The government’s action plan for jobs 2012 was released yesterday, the 13th of February.

One section of the report deals specifically with digital games (pgs 94-96). While the first part of this repeats some of the details from the recent Forfas report, the following are some specific actions to be taken this year.

‘The following actions will be undertaken in 2012 in respect of Digital Games. We will:

7.7.1 Establish a Clustering Development Team to support the implementation of actions called for in the Forfás Games Strategy including those below. (Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation)

7.7.2 Convene an R&D supports workshop to promote awareness about available R&D supports and issue an enterprise friendly guide on R&D tax credits to include examples of relevance to games companies. (Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland)

7.7.3 Support industry in working with third level institutions to introduce a pilot game development/publishing ‘hothouse’ initiative for undergraduate and Post Leaving Certificate courses. The initiative will bring together, in multi‐disciplinary teams, students from games, multimedia and animation courses (from a range of participating PLC and third level colleges) to work together on a game development project for a defined period. Each of the teams will receive mentor support from industry practitioners. (Clustering Development Team with industry)

7.7.4 Undertake a feasibility study to examine what structures and policies could be developed to make Ireland a world centre for managing and trading in intellectual property. Complete the report of the Copyright Review Committee on barriers to innovation. (DJEI, DJE)

7.7.5 Assess the case for a new financial instrument/relief to incentivise creative content development. (Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation)

7.7.6 Progress measures in relation to Next Generation Broadband set out in earlier section.
(DCENR)’

To see related press releases see http://www.djei.ie/press/2012/20120213.htm

To download the report see http://www.djei.ie/publications/2012APJ.pdf