022 in San Francisco!

The team Apprien and PHZ Game Studios are back in the saddle again and traveling to the traditional crown jewel of the gaming industry events – GDC 2022 (Game Developers Conference) www.gdconf.com 

Our boys in yellow: Antti, Arto and Jesse will be in San Francisco 21st of March until the end of the event 25th of March. If you want to catch up and hear the latest from Apprien pricing engine development and see our latest game Castle War, please come to say hi! Game can be downloaded both Android and iOS stores globally. Also remember, that we have our traditional first day afterwork event on Monday!  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pid.castlewar&hl=en&gl=US

Remember to wear some flowers in your hair when in San Francisco – peace and love 🕊

 

Apprien and PHZ Game Studios in PGC London 2022

The team Apprien and PHZ Game Studios packed their luggages and roll-ups in a very long time and headed to the old mery London for the Pocket Games Connect 2022 event. It was a long anticipated return to our favourite event, which has always treated us good and we have had many successful cases to bring home from London in previous years.

This time our team: Arto, Antti and Jesse were especially exited to show the PHZ Game Studios new game Castle Wars (iOS and Android) to the public and conveniently the game was launched (with our partner PlugInDigital, PiD)  just couple of weeks after the event, so the people at the event got real treat and fresh out of the oven type of experience of the game!

We had again busy days filled with meetings (approximately 75 scheduled meetings + random meetings) and fantastic evening with our traditional Apprien first day get together in restaurant Finch´s where approximately 70 of our friends came to meet our team and enjoying few pints after the first day. All and all the event was successful and we had again many follow up cases to bring home. Also, we noticed that the game industry business events are slowly but surely getting back to ordinary and people are enjoying to meet each other also in physical space. Next events that we are planning to join are GDC 2022 in San Francisco and Nordic Games in Malmö, Sweden.

 

Apprien participated in the Slush event in December 2021

Apprien participated in the Slush event in December 2021. More about the atmosphere with pictures!

 

Apprien participating the NG2021 Autumn and Huawei Developer Conf.

It was good to see that the games business is getting bit by bit back to normal or at least the way it was before the pandemic. The good old fashion face-to-face business events with the gaming industry peeps – oh, I have missed this indeed 🙂

Since the Nordic Games 2021 needed to be moved from spring to the autumn time, it was a good idea to combine the physical presence of team Apprien with the Huawei Nordics Developer Conference 2021 and Nordics afterparty in Copenhagen. A bunch of loyal and eager Nordic developers from Finland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Estonia and Poland where present. Also, the Nordic team of Huawei AppGallery and HMS teams were present and organising the first ever Nordic Developers Conference. It was very interesting to meet the different Nordic developers and Huawei teams from AppGallery, HMS-platform development, Huawei Technologies and Huawei Developer Relations units.

In Nordic Games Apprien and PHZ Game Studios teams focused on meetings with publishers and also with investors who are looking possibilities with F2P mobile games. Apprien also met with existing and new customers within the Nordic mobile developers and studios. All and all some 30 interesting meetings where held. The Huawei Developers Conference focused on explaining how to launch games in AppGallery and what are the benefits for developers to start exploring the third global games and apps market place. Also, we got fresh out of the oven (launched last week) presentation about Huawei Cloud services for game developers.

As the pictures show, we had fact packed and fund couple of days in lovely and always inspiring Copenhagen, and I truly think this was something that we all were waiting for. See you in next event for sure! At least Team Apprien and PHZ Game Studios will be in Slush 2021 (December) in Helsinki and in Pocket Games Connect 2022 in London (January). See you there, if not sooner 😉

Gray Rhinos, Black Swans and Kekkonen – cyber security training day!

On a sunny and beautiful Saturday, the Apprien and PHZ teams gathered for the annual cyber security day at the picturesque Långvik Wellness and Spa resort in Kirkkonummi. The idea of the companywide cyber security days are to remind us all, no matter what is your job description, about the importance of the cyber security and brush up our knowledge about the company practises and different levels of the security we have in place. We also usually have someone outside the company to give us an in depth key note on trending cyber security themes. This time we had the pleasure to welcome Professor of Practise Dr. Jarno Limnéll from the Aalto University to talk about the cyber threats and how to prepare for them.

One might wonder, that what the heck the Rhinos and Swans in the headline has to do with the cyber security subject: well the answer is simple, those are commonly used metaphors for different events that typically or quite seldom occure, but are still something that we should prepare for. Term Black Swan might be the most common of these two. Since usually Swans are 99% white, it is really rare to encounter with black ones. Never the less they still appear, and actually some evidence shows that somewhere between 5% up to 7% of the Swan population might actually be different colour than white. Gray Rhinos instead are events, that are statistically quite realistic to happen and have significant influence on our life, but for some reason we have neglected the preparations for them. These might be Tsunamis, global pandemia, big blackouts in electric grids or labour strikes. Swans might be so seldom that huge efforts to prevent them are too costly and worthless to uphold, but the Rhinos are most likely to happen and their effects are so big that we should focus on preventing them or at least plan how to minimize the effects and maximize the damage control. This is definitely something to consider and as Professor Limnéll highlighted: 43% of Finnish companies said that their business would not survive if they would not be able to access internet in 24h hour / one day (survey 2019) .

During the course of the day our legal counsellor Mr. Asmo Esser talked about the current situation with GDPR in Europe and we went through some latest cases to realise that privacy related breaches and how companies handle our information are actually increasingly responsible for cyber crimes and business risk for all companies in Europe, no matter of the line of business or size. Our founder Mr. Antti Hätinen, Mr. Ville Välimäki and Mr. Skylar Kong spoke about our own internal security processes and learnings how certain customers of PHZ handle their own cyber security. Then our occupational safety and health manager Mr. Kalle Alanen talked about the effects of remote work for cyber security and how to guard your work and private digital surroundings.

The seminar day ended with the key note speech from Professor Limnéll about the current trends in cyber security, different threats and way of trying to influence us via different digital channels. Deep fake videos, integrity of the data and AI based segmenting are already widely in use for both governmental operators and private companies. But are there any realistic technical solutions to fight against these threats, probably not, but what could be the best way to prepare: education, media literacy and awareness. The more we know and the more we can question different sources and messages and the better off we are. Also, Professor  Limnéll raised a very good question at the end of the key note: should we aim to digitalise everything? If not, what should be left out. Digitalisation is tool not the goal itself as he aptly said.

With these questions and heads full of new ideas how to be aware of different cyber threats we went to have fun Långvik games and since in Finland we definitely had sauna and spa and ended the fantastic evening with a superb dinner at the Långvik Kekkos-lounge! 

Mansen menoa: Raitsikka ja Periskooppi…

Apprienin ja PHZ Game Studion dynaaminen duo: Antti ja Arto vierailivat jälleen Tampereella tapaamassa asiakkaita ja selvittämässä miten Mansessa pääsee palaverista toiseen raitsikalla 🚃 – no hyvinhän sillä pääsi! On kerrassaan mainio juttu, että meidän toimisto (Platform6) sijaitsee aivan keskustassa, niin sieltä voi sujuvasti hypätä raitsikkaan ja suhailla sillä pelistudioita moikkaamaan. Tämä sopii hyvin meidän kestävän koodin periaatteita noudattavan firmamme ajatuksiin.

Tampereella toki tapahtuu paljon muutakin mielenkiintoista kuin pelkästään raitsikan ilmestyminen katukuvaan: pelifirmoilla, joista moni onkin jo meidän kumppaneita, on paljon uusia pelejä tulilla ja odotamme innolla niiden julkaisua. Muutenkin korona ei ole ilmeisesti vaikuttanut Tamperelaiseen digi- ja peli- sekä it-toimialaan paljoakaan vaan sen kasvu jatkuu kohisten, kuten Aamulehden pääkirjoitus myös mainiosti asian viikonloppuna huomio. Linkki artikkeliin tässä: https://www.aamulehti.fi/paakirjoitukset/art-2000008197766.html

Vierailumme huipentui Ratinassa ravintola Periscopen huipulle jossa tapasimme vanhoja tuttuja ja uusia tuttavuuksia Tamperelaisten pelikehittäjien muodossa.  Nähtäväksi jää millä kulkupelillä seuraavaksi liikumme Mansessa 😃

Guide for installing Apprien Objective C SDK to your game or app project

PHZ Full Stack & Apprien avajaisjuhlat Tampereella 17.6.2021

Lähes vuoden odottamisen jälkeen PHZ ja Apprien tiimit pääsivät kohottamaan maljaa Tampereen toimiston ja sen toiminnan avaamisen kunniaksi. Odotus oli pitkä, mutta hyvää kannatti odottaa, sillä niin ilma, seura kuin myös Tampere näytti meille parastaan.

Lähes pilvien tasolle Hotelli Tornin upeaan Moro Sky Baariin oli kokoontunut joukko PHZ:n ja Apprienin asiakkaita sekä Tampereen kaupungin ja Business Tampereen edustajia.

Hiki virtasi kilvan kuohujuoman kera, sillä lämpötila kolkutteli 28 asteen paremmalla puolella. Keskustelu oli kuitenkin iloista ja kaikki vertailivat omia muistojaan Tampereesta ja sitä miten kaupunki oli vuosien saatossa kehittynyt.

Osa oli saapunut paikalle autolla, junalla tai pyörällä, mutta olipa muutama vieraistamme saapunut paikalle myös upouudella Tampereen raitiovaunulla.

 

 

”Tampereen nopea kasvu, sekä alati kehittyvä talous, luo mielenkiintoisia liiketoimintamahdollisuuksia ja se oli yksi vetovoimatekijä, jonka takia mekin päätimme sijoittua Tampereelle” – Antti Hätinen / PHZ Full Stack

 

Alkumaljojen jälkeen iltaa ja avajaisia jatkettiin Apprien & PHZ toimitiloissa Platform6:ssa ja sen juhla-kerroksessa, josta voi ihailla upeita maisemia ja Tampereen kehitystä vaikkapa Uros Live! Areenan työmaan muodossa. Avajaispuheissa ja varsinkin paneelikeskustelussa PHZ Full Stack Oy:n perustaja ja toimitusjohtaja Antti Hätinen mainitsikin, että juuri Tampereen nopea kasvu sekä alati kehittyvä talous, luo paljon mielenkiintoisia liiketoimintamahdollisuuksia joka olikin yksi vetovoimatekijä, jonka vuoksi päätimme sijoittua Tampereelle. Business Tampereen toimitusjohtaja Harri Airaksinen mainitsi lisäksi, että kolmen keskeisen yliopiston ja korkeakoulun verkosto mahdollistaa yrityksille hyvän pohjan osaajien rekrytointiin ja lisäksi kaupunki sekä viranhaltijat pyrkivät toteuttamaan ennakoitavaa ja yrittäjämyönteistä toimintaan. Panelin lopuksi elinvoiman ja kilpailukyvyn palvelualueen johtaja Teppo Rantanen Tampereen kaupungilta, muistutti, että vaikka Tampere tunnetaan teollisuudestaan, niin kaupunkiin on muodostunut kasvavaa kansainvälisen tason digitaalista liiketoimintaa, niin teollisuuden prosessien, älykkään kaupungin kuin myös peliteollisuuden osalta. Tähän toteamukseen oli helppo yhtyä kun katsoi noin 50-henkisen kutsuvierasjoukon yrityksiä ja niiden taustoja: mukana oli mm. maailman huippua edustavia pelejä ja niiden kehittäjiä kuin myös korkea tason tutkimusta niin kotimaasta kuin maailmalta niin VTT:n ja myös ESA:n (European Space Agnecy:n) hankkeissa.

Ilta oli huima ja päättyi hauskaan sauna-Karaoke yhdistelmään, jossa kukin pääsi lauteille tahtonsa mukaan, joko vihdan tai mikrofonin varressa.

Kiitos kaikille osallistuneille lämpimistä tervetuloa toivotuksista Manseen!

The team Apprien and PHZ Game Studios at PGC Digital #5

Even though the traditional opening of the year for game industry events, Pocket Games Connect London, has been moved in the upcoming future because of Covid-19 situation we are still happy to meet our fellow developers and customers in the digital PGC event!

On February 8th to 12th approximately  1300+ attendees from game industry all over the world will be online and meeting with peers and listening in on the latest news and developments in the gaming business.  Of course there is also plenty of opportunities to meet on virtual one-on-one meetings and not to forget the Big Indie Pitch and Careers Week side events too!

If you are interested to hear how´s our latest game Siege Castle been doing after the launch and how our studio can help you to integrate your games and apps into the Huawei HMS / AppsGallery platform or just to have a free trials and tests of Apprien pricing engine, ping us for a meeting! Our CEO Arto Käyhkö and (old) new face in the Apprien team Mr. Sasu Louke will be there just a one click away :- ) See you all soon! 👋🏻

Faaaaaasssstttt developers 🏎 🏁

Last Friday the team Apprien and PHZ gathered to celebrate the “little Christmas party” as we call it in Finnish. The idea is to celebrate the upcoming Christmas holidays together with workmates. As we all know that coding and developing new might sometimes be frustratingly slow, we decided to have something that is definitely fast paced and action filled! We headed out to Karting Club Helsinki to have a race day!

Finland is know to be the fastest nation in the world: for a such small country we have numerous Formula 1, WRC- World Rally Cross and Motorcycles (MotoGP) champions in the history and I guess the gasoline is flowing in our veins still quite naturally. So no wonder that everybody were so excited and we had really fun afternoon! End results showed that Christian was the fastest at the qualifying session and also on the official race, but seeing the smiles after the race I think we all felt like winners internally…  Thanks for the organising team and lets see what we have next on our joint activities  – perhaps ski jumping, another Finnish national sport 🙃