The ideal candidate is someone who is at least somewhat familiar with game development & is an experienced digital artist - there is a lot happening here at the moment, so we’d prefer a candidate who can start working full-steam as quickly as possible.

Playtesting

We’re also looking for people to play our games and tell us what they think. Simply fill out the application form and you’ll be contacted when we arrange a testing session.

One of the games you’ll be testing will be released later this year, and will naturally be the media event of the year in Finland. So here’s your chance to get something to brag about.

Company website totally reworked, new community features

Helsinki, Finland - 13 May 2008 - Finnish game developer Frozenbyte, whose earlier games include Shadowgrounds and Shadowgrounds Survivor, is thrilled to announce that it has decided to focus on creating games based on original IP. Frozenbyte has expanded its development team and has three projects in development, all based on new original IP.

“Our decision to focus on games based on original IP gives the company a clear direction into the future. Whether it’s a project of our own or a partnership project, our expertise in envisioning, developing and launching new IPs helps enormously. We feel that we’ve got that special creative spark that’s needed for great, original games,” said Frozenbyte CEO, Lauri Hyvarinen and continued: “We’re letting our creativity run wild and the results are amazing. Two new projects will be unveiled shortly and that’s just the beginning - you can expect big things from us in the future!”

Frozenbyte has also redesigned its company website, located at http://www.frozenbyte.com/ . Among new features are the Frozenbyte Blog that gives gamers a glimpse behind the scenes, and the upgraded Community forums where fans can interact with the developers directly. Frozenbyte aims to continue to support all its current and future games.

Frozenbyte’s latest game, highly praised Shadowgrounds Survivor for the PC, is currently available at retail outlets in North America and in some European territories, and worldwide in online distribution channels such as Steam, Direct2Drive, GamersGate and TotalGaming.net for $19.99. The game is rated M for Mature in North America and PEGI 16+ in current European territories.

Further information:

Shadowgrounds Survivor official site & game page on Metacritic:
http://www.shadowgroundssurvivor.com/
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/shadowgroundssurvivor

Frozenbyte, Inc.:
http://www.frozenbyte.com/ & http://www.frozenbyte.com/press
Contact: Joel Kinnunen, Business Development & PR, firstname dot lastname at company

FROZENBYTE
Frozenbyte is an independent game developer focused on games based on original IP for consoles and PC. Frozenbyte’s current original IP titles include the highly acclaimed Shadowgrounds series. The company’s next new title will be unleashed in 2008, followed by two more completely new titles in 2009. In addition to the company’s own games, Frozenbyte helps its partners and clients create new concepts and IPs. Frozenbyte was founded in 2001 and is based in Helsinki, Finland.

I’m the Audio & Music Director here at Frozenbyte Inc. I compose and produce music but I also design, produce, edit and mix all of our audio assets.

Good audio design and music is critical to reach those top 10/10 review scores, but sometimes I feel that game audio doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Reviews sometimes don’t even mention audio at all, or just make a general comment without any details. I wish there’d be more critique, positive or negative - constructive criticism always helps, and positive comments make it all worth it. When I read how much people have enjoyed the audio in our Shadowgrounds games, it makes me very happy, because that is the ultimate goal: to make gamers totally immersed in the game world and enhance their emotions and create memorable moments during gameplay.

For me, I like what I do and that’s how I get the best results. However, I still have to make things work IN THE GAME, I can’t just do whatever I want. Everything must sound fitting within the sonic boundaries of the game design and the virtual world. Unfortunately, budget and time constraints always play a role in music and audio decisions - and like it or not, you really can’t underestimate the impact of other people either.

IT’S A DOUBLE-BARRELED ROLE

Making audio assets and music are really, really different things. They require a different mindset and I need to separate these areas to be able to focus on one at a time. Usually an Audio Director doesn’t compose much because he/she is mainly responsible for the audio design and assets - or making sure the juniors do what they’re supposed to do.

But I on the other hand have a double job. It’s a whole different ball game when you make the entire game soundtrack and still manage to accomplish good, working audio design. It takes a little bit of extra days and cold beers, but it’s good for my sanity.
I enjoy making music more than sound work, because music is a more creative process, whereas creating sound effects and integrating them into the game is a bit more technical. It’s not all fun and games!

In addition to that, there are times when I need to focus on vocal outsourcing and managing other people like trainees. Managing is surprisingly tough sometimes but if it’s done efficiently and with care, [insert cliché here].

ENLIGHTENING

We have regular meetings and it’s my job to be active and participate in the overall development of the game world. It really helps when I see some concept art and other visual things where I can draw inspiration from. It’s important to be on the same page as everyone else, and to have a clear vision (or even a clue) about the game that you are making. I also like to walk around the office from time to time. It gives my ears some well-earned rest and I can keep track of the projects and see what everyone else is doing. My walkabouts are also a way to tell (and hear) stupid jokes every day. Luckily the jokes are getting better.

I love my work.

It’s not something I wanted to do. We’re working on some very cool stuff at the moment, and I’d love to tell everyone about it. But I can’t. Let me explain.

“What’s so secret about your work, Mr. Big Shot Game Developer Guy?”

Ever since I started at Frozenbyte, I’ve been constantly running into this question. Let’s assume I’m talking to a nice lady at a bar (for argument’s sake…) The conversation could go something like this:

• Her: Oh, you’re SO funny! Are you like a professional comedian or something?
• Me: Actually, I make games.
• Her: *blank stare*
• Me: You know, Xbox and PlayStation and such.
• Her: Oh, cool! So what kind of games are you working on?
• Me: Umm, I can’t really tell you.

…and it’s all downhill from there. So why can’t I brag about the work our team is doing, in order to take the nice lady home and impress her with my limited edition Big Daddy figurine?

NDA

NDA stands for “Non-Disclosure Agreement”, and most people in our industry have signed several of them. Most people in any industry are familiar with them, so if you don’t know what I’m talking about, let Wikipedia educate you.

I have an NDA with Frozenbyte, and Frozenbyte has tons of NDAs with publishers, contractors, middleware companies, etc. So there’s a lot not to disclose. But talking about our products - games - especially, why can’t I tell what we’re working on?

Marketing

To over-simplify how things work for traditional third-party developers like us, this is the model we use:

1. We make a game
2. A publisher sells the game
3. Profit!

Making a game is certainly a delicate process. But marketing (and eventually selling it) is just as delicate, and a good marketing campaign is very well planned in advance and carefully timed to gain maximum visibility for the product.

So let’s say I announce on this blog that we’re making a game where you’ll be able to shoot at mutant cannibal hippopotamuses with a gerbil-powered laser weapon shaped like an Ibanez axe and take a look at what this would mean for us in two different scenarios (we’ll ignore the scenario where Ibanez sues us for trademark infringement for now…)

Scenario 1: Unsigned game

In this scenario, we haven’t actually signed the game with a publisher yet. This means we’ll first have to convince a publisher that our idea will make them billions of euros (or dollars, but then we’d need to be making gazillions…) Even if the product acquisition guy at the publisher’s end doesn’t go umm, this doesn’t really fit into our portfolio…, their marketing department might still have some doubts about their ability to sell this game to the buying public. I’d rather like to have a conversation with them (ok, how about we make the laser hamster-powered instead…) than lose out on a publishing deal because of a silly blog post.

Scenario 2: Signed game

As I said, our job is to make the games, and the publisher’s job is to sell them. I assume they do their job, and let me do mine. We have detailed plans and schedules, as do they. Sometimes they’ll come up with silly ideas that they think would really help sell the game - but I hope they ask us before announcing them to the public. The same goes for us - we might think it’s a great idea to announce Hippo Killer 3000 two years before the launch date, but they might think we just destroyed their marketing plan. And maybe we did. Oops.

Maybe I’ll just let them do the marketing - and hope they come up with a better name than Hippo Killer 3000.

And other reasons…

Besides marketing, there’s plenty of other reasons to stay tight-lipped about projects that aren’t near completion. There’s still innovation in the game business, and where there’s innovation, there’s idea theft. A publisher might hear about our idea and put one of their own teams working on a very similar game, even when we’re still looking for a publisher (oh wait, did that already happen…?)

–

So, the point I’m making is this: games media is where you can read about our games (ok, of course we’ll also tell something about them here). But if you’re interested in how they’re made (and by whom!), then you might just have come to the right place. Welcome!