Maliyo Games at Games First Helsinki: Bringing African Games to the Global Stage

From Helsinki to Home: Why Global Rooms Like Games First Matter More Than Ever

The games industry moves fast.

One moment, everyone is debating the future of live service games. The next, conversations have shifted to AI-assisted workflows, new distribution models, community-led development, and entirely new ways of thinking about how games are built and experienced. It is an industry that thrives on curiosity and reinvention, where today’s experiments often become tomorrow’s standards.

That is exactly why events like Games First Helsinki matter.

Earlier this month, our team joined developers, creators, publishers, investors and industry leaders at the historic Cable Factory in Helsinki, Finland, for another edition of Supercell’s Games First. Over a few days, we immersed ourselves in conversations that stretched far beyond presentations and networking sessions. We shared what we had been working on, exchanged ideas with peers from around the world, explored emerging technologies, and came away with renewed excitement about where games are headed.

Most importantly, we were reminded that African studios belong in these conversations, not as observers catching up with the rest of the world, but as contributors helping to shape what comes next.

The Excitement of Putting Your Work Into the World

There is a particular kind of excitement that comes with showcasing something your team has poured countless hours into building.

Behind every polished experience are months of iteration, testing, redesigning, debating and refining. Teams obsess over details most players may never consciously notice. Features are revisited dozens of times. Ideas evolve. Entire approaches are reimagined.

Then suddenly, your work leaves the comfort of the studio.

You watch someone discover it for the first time.

You notice the smile when something clicks. The curiosity when they ask questions. The laughter at unexpected moments. The conversations that naturally follow. Those reactions never lose their magic, no matter how many events you attend.

Games First Helsinki gave us many of those moments.

It is easy to focus only on outcomes, metrics and milestones, but events like these reconnect us with the simple reason many of us entered this industry in the first place: building experiences that people genuinely enjoy.

The Conversations Between the Conversations

Some of the most valuable insights from industry gatherings rarely emerge under the spotlight. They emerge while waiting for coffee, walking between sessions, sharing meals, or discussing ideas long after presentations have ended.

This year’s event was filled with conversations about creativity, sustainability, growth, emerging technologies and the changing realities of game development. We connected with developers building entirely different experiences from ours, yet facing similar questions:

How do we build products that resonate globally? How do we stay creative while adapting to rapid technological change? How do we use new tools without losing the human touch that makes games memorable?

Those exchanges are often where the real value lies; they challenge assumptions and open doors to new ways of thinking. They also remind us that while games are products, the industry itself is fundamentally built on people and relationships.

AI Isn’t Replacing Creativity. It’s Expanding It.

It would have been impossible to attend Games First Helsinki without noticing how many deep conversations around artificial intelligence have matured; it was not too long ago that discussions about AI in games often revolved around fear and uncertainty.

Today, the tone has shifted; the question is no longer whether AI has a place in game development. The question is how we use it responsibly and effectively.

One philosophy surfaced repeatedly throughout many of the discussions:

Human first. Human last.

People remain at the centre of the creative process as humans define the vision and make the final decisions. The tools simply help teams move faster between those two points.

Across the industry, AI is increasingly being explored as an accelerator rather than a substitute. It supports ideation, streamlines repetitive tasks, assists with iteration, helps teams prototype more efficiently, and allows creators to spend more time on the work that requires empathy, judgement and imagination.

For African studios especially, this shift presents enormous opportunity.

The playing field is evolving, as smaller teams can access capabilities that were once reserved for much larger organisations, lowering the barriers as the gaps between ambition and execution continue to narrow.

Being part of these conversations reinforced something we already believe at Maliyo: embracing innovation does not mean abandoning creativity. The future belongs to teams capable of combining both.