Information sharing and design coordination within the Finnish game development community

Abstract

The Finnish game development scene is known not only for its hit games, but also its coopetitive atmosphere - the companies collaborate and compete at the same time. One of the key elements of this is a culture of very open interpersonal information sharing, taking place among both the very top personnel as well as common workers of all kinds. In Finland people share what in other countries would be considered company secrets, covered by NDAs. The talk will discuss how and why this culture of high trust exists, what are its benefits for the companies, and how the same ideas could be scaled elsewhere. It is based on research work Harviainen and professor Miikka J. Lehtonen (University of Tokyo College of Design) have been conducting for now over a decade within the games industry.