June 4, 2018
5 Questions With…Petri Järvilehto
5 Questions with Petri Järvilehto
1. Where were you/what did you do before working at Seriously?
I’ve been working in Games for over 20 years. I started my career as one of the founders of a games company called Remedy, where I was the Creative Director, Lead Designer and Project Lead on hit console games like Max Payne, Max Payne 2 and Alan Wake. After Remedy, I joined Rovio when Angry Birds had just shipped and the company was still about 30 people working in a single open space office. At Rovio, I served as the EVP of Games, responsible for the Games Unit and all of the game content. Angry Birds was a worldwide phenomenon, and we produced an incredible series of hits like Angry Birds Rio, Angry Birds Space, Angry Birds Star Wars, and so on. I think we had over 1.5 billion downloads while I was there; it was an incredible ride. I left Rovio in 2013 to begin building up Seriously, which is by far the most exciting time of my career to date.
2. What is your current role at Seriously?
I’m the Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder. I’m responsible for directing Best Fiends as an IP, managing the overall direction of the games, as well as overseeing the studio in Helsinki.
3. What’s your favorite part about your job?
I’ve always been passionate about games. To this day, I recall the magical feeling of being a kid playing all sorts of games in the blue glow of a Commodore 64 until the early morning hours and being absorbed in these many wonderful, amazing new worlds. I love that I get to create similar experiences for others and entertain them. It’s inspiring to see how our work with Best Fiends touches millions of people every single day, hopefully making their days just a little bit brighter. But most of all, I love the team we have. Working with such an incredible group of passionate, driven and talented people is a privilege every day.
4. Who is your favorite Fiend or Slug and why?
I love the Slugs! They were the ones that we ‘found’ and got right first. But if I had to name just one favorite, it would probably be Temper. His stubbornly optimistic persistence and underdog nature just resonates with me.
5. When you are not working at Seriously or playing Best Fiends, what do you enjoy doing?
I really enjoy cooking. I tend to be a bit obsessive with my hobbies, so about 15 years ago I wanted to know everything about cooking. I then proceeded to read everything from the history of cooking to its theory, and have since cooked my way through classic French, Italian and even modernist food. There’s a wonderfully creative side to cooking where you’re messing around with components, structures, flavors, consistencies, colors and presentation to produce something entirely new out of plain ingredients. Over the past few years, I’ve been getting into resistance training as well and I’m enjoying that a lot. I try to train twice a week and, well, just like a clicker game, watching numbers grow larger is fun.