Enjoy the full version online at http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2003/07/30/finlands_massive_assembly.html
I'm going to Finland this August. I want to check out the gaming scene there! Finland: home of Remedy's Max Payne and a lot of mobile game developer startups. What else?
ASSEMBLY '03 - a mega-LAN party. Friendly Finlanders have been saying there isn't that much public gaming culture in these cold northlands - people generally play PC or Xbox in their homes. So maybe that explains the occasional total outburst of widespread collective gaming to remind each other that they exist as a community. There's some stirring pictures from previous events on this page:
It looks like a rave - sitting down. I've never seen anything like it - so many screens emitting white light with bursts of neon in the darkness. From this view there are no people whose heads don't block a screen.
It's an Assembly that I am going to miss by five days. Humph. Maybe the charged particles will still be floating near the arena. Fortunately these arena-LAN events happen all over Northern Europe on a regular basis, so I should experience one some day.
What else is there to see in terms of interactive culture in Finland?
Posted by justin at July 30, 2003 05:02 PMWow, what an incredible photo! This is the future...it's like straight out of a SciFi flick.
Posted by: LA75 on July 30, 2003 08:45 PMWelcome to Finland! :) I'm not familiar with the local gaming culture however, I am afraid. I know there's also Ropecon, but apparently it's at the same time as Assembly (whose bright idea was that?).
Posted by: Aurel on July 30, 2003 11:26 PMthat is a truly amazing image. i want to go to Finland!
Posted by: jane on July 30, 2003 11:41 PMAmerica's a melting pot, right? Let's adopt this. :)
All those times when I'm bored and think "Where can I go that's fun?" I'll think of that now, damn. I wouldn't even have to be doing anything, just sitting in that environment would bring some level of gratification.
Posted by: Draigon on July 31, 2003 01:06 AMAnother major gaming-related event is the GameWorld expo. Unfortunately it takes place around November. Here's a pic from the 2001 event.
Silly side note - Nintendo's booth had GameCube cake on offer.
Ahh... Assembly. The first Assembly (in 1992) was organized in a school 200 yards from my home. 750 people there then. Nowadays there's over 4500 participants yearly so the school would be too small for the event...
Posted by: Lauri on July 31, 2003 01:16 AMIf you like the photo, check out these too (taken by a friend of mine):
http://kaunis.to/archive/photos/assembly01/
Have fun over here! :)
The Helsinki demo-scene folks are the best - less interactive some of the time, maybe, but check out Tpolm.com (yes, The Planet Of The Leather Moomins), and Katastro.fi for their excellent shenanigans. There's some other good stealth Finnish developers too, like Housemarque of Transworld Snowboarding fame. Yay.
Posted by: simoniker on July 31, 2003 08:25 AMThis sudden outburst is most likey caused by the lack of social interaction between people. I played games from about 1988 till 2002 before I just stopped, mainly because I preferred to play in Arcades where you could play against live people right there on the spot.
It the human interaction element + the game. Eventually, you want both. Thus the mass appeal of LAN parties - in this case a MegaLan party - due to the fact people now a days just stay home and play games alone. That doesn't apply to all, but a good portion.
btw, the picture does look a like a rave! Reminds me of when I went to see Cream '98 with Daft Punk. The glowin lights! Damn.
Posted by: roy on August 9, 2003 10:41 AMActually, Assembly started as a demo party - people gathering to make and show computer art. It still is a demo party, too, and calling it a "Mega-LAN" really doesn't do it justice. Not only do you get a super-fast network and a lots of people playing games, you also get one of the biggest demo scene happenings and an all around extra-vaganza of computer art of all sorts.
Posted by: Cheddarus on August 10, 2003 07:07 PMCheck out Assembly 03's combo-results and download demoes/games/music either from official ftp-server, scene.org's ftp-server or from edome.net's ftp-server (doesn't seem to have all entries). Especially check out demoes, and graphics and from scene.org's server you can find entries from older Assemblys too. When you're visiting Finland, any other cities beside Helsinki you're going to go to?
Posted by: Eonwe on August 12, 2003 11:09 AMThey have a few similar lan-partys in Sweden. Dreamhack is the largest lan-party in the world with 5000 people there. Haven't been there though.
Also many people see it more as a way of downloading loads of software and divx movies rather than gaming (at Dreamhack at least).
Assembly is the biggest one these days. There was over 5000 people '03
Posted by: maaherra on October 30, 2003 07:43 AM|
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