Below are the nominees for the annual gamedevelopers.ie awards. I have decided not to award a humour award this year given that the nominees have mostly been previous award winners and there was no clear favourite. Thank you for taking part in the nomination process.

Thank you also to our sponsors for the awards tonight Manpower recruitment agency, Skillground and Demonware.

Mroe detail on each of these nominees will be provided tonight but the nominees (using their forum nicknames) for the 2007 awards are:

Newbie (sponsored by Manpower recruitment agency):
eDen
Darragh
krudd
Kentaree

Stamina:(sponsored by Skillground)
Peter_B
Nooptical
gizmo
ik_

Salmon of Knowledge:(sponsored by Demonware)
Mal
Omen
Gizmo
Pete

Person/Group of the year:(sponsored by Manpower)
Demonware
DarkWater
Digital Hub and Belfast City Council for Dare to be Digital
DIT for hosting the CGames conference

for more on our sponsors see:
Skillground – http://www1.skillground.com/sg/index.do
Demonware – http://www.demonware.net/index.html
Manpower – http://www.manpower.ie/default.asp

See you all tonight. Hope to start the talks just after 7pm so try to turn up a little earlier than that if you want to mix and drink. We will be there from 6.30pm.

gamedevelopers birthday shindig

please feel free to cut and paste invitation below and to circulate to your own networks

******

Yes it is that time of year again and the community website gamedevelopers.ie is four years old this month.

To mark the occasion we would like to invite you and your friends or colleagues who are interested in games to attend our birthday shindig which will take place from 7-9pm this Friday the 27th of April.

We are extremely excited to have Dylan Collins from Demonware (Dublin) and Mike Brown from DarkWater (Derry) confirmed to speak on the night. As readers of gd.ie will know Demonware have recently completed a very exciting deal with Activision while DarkWater is the newest development studio to be established on the island. Stéphane Ambrosini from Tomkins will also speak about game related IP developments which the industry and students need to be aware of.

This year we are kindly being hosted by the newly established Graphics, Vision and Visualisation research group, or the GV2 group, at Trinity College Dublin. The talks and awards will take place in Lloyd Building lecture room LB01, Trinity College Dublin. To find see http://www.tcd.ie/Maps/tcd_east.html

The industry talks will be followed by the annual gd.ie awards. For more on these see the forums under ‘birthday shindig’ or at http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3512

Attendance is free but please send an e-mail to events@gamedevelopers.ie if you will be attending so we can organize seating and refreshments.

Each year the Darklight symposium gives people working in film, television, animation and games a forum to meet and discuss their work.

As always there are talks of relevance to games during the three day event which will be held at Film Base in Temple Bar in Dublin from the 21st to the 23rd of June.

On Friday the 22nd of June for example forum 2 will look at ANIMATING FILMS AND GAMES: From Dioramas to Real Time FX: The Impact of real time technology on Film production.
See http://www.darklight.ie/pages/talks.htm

For further information on the event visit http://www.darklight.ie/index.htm.

If you have questions you can contact them at events@darklight-filmfestival.com or telephone 01 6709017.

We are pleased to announce that Dylan Collins, Demonware (Dublin), and Mike Brown, DarkWater (Derry) have confirmed that they will speak at the gamedevelopers.ie annual birthday event.

As readers of these pages will know Demonware have recently completed a very exciting deal with Activision while DarkWater is the newest development studio to be established on the island. Further speakers are still to be confirmed.

This year we are kindly being hosted by the newly established Graphics, Vision and Visualisation research group, or the GV2 group, at Trinity College Dublin. The talks and awards will take place in Lloyd Building lecture room LB01, Trinity College Dublin. To find see http://www.tcd.ie/Maps/tcd_east.html

This year’s birthday shindig will take place from 7-9pm on Friday the 27th of April.

Industry talks will be followed by the annual gd.ie awards. For more on these see the forums under ‘birthday shindig’ or at http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3512

Tickets for the IIA’s Annual Congress, taking place this year on 17 May in the Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel, Killiney, are selling fast. The Early Bird member rate will expire on April 13.

The theme for this year is Buy, Sell and Do Business Online. Speakers will include senior figures from Google, Bebo, eBay, HostelWorld, Realex Payments, Microsoft, Bank of Ireland and many more. There will also be up to eight break-out sessions featuring expert panellists covering a wide area of doing business online. This event is not to be missed if you are serious about what you and your business want to achieve online. The headline sponsors for the event are Realex Payments.

See http://www.iia.ie/events.asp?eventid=129

The annual gd.ie birthday will take place on Friday the 27th of April in Trinity College Dublin at 7pm.

We are busy sourcing speakers and sponsorships for the annual gd.ie awards but you have a role to play too. We would like you to go to the birthday shindig thread on the forums – http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3512 and make your nominations. Please also tell us why you want to nominate someone.

The main categories are:

1. The Newbie award
a person who joined the boards in the past twelve months but who has already made a significant contribution to the life and info on the website…not necessarily the most frequent number of posts…

2. The Stamina gd/ie Hall of Fame award
a person who signed up to the forums near the launch date in April 03 and has just kept posting…can only be won once.

3. The Salmon of knowledge award
For the selfless posting of gems of experience and information.

4. The Humour award
self-explanatory really – for the funniest post/posts to gd.ie

5. Gd person/group of the year
For their contribution to the growth of the industry and the wider games community as well as gd.ie – from April 06 – april 07. Can be a person or group.

A neutral panel will decide on the winners!

Nominations will close on Monday the 23rd of April.

Previous Winners:

1. Newbie –
2006 – John Molloy (nifty) Ballyfermot Senior College
2005 – Stéphane Ambrosini (steph)
2004 – Ivan McCloskey (kyotokid)

2. Stamina –
2006 – Dave Kearney ( skyclad)
2005 – Damian Furlong (Omen) with a special runners up award to Ronny Southwood (ronny)
2004 – Peter McNally (pete)

3. Salmon of Knowledge –
2006 – Malachy Duffin (Mal) CanDo
2005 – Tony Kelly (Idora) (Torc Interactive/Nephin)
2004 – Michael Griffin (Kapooki)

4. Humour –
2006 – Ivan McCloskey (Kyotokid)
2005 – Peter McNally (Pete) or his Hoffness..(Torc Interactive/Instinct Technology )
2004 – Ian Hannigan (e-Spatial/Nephin)

5. Gd.ie Person/ group of the year
2006 – Demonware
2005 – IGDA Ireland committee.
2004 – Tony Kelly

Reports of previous events and winners can be found here:
2003 – the launch – http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/news/viewnews.php?article=13
2004 – http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/news/viewnews.php?article=98
2005 – http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/news/viewnews.php?article=200
2006 – http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/news/viewnews.php?article=266