Cyril Barrow discusses setting up a game studio in Finland for Rovio in 3 sentences: The studio was established in January 2014 with 3 employees and grew to a team of 17 people by February 2015, hiring people from various countries who needed assistance with visas and relocation to Finland. Setting up the office, hiring staff, and negotiating contracts was challenging but they were integrated into the local game community; expectations for the studio were high which added pressure and the team had to understand Rovio's culture and production processes.

1. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.

2. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
Setting up a game studio in
Finland
Cyril Barrow
VP operations - Rovio

3. From Hardware...
Who is
Cyril Barrow ?
to... Free to Play....
20 years, leading people, products and processes.
Helsinki

4. Jan 2014
March 2014
Feb 2015
May 2014
Company
established
1st employee
• GM
Full team hired
(Producer & AD hired)
Team of 17:
• 1 GM
• 3 Design
• 6 Engineers
• 2 Admin
• 3 art
• Producer
• AD
Moved into the office with
3 employees:
• GM
• Eng
• Tech office manager
Helsinki

5. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
The office

6. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
- Office for 25 people: 7 500€ / Month
- Hot seat in Helsinki: 500 € / pers / Month
- Office contract negotiations was hard and slow.
- We got an amazing office.
- Proper internet set up was slow. We ran on 4G for 2 months
- Lots of second hand office shops around.

7. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
The recruitment

8. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
Relocations needed:
- Russian living in Czech Republic
- Ukraine
- Canada
- Turkey
Other nationalities in the team:
- China
- UK
- France
- Bulgaria
- India
- Efficient and fast visa application
- Game industry head hunter -> low yield (high competition)
- Hires came from Network, LinkedIn scooting and ads.
- Artists were the ardest to find
- Attrition: 4 people (20%) during year 1
- Applicants expect to be paid for doing recruitment tests (growing trend)

9. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
Expected perks in finland:
- Free mobile phone
- Phone bill paid by company
- Lunch vouchers
- Sport vouchers
- Home internet
- Free drinks/snacks at the office
- Game room
- Cool office
- 9-17 office hours
- stock options
- Bonus
- Growing trend: Recreational creative freedom

10. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
The services

11. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
- Law firm
- Auditor
- Accounting
- Pay roll + taxes
- Office cleaning
Employment tax:
24% on estimated yearly salaries.

12. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
The game(s)

13. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
- There was a very high hope put on the Helsinki studio
- The team had to gain the trust of HQ + project manager
- The team had to discover (guess) and adapt to the company’s production frame
Recommendations:
- set expectations early
- acknowledge roles and responsibilities
- schedule milestones and reviews
- give freedom between milestones
- don’t assume all game studios work the same way

14. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
What did we learn?

15. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
Fully staffed run rate (17 people) : 100k€/Month
1st year cost: 850k€
Don’t assume your GM will also be the
product owner
producer
HR manager
Get a native office assistant and office tech.
Tekes money not that easily available.
R&D loan
Marketing grant
Young innovative company support

16. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
What went well

17. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
- Office setup
- Law firm, accounting, Payroll set up
- Advertising jobs is efficient (networking is better)
- We were integrated to the game community quickly (IGDA)
- Our office assistant was helping the families to settle in Finland
- We opened our office to the families

18. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
What was difficult

19. Rovio © 2016 Confidential. All rights reserved.
- Office contract negotiations
- Taylor made financial reporting
- Internet set up
- Find artists, art director and free to play specialist.
- Understand the company’s culture
- Understand the company’s production framework
- Align roles and responsibilities
- Stand the pressure of expectations

20. Thank you.