The Tampere-Team had a meeting with the Game Hub Tampere game developers and spend an excellent karaoke evening with them at the top-lounge of our new Tampere site at the Platform6. Some excellent rock and pop tunes where played and everybody showed their talents with the microphone – a huge thanks to Riku, Tomi, Kirsi, Atte, Mika and all others who were with us 🙏

Wow – this time the Team Apprien and PHZ Games Studios guys had a really interesting visitor at offices! JuFo is one of the original Finnish rap-artist and famous for his legendary band called Raptori that was setting the rap scene on fire during the end of the ´80 and early `90. After the career in music (which is by the way still going on strong) he has been involved in technology companies and after many successful companies such as Hybrid Graphics, Zen Robotics, Immersal etc. he is now working as a CMO for Avidly. Jufo popped in to talk about games and new ideas how combine resent global phenomenas and games together. Stay tuned for more about this 😎

“Heei, Kaikki kotipojat ympäri Suomen maan
Mulla on tarina, Tulkaa kuuntelemaan
Tämä tarina on legenda Raptorista
Joku voisi luulla
Ettei ole paljon kertomista
Mutta kuten kohta kuulette
Sit riittää
Kun Raptori Suomessa mainetta niittää
Raptori on räpbändeistä parhain
Heräämme joka aamu kymmeneltä varhain
Kiinnitämme nahkaliiveihimme niittejä
Tsekkaamme riimejä, varastamme biittejä”

The newly appointed Ambassador of Estonia to Finland Mr. Sven Sakkov hosted a breakfast seminar with Enterprise Estonia to promote the business possibilities between Finland and Estonia. The team Apprien CEO Mr. Arto Käyhkö was invited to participate the seminar and here are few take aways of the conversations of that interesting morning.

Estonia has suffered the COVID-19 situation as like all the other countries in the world, but due to the very flexible job markets and regulations the effect has been less severe than in other Nordic or Baltic countries. Of course the travel and leisure industry has taken the hit from the travel restrictions, but generally the economy has stayed pretty intact. Also, the Estonian corporate taxation is giving a lot of slack to the companies, since the surplus is not taxed, when held in the company and used for developing the business and not taken out as dividends.

Estonia is in forefront of the eGovernment and digitalisation. The eCitizenship is a fine way of starting your business operations in Estonia, since it gives you a possibility to make agreements, open bank account and get tax certifications in Estonia even from the comfort of your own coach! Estonia is also the amongst the first countries to widely use digital voting in national elections and blockchain solutions in payments. Tallinn Technical University and University of Tartto have also very interesting AI and Machine Learning research groups.

Apprien and PHZ have joint office in Tallinn and we are looking keenly to expand our operations in Estonia and looking for new local customers and partners and also we are happy to welcome applications from students and technology savvy developers and coders 😉

Estonia and Finland have excellent bilateral relationships both in politics and economy. The vivid commuting between the countries is also binding us tighter together, even so much, that Tallinn and Helsinki are called Talsinki or Hellinna depending on which side of the Baltic see you look at it – a true Twincity in deed !

Apprienin keltaiset hupparit vilahtelivat tänään Careeria Porvoon kampuksella kun Arto ja Olli kävivät vierailuluennoimassa tuleville pelialan ammattilaisille kurssilaisten datanomiopintojen viimeisellä vuodella. Nuoret opiskelijat olivat pistäneet parastaan esitysten sekä demojen kanssa ja tilaisuudessa kehkeytyi erittäin mielenkiintoinen keskustelu pelialasta, myynnistä ja markkinoinnista ja aina yhtä tärkeästä pitchauksen (US.StartUp 1×1: pitch = esitellä tai myydä tuotettaan tai palveluaan sijoittajille tai asiakkaille) kolmesta kultaisesta säännöstä: pitchissä tärkeintä ei ole aloitus, eikä lopetus vaan höpötys 🙃 Toivottavasti monesta heistä kuullaan vielä, sillä peli-ideat olivat tuoreita ja tulevaisuuden pelikehittäjissä oli paljon intoa! Kiitokset Ollille ja Careerialle kutsusta ja järjestelyistä -tulemme toki toisenkin kerran !

Now it is official – we are in Tampere! You might have already heard rumours that the guys in the yellow hoodies a.k.a The Team Apprien has been checking the hoods in Tampere during this year. Yes, the rumours are once correct, and we are happy to announce that Apprien and PHZ Game Studios can be found from Platform6 at the Åkerlundinkatu 8 from now on! Our Founder Mr. Antti Hätinen described the decision to open the new office in Tampere, just like returning home. Mr. Hätinen, originally from Hyvinkää, has been studying in Tampere and knows well the digital roots of the vibrant city. “Tampere is perfect location for us, since as a university city it provides a lot of world class talent in the fields of IT and game development and due to it´s industrial history it has also a lot of business potential as well. “

At the beginning our teams will be represented by our Regional Business Manager Mr. Olli Ikonen and our Senior Developer Mr. Juuso Ansaharju, but note also that more people and positions are lurking just around the corner. Keep your ears and eyes open for our announcements for interesting positions and as usually “nuestra casa es su casa” – meaning that our door is always open for visiting and a cup of hot or cool drinks!

We will have official housewarming party by the end of this year if the COVID-19 situation allows social gatherings. More information about the party to our Tampere based customers and partners about the exact date and time is coming via separate message. Stay tuned for the Manse-party 😉

Apprien automated IAP pricing engine

Today most video games and especially indie developers lose money and scaling up opportunities; most games studios constantly struggle with pricing and how to manage it. This is hindering their ability to stay in the race and make good business. Also, the cost of user acquisition reaches record highs each year making the situation even harder. So, rejecting best practices such as dynamic pricing from other industries is irresponsible!

Analytics

Pricing needs to be analyzed continuously. With our sophisticated pricing analysis you find out what sells and what doesn’t. Identify high seasons and top products, monitor how discounts and competitor prices affect your demand and react to it to defend your revenue. Use the forecasting to complement your decision making process. And the best is that you can beat competition by reacting faster to market changes!

Turnover maximization

We enable that your prices are always optimal for turnover maximization based on price elasticity of demand. Apprien can boost your LTV either by increasing prices when the willingness to pay is higher or by optimizing sales volumes when competition is hush. This method used by successful mobile game companies worldwide is now available for you too.

Dynamic Pricing

And best of all – it’s totally automatic. Sit back and let Apprien take care of the daunting job of pricing a whole range of your IAP products. In the meanwhile you and your staff can monitor growing revenue streams on the dashboard and focus on developing the key areas of your business.

Team Apprien in Tampere 24.6.2020

On a hot summer day (+29 celsius) the Team Apprien and PHZ Game Studios Antti, Arto and Kim packed their laptops and suncream and shades and headed towards second largest city in Finland, Tampere. Or friendly Manse as we Finns call it. The nickname Manse actually comes from the industrial roots of the city of Tampere, referring to it`s better known fellow industrial city Manchester (UK).  Tampere was founded in 1779, on the river banks of Tammerkoski and was a vibrant industrial town for paper and pulp and wool manufacturing. Tampere is still largely known for its manufacturing industry, but also more and more for it`s top knots IT and digital companies, including game developers. We met few of them during the trip (Bon Games, Traplight, GreenerGrass, Kyy Games, 10Tons and Catland Studios) and discussed the latest on game development news and monetisation via IAP and other possible cooperation areas. And yes – we had some time to enjoy a cool pints at the famous Plevna Brewery and beer house in the old wool mill house of Finlayson 🍻

The team of coders and developers who usually lurk in the coolness and darkness of our offices, took a brave leap into the blazing sunlight and stormed the old fortress-island Vallisaari for the joint recreational 2020 summer-day. Oh boy what a treasure the island was: interesting history, beautiful nature and some dark tunnels to crawl too. I guess we had a high note of a day to end the somewhat strange spring 2020 with the COVID-19,  lockdowns and all that hassle. Thanks for the brave team and our fabulous guides Jukka & Jussi for the day. Next summer something completely different, but before that some vacation time and busy fall awaits us with the new normal – as the saying goes.

Here is some brief history of the Vallisaari island, courtesy of the City of Helsinki: during the construction of the Suomenlinna sea fortress in the 18th century, Vallisaari was a military logistics island, serving as a cow pasture and a source of firewood. At the end of the century, Vallisaari became a base for maritime pilots. From 1918 to 2012, Vallisaari was used as a storage area by the Finnish Defence Forces. In its heyday in the 1950s, the island had approximately 300 inhabitants as well as its own school and shop. There were residences for permanent Finnish Navy staff on the island until 1996.

Vallisaari and Kuninkaansaari used to form the largest Russian sea fortress in Helsinki. In August 1855, during the Crimean War, English and French enemy ships were able to bombard the Suomenlinna sea fortress with impunity for several days due to the fact that the outdated cannons of Suomenlinna did not have the range to fire back at them, five kilometres away. In response, Russia decided to build large, modern artillery stations on the islands of Vallisaari and Kuninkaansaari. Their construction ended up taking several decades, and also involved Finnish workers.

The only military action that the fortress ever took part in occurred in the summer of 1906, when a few thousand Russian seamen decided to mutiny. Their aim was to put an end to tsarism and spread the garrisons’ resistance movement throughout Russia. The fierce fighting continued for a few days, but the mutiny was eventually quelled when a large store of gunpowder exploded on Kuninkaansaari.

It´s that time of the year again when the video games industry from all over the world gather under the North-Californian sun and check what is happening and whose doing it!

Guess what – the lovely “yellow birds” the team Apprien Arto and Jesse will be there too. Come to meet us and hear what have we been doing with our 115 million users and of course grab your invitation to the legendary #ApprienParty ! See you in San Francisco 15th to 20th of March.

Our crew from both Apprien and Game Studio had a great time out in London at PGC 2020! Good chats and great meetings were had, and of course it was a pleasure to see so many people at the Apprien Party on Monday!

Jesse and Arto continued onwards to White Nights Amsterdam, where they are still available to meet all of you. Just go find their booth and see what’s up!