Asmo Saloranta — CEO of Frozen Vision, CVO of Asmo solutions and Chief Operating Officer of Vessla .

Introduction

Asmo Saloranta is a graduate student of Oulu Game LAB; the CEO of Frozen Vision, a game company in Northern Finland, CVO of Asmo solutions and Chief Operating Officer of Vessla.

*Game LAB is a unique training and development program tailored to meet the needs of the gaming industry.

Hello Asmo,

Could you share a bit about what you are doing at the moment

Hello, one thing I do right now, I run Frozen Vision, a game company in Northern Finland. It’s founded in 2014 — we were in the second round of OGL — we were like the first beta testers of OGL. We did graduate from there and after that, I established this company, with most of the team members that were in the OGL.

One week after establishing Frozen Vision I came up with the idea for Asmo solutions. It is based on a real problem because my girlfriend’s house burned down because of a charger in the middle of the night. I did subcontract everything at the beginning. Now I hired a CEO, he is now running the company, gathering the team and we are starting to manufacture the chargers in a couple of weeks.

We are building mobile phone chargers ourselves and then licensing the technology to bigger players like Google and Apple. And from there I make the money so I can make games. This is the answer I gave them when they asked in the Nordic Game “ how do you run your game company “ and I replied “ I make proper business and with that I make games “

Then there is this Vessla company, two friends from Stockholm called me one day with this idea to stream on a painting with e-ink stuff from the cell phone but without any plugs or wifi connection.

How did Game LAB evolve since then?

When we started OGL there weren’t two phases like it is now, it was only 6 months. Just the Demo Path. And we created the Game Path with the university and OGL. We were the very first in the Game Path. it was our own idea. We went to the creators and told them that it would be really awesome if we could continue and develop it like another 6 months and get it to a demo phase and publish it. Game LAB and the university thought if it could continue and be like an umbrella for us — they can help us somehow. It was really agile from the university because after a couple of weeks they came back and gave us a space. When we started, nobody knew what it will be, and we created what we needed. It was based on our needs — like if we needed someone to tell us how to add monetisation in our game OGL found the people who know that and they explained how we could do it.

What is Game Path?

It’s like an incubator but in our case, it was like an accelerator, we already established a company. It was really great for us! And we also helped the students in demo path. We went there like every other week and tell them what we did, other teams that didn’t carry on came to the demo path to tell them what was bad, why they didn’t carry on. So students learned from our mistakes. There were companies that went bankrupt and they came back and tell the students and explained their failures. So everybody from OGL could learn from their failures. It was a lot of sharing.

Are you the oldest company OGL created?

We are the oldest company ALIVE that OGL created, There were two companies before us; Viima games which were acquired by Fingersoft and, Helmeni Games which decided to stop.

Why do you think you are still alive?

Because of our team. We do fight a lot and, there is this thing that everybody in the company owns some part of Frozen Vision so it’s not just like a job. Its employees own the company so that’s what motivates, not just doing games with a small salary — because there is there is this small hope that if this game makes it or the next one the whole company can be big and they own a small portion of that company. And of course, we didn’t run out of money yet.

Who is on your team

Our team is quite interesting, half of our team is ex-Nokia engineers, they have an experience like 25 years in programming phones and we combine them with this young and talented game developers and graphical artists. And this is the Chaos, these are 2 totally different pols.

One one hand you have this Nokia really high experience, and knowledge about the Scrum and then, on the other hand, you have this youngster who don’t understand why we have to use all these project management tools. But Key is communication. Even we don’t have even weekly meetings, everybody knows what we are doing. We use Slack as a chat tools and everybody is in the same room so it’s quite easy to just say out loud if something is wrong, and I have also, over 10 years of experience running companies. I have 4 companies at the moment so this is not new for me, being an entrepreneur. All the gaming and start-up life, this is new for me.

How would you describe the culture inside the company?

It’s like a semi-professional atmosphere, like a creative chaos over there. We have tried all the Scrum, we used Trello and, we try everything. We try to keep everything in shape. The key word is trying, it doesn’t work that well but we are trying and everybody wants to go forward, but they all want to go forward in their own way.

We have tried everything but we know each other already and we found our own ways to work and we know other team members way to work. We give room when somebody needs it. It just works.

We changed a bit, at quite an early stage, some left from the team after our first project.

Our first project was really hard and frustrating, a few team members left and everybody else did stay even if the first project was a disaster, and really frustrating. But now I can trust that all of those guys that stayed if anything happens, they will stick together.

How are you keeping your team motivated?

We failed really hard with our first project- but it was good that we failed! In a way, I am happy we failed. We learned a lot and because of this some team members left us right after so now I am sure of the team we have now. That no matter trough what we are gonna go they are not gonna leave.

We tried to organize and work together, we tried everything ! Scrum, Agile, you name it!- but nothing worked so we just developed our own way of doing things. We thrive in chaos.

Our team is really interesting — half of it is ex-Nokia and half young graphic designers and developers — that’s why the chaos. On one hand you have this experienced Scrum team member and on the other hand, you have this young person who doesn’t understand why there is the need for daily scrum meetings.

But at the end of the day, the key is communication. And even if we don’t have weekly meetings everybody knows what we are doing.

What is the optimal structure for a team

Chaos!

Are you then happy that you failed ?

Oh yeah, and oh did we fail! Really, really hard but it was a good thing that we failed. It wasn’t so good that we didn’t fail fast, we took like 1 year to do it. We were in Microsoft App Campus so we received funding from there, we matched with government money so that’s where we got the funding. But because it was for Microsoft we had to make it for Windows phones. But that wasn’t so easy because we already did half of the game for Android and then we tried to change it to Windows but nothing worked! We tried to make a windows phone game from android and it was a disaster.

Did you create games for other platforms ?

Yea, now we are doing games for Android and IOS and also HTML 5. But It’s quite easy because we still use Unity. Even if it’s easy to export we don’t touch Windows again. It’s like a pandora box we don’t touch.

But if you are running 4 companies isn’t the start-up life in your blood now?

It is now but Frozen Vision was my first start-up company which I established. I had a motorcycle shop before that for 6 years but It’s quite different.But after that, I had this idea about this Asmo Charger and now I had 2 companies. I was running them from the same premises. Asmo solutions was a one man company for over one year. I was running it so it was easy to run Frozen Vision and sometimes wear Asmo solutions hat. Now Asmo Solutions is going much bigger than Frozen Vision.

How do you see the indie life?

If you think about business first, without any knowledge or passion for the games, you are gonna fail. Even here in Oulu, there are a few that just want to create games for some separate income but they are constantly failing.

You’ve been to Malmo- what is the market feel at the moment?

It’s changing all the time, like 2 years ago all investors said that they are not investing in Vr Companies. They believed that Vr is not the future, it’s not gonna be mainstream. But now they are mainly looking for VR and also Pc and console are coming over mobile.

What are your thoughts about VR — Are you planning on going that way?

We are looking for that. We like those VR things that are going on but of course , it might be one of our dream game ideas but let’s see. It would have to be something special, that someone hasn’t done.

Do you think the mobile market is going down because of VR?

One of the reasons being the fact that mobile is getting so crowded and it’s controlled by a few big players. Because all the money comes from Free to Play (F2P) and you have these 2–3 companies that make F2P and invest massively in user acquisition and advertising.

Do you think the focus now is on marketing and not creating good games?

There are good games but I think there is not so much GAME in them. They are ways to waste your time while you’re waiting for the buss. The mastery level is basic, after a certain amount of time, after you learn to play the game the only way to improve your ability to win is to make more troops, collect more.

How does Frozen Vision tackle that problem ?

We do both freemium and free to play, but in our games, you have to learn. You can become a better player by playing more, learning more about our games. You have to invest time to become better, like in the old days when you played with Amiga 500 because most of our team members are old.

Are hard games really disappearing ?

Yes, they are. There are all the indie games the games but it’s really hard because there is not so much in those games. Most of the times they have to be premium games. And it’s really hard to Mobile to get customers. You launch the game and maybe it makes money maybe not. It’s a risk. And that’s why the quality of the games is going lower- there are these new game companies that are developing and there’s almost never the first game is gonna be a good. 5 or 6th game is high-quality game.

How would you see the indie life ?

I don’t know. We ourselves are somewhere between indie and a proper game company. We’re still not making the games we would want. We’re trying to make games that sell, after that we’ll make games that we want to make.

Are you working now in order to be able to create the game you want?

Yes. We are collecting, each member’s dream game and we are trying to find the one game that all the team members want to do, and we do that game when we don’t have to mind so much about money. When we don’t have to think how well this game will sell but how we would like to play it.

Did the Indie life change from passion to a business?

Those game companies that see it as a business, they are not very successful. They usually fail. Lacking passion and all this knowledge about gaming itself they don’t understand all the small stuff that is so important in games. Even in Oulu, we have game companies that are like that. There are people that are working on the side, and they are making this free to play to make money. If all of our team would have a secure income, we wouldn’t make a free to play a game. We wanted to make a free game. Different mentality.

What were your biggest milestones ?

Our biggest milestones. Hmmm, first thing was we got approved at app campus, and then we finally released the game. All the funding we gathered — we started with Microsoft’s App Campus, then Tekken, Creativefi European Accelerator.

How does the government money work ?

This kind of support exists only in the UK and Finland. In the UK it’s only for the Game Companies but, in Finland, if I can get some amount of money and have a proper project plan, they can double or triple the amount of money. They are supposed to be really hard to get but we managed to get it three times already — And now I’m doing the fourth and hopefully the last one.

The Finnish government has got this money back through taxes. They formed these start-up companies which have grown and they have paid their taxes to the government and this is how they got the money back like 10 times already.

You said you would like this application to be the last one so how are you monetising your games?

We do have one free to play and one freemium game going out next month and we have a Chinese publisher, which is currently the best market and the biggest one, we go there first, then the western markets and then the rest of the world

Is your monetisation model -basic freemium ?

Yes, in the Chinese market it’s free to play with core loops so you have to spend money to get all the booster, to advanced faster in the game. But in the Chinese market, we had to change the monetisation because it’s different than in the Western market. In the western market, Pay to win is a big NO! NO GO! But in the Chinese market, it has to be the player who pays the most, wins. It’s like if you failed a level, just pay and then you didn’t fail the level- Just like that, Magic!

Are they happy with that?

Yeah, they want that! It has to be there, if it’s not there they are like “ oh, why can’t I buy my way out of this “

So then that’s like the heaven for game developers?

Yes of course, but the in-app purchases are really small compared to the western markets but the population is bigger.

But It’s really hard to go in their market because there are 400 different market places. In western markets, there are like 3 — Android, iOS, and Amazon.

How did you find the Publisher?

I have been to all the events around Europe, meeting investors, publishers. People started to recognize us because we talk with everyone, we are everywhere basically if there is a free beer we are there.

What would you tell yourself If you could go back in time before everything started?

Go to Game LAB and start a new life!

So you strongly believe that Game LAB changed your life?

Yeah, it did. It was like one of the best things in my life that I went there. Before the Game LAB I had a motorcycle shop but then I was in a crash and the doctor told me I will never be able to ride again. So that’s why I sold the first company.

Then I went to the university, I had one course left before graduating and there I saw the signs of Game LAB. So I thought “ I ruined my first hobby — Motorcycles by making my living out of that so maybe I can ruin my gaming hobby by making a game company. “

So I went to Game LAB and now I’m here. This is a fun way of living.

Are you excited about this way of living?

Yes. Every day is different, there is no normal day in the office. Every day you meet new people and new ideas come into your mind. Yes, every day is different. It’s not just one asshole client coming to say that you did a shity job.

Should everybody try it ?

Yes, Of course!

So you don’t want to create something for the sake of it, you want to create an awesome game.

Yes, something different; that nobody has done before. Not just a FPS or something like that.

Is it a really supportive community?

Yes! There is nothing like this. The start-up culture is quite open and everybody is supportive. But the game company is like one big family.

Don’t be afraid that someone steals your great idea because those people have also great game ideas. Nobody has time to steal your great game ideas.

Because a lot of people have that belief that they shouldn’t share their idea what if someone steals it.

Yes, but those people also have their great idea so why should they steal yours?

So It’s not like in the start-up community

It’s different, there they could steal your idea and make something out of that. You have to be more careful but still, I talk about my ideas with everybody. I don’t care. If you believe in this idea, awesome. I don’t have time to develop every game or product idea I have. You can come up with another great idea in like 5 minutes. It’s not about the idea, but how to make it happen and the team. Talk with the people and then maybe one day you have a team to create your idea with.

Everybody has ideas!

What would you advise our readers?

Go to the LAB and learn to speak English! Everything is in English and just talk to everybody! Everybody in the game industry is cool people that want to talk to you, who want to help you.