It all started back in 1998 when two blokes; one teaching game design at what was then the ‘Ludo’ course run by Senior College Ballyfermot and the other an occasional student, decided to start a game development company. It was a different time back then, the doyens of contemporary Irish games development were still just nascent twinkles and it seemed to us the ideal time to start our own little enterprise. So it was that David Hennigan and Noel Corrigan, over many a late night discussion, decided to form Pooka Games.

Like I said, it seemed like a good idea. At the time the Celtic tiger was roaring, all kinds of crazy people were setting up companies and attracting ludicrous investment capital, why not us? We knew the industry, past and present, we were part of a community of talented people who wanted to develop games in Ireland and we had the vision; a sense of what games were going to become and a tonne of ideas that would take the world by storm.

Although we were confident in our knowledge of games we were aware of an equally
large gap in our knowledge of actually setting up and running a profit making business. The obvious solution it seemed was to contact the local enterprise agency. It was a good idea, there was a wealth of information on the fundamentals of running a business, and better yet, we got our own mentor; to advise and assist us budding entrepreneurs. It became obvious very quickly that for all our technical knowledge of games development we were lacking in a broad range of skills. Confident that success was always just around the corner and that the many people who enthusiastically supported us would chip in where necessary, Dave and I plunged into the corporate world with gusto and learned some harsh lessons.

After just a few weeks of research we realised that games, especially the kind we wanted to make, were very expensive. When engine licensing, media production and all of the costs a legitimate business had to bear were factored in, a seven figure sum suddenly appeared at the end of our first balance sheet. Considering that at the time our combined net assets were barely enough for a day trip to Bray, this was something of an obstacle. Sure, we could have started small, made a few Flash games, tried our hand at web design and as it turned out we took on a few projects on to make ends meet but our vision seemed ever more distant. We soldiered on nonetheless.

On the advice of our mentor we began work on a business plan; this involved detailed research and analysis of games development, accurate costing of software and equipment, personnel requirements, property leasing costs and so much more. It was a long list and every shred of useful information was hard come by. The situation is somewhat different now with more information about the industry available to the public, but we found then that specific information about typical sales figures, profit
margins and budgets were held by a range of marketing and consultancy companies and sold at a premium rate.

This process lasted over three years with constant revisions necessary as the market changed and we realised what investors were looking for. To our credit we had created a very efficient, low cost games development company. The problem was it existed only on paper. The hard work was convincing investors that this was a viable opportunity. Over the course of three years I lost track of the venture capitalists, prospective publishers and service providers we met but it seemed that we were asking too much. As one bellicose Australian put it ‘I see the vision but I don’t see the hurt’. (The ‘hurt’ in case you are wondering is what you are prepared to put on the line and the only thing that matters is money.)

It would have ended there and maybe it should have, but a bright idea came our way; Gaelic Football. To be honest our interest in developing a game based on Gaelic sports was somewhat mercenary. We knew our own untested ideas would never get funding but with the G.A.A franchise we were part of Ireland’s greatest brand. We put the word out that we were interested in pursuing the license and people started contacting us. A senior figure in the G.A.A. phoned Dave and arranged a meeting (we were so impressed we even wore suits). He told us there would be support for any Irish company to produce a licensed game. Buoyed up by this turn of events we attended a ‘First Tuesday’ meeting and made our pitch to potential investors, business cards were exchanged, meetings arranged.

Our sense of impending success was palpable when Electronic Arts approached us in early 2001. They gave us projected sales figures, met with us on several occasions and put us in touch with experienced producers attached to EA sports. With all this going for us how could investors not jump at the chance? Very easily it turns out. The sales and profit analysis did not appeal and there were doubts about the popularity of the title in a non-Irish marketplace. We had slashed our budget, developed another source of revenue for ‘Pooka Games’ and attended every possible forum involving potential investors, but no one ever committed. That’s not to say we ever got a definite ‘No’ from them, just sickly sweet praise for the idea and enthusiasm for our future. Sometimes it seemed as if they enjoyed dangling the carrot in front of us only to not return our calls and disregard our emails.

By this stage it was midway through 2002 and another development company was competing for the G.A.A. endorsement. They were based in Australia and already had a track record developing AFL games for the PS2. By then we had had enough. We offered to assist with development of the product for a 2004 release but after some confusion with non-disclosure agreements our contact with the relevant parties petered off. The truth is we were pretty much disillusioned with the whole process. I was recovering from an illness and Dave was working full time.

Looking back, we should have signed off officially but once we were out of the picture as a major player, phone calls and emails were not returned, meetings were cancelled and so Pooka Games just fizzled out. I would be the first to admit that we were too ambitious but we learned from it and there was plenty of fun and moments of high drama to keep it interesting. It is unlikely that myself or Dave will try to resurrect the Pookster, although we both still share the belief that we could bring the next generation in games to the next generation consoles. The ideas and the vision are still there but so too is a hard won knowledge about the realities of working in the games industry.

It all started back in 1998 when two blokes; one teaching game design at what was then the ‘Ludo’ course run by Senior College Ballyfermot and the other an occasional student, decided to start a game development company. It was a different time back then, the doyens of contemporary Irish games development were still just nascent twinkles and it seemed to us the ideal time to start our own little enterprise. So it was that David Hennigan and Noel Corrigan, over many a late night discussion, decided to form Pooka Games.

Like I said, it seemed like a good idea. At the time the Celtic tiger was roaring, all kinds of crazy people were setting up companies and attracting ludicrous investment capital, why not us? We knew the industry, past and present, we were part of a community of talented people who wanted to develop games in Ireland and we had the vision; a sense of what games were going to become and a tonne of ideas that would take the world by storm.

Although we were confident in our knowledge of games we were aware of an equally
large gap in our knowledge of actually setting up and running a profit making business. The obvious solution it seemed was to contact the local enterprise agency. It was a good idea, there was a wealth of information on the fundamentals of running a business, and better yet, we got our own mentor; to advise and assist us budding entrepreneurs. It became obvious very quickly that for all our technical knowledge of games development we were lacking in a broad range of skills. Confident that success was always just around the corner and that the many people who enthusiastically supported us would chip in where necessary, Dave and I plunged into the corporate world with gusto and learned some harsh lessons.

After just a few weeks of research we realised that games, especially the kind we wanted to make, were very expensive. When engine licensing, media production and all of the costs a legitimate business had to bear were factored in, a seven figure sum suddenly appeared at the end of our first balance sheet. Considering that at the time our combined net assets were barely enough for a day trip to Bray, this was something of an obstacle. Sure, we could have started small, made a few Flash games, tried our hand at web design and as it turned out we took on a few projects on to make ends meet but our vision seemed ever more distant. We soldiered on nonetheless.

On the advice of our mentor we began work on a business plan; this involved detailed research and analysis of games development, accurate costing of software and equipment, personnel requirements, property leasing costs and so much more. It was a long list and every shred of useful information was hard come by. The situation is somewhat different now with more information about the industry available to the public, but we found then that specific information about typical sales figures, profit
margins and budgets were held by a range of marketing and consultancy companies and sold at a premium rate.

This process lasted over three years with constant revisions necessary as the market changed and we realised what investors were looking for. To our credit we had created a very efficient, low cost games development company. The problem was it existed only on paper. The hard work was convincing investors that this was a viable opportunity. Over the course of three years I lost track of the venture capitalists, prospective publishers and service providers we met but it seemed that we were asking too much. As one bellicose Australian put it ‘I see the vision but I don’t see the hurt’. (The ‘hurt’ in case you are wondering is what you are prepared to put on the line and the only thing that matters is money.)

It would have ended there and maybe it should have, but a bright idea came our way; Gaelic Football. To be honest our interest in developing a game based on Gaelic sports was somewhat mercenary. We knew our own untested ideas would never get funding but with the G.A.A franchise we were part of Ireland’s greatest brand. We put the word out that we were interested in pursuing the license and people started contacting us. A senior figure in the G.A.A. phoned Dave and arranged a meeting (we were so impressed we even wore suits). He told us there would be support for any Irish company to produce a licensed game. Buoyed up by this turn of events we attended a ‘First Tuesday’ meeting and made our pitch to potential investors, business cards were exchanged, meetings arranged.

Our sense of impending success was palpable when Electronic Arts approached us in early 2001. They gave us projected sales figures, met with us on several occasions and put us in touch with experienced producers attached to EA sports. With all this going for us how could investors not jump at the chance? Very easily it turns out. The sales and profit analysis did not appeal and there were doubts about the popularity of the title in a non-Irish marketplace. We had slashed our budget, developed another source of revenue for ‘Pooka Games’ and attended every possible forum involving potential investors, but no one ever committed. That’s not to say we ever got a definite ‘No’ from them, just sickly sweet praise for the idea and enthusiasm for our future. Sometimes it seemed as if they enjoyed dangling the carrot in front of us only to not return our calls and disregard our emails.

By this stage it was midway through 2002 and another development company was competing for the G.A.A. endorsement. They were based in Australia and already had a track record developing AFL games for the PS2. By then we had had enough. We offered to assist with development of the product for a 2004 release but after some confusion with non-disclosure agreements our contact with the relevant parties petered off. The truth is we were pretty much disillusioned with the whole process. I was recovering from an illness and Dave was working full time.

Looking back, we should have signed off officially but once we were out of the picture as a major player, phone calls and emails were not returned, meetings were cancelled and so Pooka Games just fizzled out. I would be the first to admit that we were too ambitious but we learned from it and there was plenty of fun and moments of high drama to keep it interesting. It is unlikely that myself or Dave will try to resurrect the Pookster, although we both still share the belief that we could bring the next generation in games to the next generation consoles. The ideas and the vision are still there but so too is a hard won knowledge about the realities of working in the games industry.

I am just back from my first Women in Games Conference which took place this year at the University of Abertay, Dundee. It is quite an experience to be at a games conference where the audience is predominately female, although not exclusively, and you were not being sold things at every opportunity. It was a nice and informal event attended by maybe 80 people and on the final day by a large contingent of local students.

The conference took place in the new Hannah McClure student centre, a tiered theatre which holds around 100 people and was quite literally only opened a few days earlier. Outside teams from Dare and the incubation centre, Emryonix demonstrated their ideas and games.

There was a mixture of industry and academic speakers over the two and a half days. Ernest Adams, plus hat, opened the conference is his usual style mixing astute insights with amusing anecdotes. This was followed by Susanne Laughton, European Marketing manager for EA and the SIMs. It seems they have spent quite a lot of time developing alternative marketing channels and methods for the SIMs, including inserting SIM wedding announcements into newspapers in Sweden and sponsoring SIM actors to live in shop windows in Rome. These were followed by a number of academic presentations on game marketing, gender representation in games and gender differences on computer courses in the US. The final panel of the day involved four students from the IT University in Copenhagen reporting on their research projects involving women gamers, professional female athletes and games and a professional female game clan.

The second day opened with a keynote by Melissa Federoff who explored usability testing and software iteration at Microsoft Game Studios in Seattle. Having worked at Lucas Arts before Microsoft Melissa has a lot of experience in conducting focus groups and usability testing and provided practical tips which even those without a lot of resources might consider. The second keynote was followed by a number of academic papers before Aleks Krotoski chaired a panel of marketing heavyweights including Faye O’Donaghue from Ubisoft, Susanne Laughton from EA and Robin McShaffry from Mary-Margaret.com recruiting. If nothing else this panel showed that having women in game companies does not mean that things will change overnight and we learnt that marketing budgets are decided by sales. A final surprise was that EA considers its marketing budgets to be modest!

The third keynote was given by Constance Steinkuehler from the University of Wisconsin who explored gender and MMOGs, the subject of her recent PhD thesis. In her talk Constance explored how male and female players construct gender through language and through avatar behaviour as well as the habit for players to genderbend.

The final day started with a practical session aimed at people who want to get into the industry. Robin McShaffry from Mary-Margaret.com and other industry veterans offered tips on CVs, interviews and preparing a demo. Later Jackie McKenzie introduced the Dare to be Digital competition and Caroline Anderson from Northern Ireland gave an excellent presentation on her experience of taking part in Dare. As usual, the demos from Dare were innovative, quirky and surprising. Just to keep the Irish theme going I followed with my own keynote and this was followed by a final panel involving a mix of industry and academic speakers, males and females. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay to hear it all as I was already running late for my train.

Overall my experience of Women in Games was extremely positive and stimulating. The focus was more on gender and diversity than on women per se and there was an attempt by all to speak in terms which everyone could understand which made for a genuine attempt by academics and industry to communicate. Many were heading straight off to Edinburgh for their games festival while the Dare teams headed off to put the final touches to their projects for the deadline next Wed. Best of luck to them all but especially to SilverTongue and to Team Doom!

I am just back from my first Women in Games Conference which took place this year at the University of Abertay, Dundee. It is quite an experience to be at a games conference where the audience is predominately female, although not exclusively, and you were not being sold things at every opportunity. It was a nice and informal event attended by maybe 80 people and on the final day by a large contingent of local students.

The conference took place in the new Hannah McClure student centre, a tiered theatre which holds around 100 people and was quite literally only opened a few days earlier. Outside teams from Dare and the incubation centre, Emryonix demonstrated their ideas and games.

There was a mixture of industry and academic speakers over the two and a half days. Ernest Adams, plus hat, opened the conference is his usual style mixing astute insights with amusing anecdotes. This was followed by Susanne Laughton, European Marketing manager for EA and the SIMs. It seems they have spent quite a lot of time developing alternative marketing channels and methods for the SIMs, including inserting SIM wedding announcements into newspapers in Sweden and sponsoring SIM actors to live in shop windows in Rome. These were followed by a number of academic presentations on game marketing, gender representation in games and gender differences on computer courses in the US. The final panel of the day involved four students from the IT University in Copenhagen reporting on their research projects involving women gamers, professional female athletes and games and a professional female game clan.

The second day opened with a keynote by Melissa Federoff who explored usability testing and software iteration at Microsoft Game Studios in Seattle. Having worked at Lucas Arts before Microsoft Melissa has a lot of experience in conducting focus groups and usability testing and provided practical tips which even those without a lot of resources might consider. The second keynote was followed by a number of academic papers before Aleks Krotoski chaired a panel of marketing heavyweights including Faye O’Donaghue from Ubisoft, Susanne Laughton from EA and Robin McShaffry from Mary-Margaret.com recruiting. If nothing else this panel showed that having women in game companies does not mean that things will change overnight and we learnt that marketing budgets are decided by sales. A final surprise was that EA considers its marketing budgets to be modest!

The third keynote was given by Constance Steinkuehler from the University of Wisconsin who explored gender and MMOGs, the subject of her recent PhD thesis. In her talk Constance explored how male and female players construct gender through language and through avatar behaviour as well as the habit for players to genderbend.

The final day started with a practical session aimed at people who want to get into the industry. Robin McShaffry from Mary-Margaret.com and other industry veterans offered tips on CVs, interviews and preparing a demo. Later Jackie McKenzie introduced the Dare to be Digital competition and Caroline Anderson from Northern Ireland gave an excellent presentation on her experience of taking part in Dare. As usual, the demos from Dare were innovative, quirky and surprising. Just to keep the Irish theme going I followed with my own keynote and this was followed by a final panel involving a mix of industry and academic speakers, males and females. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay to hear it all as I was already running late for my train.

Overall my experience of Women in Games was extremely positive and stimulating. The focus was more on gender and diversity than on women per se and there was an attempt by all to speak in terms which everyone could understand which made for a genuine attempt by academics and industry to communicate. Many were heading straight off to Edinburgh for their games festival while the Dare teams headed off to put the final touches to their projects for the deadline next Wed. Best of luck to them all but especially to SilverTongue and to Team Doom!