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23.3.2015 Stupid Stupid Games: Helsinki is the place to be when you design games | StartUp School

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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

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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

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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

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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

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