haaga-helia startup school
DESCRIPTION
"Stupid stupid games helsinki is the place to be when you design games"TRANSCRIPT
23.3.2015 Stupid Stupid Games: Helsinki is the place to be when you design games | StartUp School
https://hhstartupschool.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/stupidstupidgameshelsinkiistheplacetobewhenyoudesigngames/ 1/6
STARTUPSCHOOL
Attitude. Action. Success.
HaagaHelia StartUpSchool
823Like
HaagaHeliaStartUpSchool viaKarlaNieminen6 hrs
Tervetuloa kuulemaan1.4. Finnveranpalveluista yrityksenrahoitukseen(tapahtuma ei edellytä
SIGN UP FOR OURNEWSLETTER
Email (required)
Name
Submit »
CONTACT US
startupschool@haaga-
helia.fi
STUPID STUPID GAMES: HELSINKI ISTHE PLACE TO BE WHEN YOUDESIGN GAMESMarch 18, 2015 · by hhstartupschool · in Success Stories
Stupid Stupid Games: Helsinki is the placeto be when you design games. It is likeParis in the 1920s with artists.
The founders of
Stupid Stupid
Games Suvi
Kiviniemi and
Jussi Kyrönseppä
are product
designers who get
inspiration from
games, sci-fi,
fantasy world and
mythology. They
have recently moved to their new office in Lauttasaari. As the
morning sunbeams come through the big windows and the strong
smell of coffee occupies the meeting room they talk about the
company´s vision and Scent of herbs.
The indie game company Stupid Stupid Games is founded in 2010.
While other product designers-to-be were exercising in the sports
center, four of them were drinking beer in a hotel lobby. “That was
HOME ABOUT EVENTS MARKET CONTACT
SUOMEKSI
23.3.2015 Stupid Stupid Games: Helsinki is the place to be when you design games | StartUp School
https://hhstartupschool.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/stupidstupidgameshelsinkiistheplacetobewhenyoudesigngames/ 2/6
TIME LEFT TO THE NEXT SUSEVENT
Startup Cafe:Taxation
March 31st, 2015
8days to go.
FOLLOW OUR NEWS VIAEMAIL
Click to receive
notifications of new posts
by email.
Follow
when I said `I want to start a game company´” Jussi smiles. They have
studied the market from product designers` point of view for 1.5
year. Their research aimed to establish a sustainable company by
finding answers to “What is? What is happening? What are the
problems and how can we fix it?”
“We are living in the dream”
Jussi liberated himself when he started leading such a company. He
would not change a day. ”I had a day job at a bookstore and it was
horrible. I loved the books, people, customers and talking about books
but everything was so monogamous. It was like working in a factory.
You had to be there at a particular day, you had to smile, they told
you what to think, what to do.” Stupid Stupid Games is trying to do
exact opposite. “If they were smart, we would be stupid. We are living
in the dream. We are doing things that we really love to do.”
“I am proud to call myself a dreamer,” as Suvi writers on her
personal webpage. She regards work as a tool for personal
development and self-expression, for meaningful life, even for
universal love.
Scent of Herbs is rooted in the creative process
Suvi and Jussi believe that imagination plays a big part of their
company. Creativity is a process. It is a habit that people have to
develop. “Every week basically you have to make sure you are putting
stuff in the machine. Stuff that you find inspirational. I call it scent
of herbs,” Jussi begins explaining what it means.
Scent of herbs comes from the story of a restaurateur in New York.
23.3.2015 Stupid Stupid Games: Helsinki is the place to be when you design games | StartUp School
https://hhstartupschool.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/stupidstupidgameshelsinkiistheplacetobewhenyoudesigngames/ 3/6
The restauranteur owns an herb garden, where every morning he
goes to water. The scent of herbs is so intensive that he has to run
back to his restaurant to start making food. “You have to find scent
of herbs if you want to be creative. You need to feed it. You have to
figure out things that ignite your brain, so that it would absolutely
explode and make you say I have to do this,” Jussi says.
Listening is the first basic skill to find out where scent of herbs is. For
Suvi and Jussi it has a lot to do with games, sci-fi, fantasy world and
mythology. They are inspired by the type of stories where people are
not exactly equipped to face the challenges that they are about to
face. They face them anyway and they beat the odds. Kindness is
another thing that inspires them.
“A lot of really creative stuff, what people normally call creative such
as characters and stories, I come up in my dream. It does not happen
because I am built in that way. It happens because I`ve built it that
way. In the evenings before I go to sleep, I feed it (scent of herbs). I
will write down couple of things, so I will have these things in my
subconscious. When I wake up I will have the weirdest dream. I will
write it down. Sometimes I won`t understand but later I will figure
out that it belongs to the puzzle. It’s one way to do it. I find it very
useful,” Jussi says.
Suvi`s scent of herbs works differently. It serves to the company´s
management and things that makes the company better such as how
to make things faster and creative solutions to fix problems for the
team. “We have 10 people working for us. Nobody gets paid right
now. How do we get these people work for free? Why do they believe
in us so much that they think that one day they will be paid? We have
this cultivated culture of trust. Everybody is working happily.”
Getting feedback is essential to create a community
Suvi and Jussi are learning all the time. They have expertise in world
design, transmedia and intellectual property. Thus, they have
planned 7 games; 5 digital games, a board and an rpg game. “That’s
one of the things we’re good at. We design these story worlds in a
way that it actually makes sense when you play it as digital game,
role play game or board game. It always looks the same and feels the
same. It has same kind of rules. It`s easy to switch between the games
and players have several access.”
The company has been designed to be sustainable for a long time. For
example, they have published early gameplay demo of Johnny Graves
in order to get feedback and to create a community. “We need to
23.3.2015 Stupid Stupid Games: Helsinki is the place to be when you design games | StartUp School
https://hhstartupschool.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/stupidstupidgameshelsinkiistheplacetobewhenyoudesigngames/ 4/6
create this community to work with us. We want to make our
customers co-creators instead of taking their money.”
People need new ways of thinking, Jussi believes. These days
playfulness speaks to people. They want to be more creative instead
of being part of the machine. “We want to liberate ourselves. Games
give us that. It gives us freedom, it breaks the boundaries.”
The game industry is in need of mentorship
Even though the company seems to be building slowly and they are
always behind the schedule a lot of people has been inspired by this
project, for example their investor. “He was listening to us and he
was thinking `I think this is crazy. This is a huge project. Why
anybody else doesn’t think this big` He liked the ambition. We
seemed good enough. He has been with us. He sits on the board. We
are meeting basically every week. Sometimes we go for a beer,” Jussi
tells.
Their investor has an extensive background in business. “We have
the IT- skills, game design and writing skills. We can design and build
but we are not good at business.” The investor explains how to follow
up the marketing plans, how to get customers, how to attack
investors, how to behave in a negotiation. “He always reminds us
how the pipe line is going. He brings certain level of
professionalism.”
There is a collaboration in Finland´s growing game industry.
However, the industry is in need of mentorship. Jussi suggests
making this issue into a public debate because a lot of companies are
just starting out but some of them are dying even before launching a
23.3.2015 Stupid Stupid Games: Helsinki is the place to be when you design games | StartUp School
https://hhstartupschool.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/stupidstupidgameshelsinkiistheplacetobewhenyoudesigngames/ 5/6
game. “Helsinki is the place to be when you design games. It is like
Paris in the 20s with artists. Everybody is here,” Jussi states.
Stupid Stupid Games had a lot to benefit from Haaga-Helia StartUp
School. “We wouldn’t be a serious company without the Startup
School. They are kicking us to the right direction. When you want to
be an entrepreneur you have to deal with products, market,
bureaucracy…” Suvi and Jussi strongly believe in division of labor.
Individually they concentrate on something. For the rest, they find
people to work with. “StartUp School gives you contacts and like-
minded people. It gives you information that you would not learn
otherwise.”
Jussi explains 3 game terminologies which Stupid Stupid Games uses
the most:
Build: Playable demo when executable file is made. A playable game.
Frame rate: How many times it refreshes the screen. How much
info it can load up. If it is too much it starts lagging and it doesn’t
move smoothly.
Concept design: Everything has to be built on a system or a
prototype.
Stupid Stupid Games
Indie game company
founded in 2010
The team consists of 10 people
stupidstupidgames.com
www.facebook.com/StupidStupidGames
Text and photos: Cisil Heltimoinen
Share this:
Press This Twitter 10 Facebook 236 Google
Reblog Like
Be the first to like this.
23.3.2015 Stupid Stupid Games: Helsinki is the place to be when you design games | StartUp School
https://hhstartupschool.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/stupidstupidgameshelsinkiistheplacetobewhenyoudesigngames/ 6/6
Blog at WordPress.com.
The Origin Theme.
← StartUp School companies
meet media