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Telia Acquires Assembly

category: general [glöplog]
 
Telia Company Acquires Finnish Digital Event Assembly

A friend sent me this link: http://www.publicnow.com/view/40DB891D9EEB666452C387048AE60B7A7680B159

I'm trying to find more information on the matter, to verify it.

While I'm not surprised that a huge company wants to get into the eSports business, I'm a bit worried that this press release doesn't mention the demoscene. (Old memories of how Dreamhack evolved springs to mind).
added on the 2018-06-13 15:03:06 by Psychad Psychad
Found this also: https://www.teliacompany.com/en/news/news-articles/2018/telia-company-acquires-finnish-digital-event-assembly/
added on the 2018-06-13 15:03:53 by Psychad Psychad
(I just realized I forgot to make the links clickable, sorry about that. If a moderator could fix it, I'd be grateful.)
added on the 2018-06-13 15:08:50 by Psychad Psychad
also, who gives a fuck anyway
added on the 2018-06-13 15:15:54 by havoc havoc
I wont go in to details yet but i wouldnt worry. Despite what it might seem like, demoscene side will benefit from this and will continue to be treated properly, if not even better.
added on the 2018-06-13 15:20:56 by oasiz oasiz
From what I've heard demoscene things at the summers assembly will get better with telia. No need to worry, not yet at least.
added on the 2018-06-13 15:29:53 by MuffinHop MuffinHop
Here's a working link https://www.teliacompany.com/en/news/news-articles/2018/telia-company-acquires-finnish-digital-event-assembly

(I'm kicking myself for not previewing the thread start post)
added on the 2018-06-13 17:29:52 by Psychad Psychad
Hello all fellow sceners.

Yes, it in deed happened that Telia acquired a majority of Assembly. Abyss is relocating / moving and thus cannot be part of the event anymore, unfortunately. This opened up internal discussion about how we want to continue with the event and grow it, as we felt it was about time to do that. We found the partner who shared our vision and I must say it wasn't one that I would have initially thought it would be.

So, what happens now? Do the Telia overlords kick demoscene from Assembly and make Pehu their puppet? I have seen these doomsday posts in some places on facebook already. I truly wonder the creativity of human mind when it comes to pessimism :)

First of all, we will get a good amount of capital as part of the transaction to develop the event. ALL aspects of the event. When discussing with Telia, we communicated how we work, what our goals are and how we would like to keep all the current aspects of the event in place. There was not single person on that table who thought it was a bad idea, on the contrary. They saw that festivals with wide "digital culture" reach is a huge plus. They wanted to learn what people nowadays do, where the cultures is going and what's happening in esports.

So Assembly is as committed to demoscene as it has always been. As long as demosceners come and participate to compos, we will arrange them. By looking at last year's compos, I don't see the death of demoscene happening at Assembly. We had plans to publish the scene lounge v2.0 out today - which actually Telia wanted to sponsor! Lets hope we get all the details ironed out shortly.

We want to build the demoscene experience with our compocrew and now we have more means to do it. I also see, that the bigger we get, the more people we reach, the more wider visibility scene gets and the idealogy is exposed to people. That cannot be bad, unless you want to make the scene something that you have to find in dark catacombs and know the password to the cellar door. When we started to make Asssembly and demoscene more mainstream (tell public we have this!) in 1994, I think the decision was right one. We are still on that path.

Assembly has been a joy to work with, when we can fit gamers and demosceners happily under one roof. It is a huge thing to me and Assembly team. We know the jokes about quakes, but even those got quite old. Now we have people watching CS:GO and staying in the grand stand to watch the demos. It's been that years now. And inherently, I don't think that is a bad thing at all.

Assembly is not Dreamhack. We have our own identity and want to continue building the event with that in mind. The new "overlords" have given us the tools and mandate to do so. Yes, there will be new esports stuff happening too, but I like also esports. There are new initiatives worked by compocrew to grow demoscene programme. I also like demos.

If you want to be part of Assembly and make it stay relevant, please participate. By casting shadows and doubts over it, you are doing more harm. Let us show what we do, don't judge ahead of time :)


Hope to see you all at Assembly Summer 2018!

Pehu
Main Organizer
Assembly

(and btw doing this for my living full time! #dreamjob)
added on the 2018-06-13 18:41:09 by Pehu Pehu
ps greetings to Accession <3
added on the 2018-06-13 18:51:22 by Pehu Pehu
Great news and post from Pehu! I ll see you there!
added on the 2018-06-13 20:10:45 by Navis Navis
Here is the promised news about scene lounge. We are currently working on the program so join us on #scenelounge @IRCnet and let us know if you have any ideas for us! :)
added on the 2018-06-13 22:50:54 by rimina rimina
Congratz on the acquisition!

And yes, the kind of exposure to a mainstream audience that Assembly brings is totally underrated imho...
Keep up the good work.
added on the 2018-06-13 23:20:45 by wullon wullon
Thanks everyone for your support.

As Rimina posted, we have launched the scene lounge 2.0. The programme is being built and if you want to get in touch and participate to the programme, let us know.

Contact details in the scene lounge page or chat with your friendly compocrew peeps.

Pehu
added on the 2018-06-14 08:10:59 by Pehu Pehu
Quote:
I'm a bit worried that this press release doesn't mention the demoscene.
Well, it does so in the first sentence: "Finland’s largest digital culture". Based on that and Pehus detailed story I would say this is a rather nice progression. Congrats indeed!
added on the 2018-06-14 09:36:22 by numtek numtek
Good job guys/gals/whatnot - looking forward for the upgraded scenelounge as we have come loooong way since the launch of Scenebooth back Assembly 2006.
added on the 2018-06-14 12:54:59 by gr gr
Thumbs up. Looking forward to it.
added on the 2018-06-14 14:11:29 by Frequent Frequent
Does this mean they'll play loud R&B music like in their stores? ;)

Nah, great deal. Congrats.
added on the 2018-06-14 22:18:10 by superplek superplek
Is this the work of the Sonera guys? :)

In case you didn't know, Telia is the reformed telephone agency from Sweden's cold war days. Recently they disgraced themselves by lining the pockets of dictator family members in Uzbekistan so they have some karma to negate. The Swedish government still owns 37% of the shares in Telia by the way.
added on the 2018-06-14 23:54:10 by El Topo El Topo
Quote:
also, who gives a fuck anyway


Well, that guy. That said, he's as boring as Ambie... *cough* Conspiracy intros are sleep-inducing.
added on the 2018-06-15 04:59:27 by superplek superplek
Quote:
Here is the promised news about scene lounge.


Great news! I actually enjoyed the relaxed feeling of the lounge area last year, so I'm really looking forward to this upgraded version :) Amiga-demoshow was nice, hopefully you'll have more this year.
added on the 2018-06-15 08:27:20 by mayday mayday
I didn't mean to troll. I was worried and wanted information. I do prefer good news over bad news, so thank you all for the replies.
added on the 2018-06-21 02:12:21 by Psychad Psychad

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