Showcase Your Game Designs

Our friend Ernest Adams sent this in to me. He is looking to showcase commercial and non-commercial game designs this summer in London. For more read on.

Aphra.

****************

Ernest is looking for examples of groundbreaking game design work to show off at the Develop Conference this summer in Brighton. He is chairing a workshop
called “Emerging Issues in Game Design,” which is deliberately modelled on
the Experimental Gameplay Workshop that takes place each year at the Game
Developers’ Conference.

The idea is to show off wildly innovative ideas, whether they’re commercially practical or not. It must already be implemented as running code, even if it’s only a prototype in Flash. You have to have something the audience can see. Also, you have to be able to explain it in ten minutes maximum! The workshop is a two-hour event, and I’m trying to get in as many people as possible.

The workshop will take place sometime on Thursday, the 26th of July at the
Develop Conference in Brighton, UK — the exact time has not been scheduled.

If selected you will get you a one-day pass for the 26th. All travel and other expenses are your own responsibility.

Students are welcome! If I get a large number of applications I will decide
who gets in on the basis of what I think is the most innovative/unusual and
give the Sincere Handshake of Condolence to the others. SEE “WHAT YOU NEED
TO SEND ME” BELOW.

SUMMARY

What: Emerging Issues in Game Design workshop
When: July 26, 2007.
Where: Develop Conference, Brighton
Compensation: One-day pass to the Conference.
Your part: A short presentation of your extremely innovative design work

WHAT YOU NEED TO SEND ME

– The name of one person who will present the work.
– That person’s affiliation if any. Students are welcome.
– Complete contact info, including E-mail AND phone number, please.
– A ONE-PARAGRAPH summary of the work to be presented.
– (Optional) a link to a place on the Web where I can see something.
– No executables or large files in the mail, please.

A few boring rules:

– One speaker per idea, sorry!
– I’ll only pick one idea per company/institution, I want to spread the joy.
– There must be running code, even if only in prototype
– TEN MINUTES MAXIMUM. Really.
– No thinly-veiled marketing pitches!
– No coy references to confidential material, you must be willing to answer
questions!

Remember Bruce Sterling’s dictum: “Woo the muse of the odd.” That spirit
informs this event.

For more contact Ernest at ewadams at designersnotebook.com

Website: www.designersnotebook.com

Iia Accessibility Day

20 June 2007 –
9am – 2pm:
Alexander Hotel, Merrion Square, Dublin 2

The IIA in partnership with Texthelp Browsealoud present an Information Day dedicated to ensuring that websites are accessible to all.

Accessibility is becoming increasingly critical to the Internet experience. Web accessibility is about designing for everyone, independent of who they are or how they access the Internet. It specifically addresses the needs of disabled people, giving them the opportunity to use your site. This half day seminar will focus on the key issues of accessible web applications, the print disabled community, issues faced by the private sector as well as measuring accessibility.

You will have an opportunity to put your questions to our panel of accessibility experts.

Speakers and Agenda

9.00am: Registrations and Coffee

9.30am: Welcome and Introductions by Texthelp

9.45am: Creating Accessible Web Applications using Modern Technologies – Des Traynor, Usability Analyst, iQ Content

10.15am: Digital Inclusion for the Print Disabled Community – Nigel Cunningham, Business Development Manager, Browsealoud
10:45am: Accessibility in the Private Sector – Eamon Martin, Online Content and Development Specialist, permanent tsb

11.15am: BREAK

11.30am: Accessible Websites – Common Misconceptions – Brendan Spillane, MD and Co-Founder, ilikecake

12.00pm: Measuring Accessibility with Auditing & User Testing – Dr. Mark Magennis, Founder and Director, NCBI Centre for Inclusive Technology

12.30pm: Panel Q&A

1.00pm: Lunch & demonstrations

Full details and speaker biographies are available here

Venue

The Information Day will be held in The Alexander Hotel, off Merrion Square, in central Dublin. Parking is available in the nearby Setanta Carpark, Molesworth Place, and there is also on-street, metered carparking on Merrion Square. The nearest DART station is Pearse Street Station.
Cost

€35– IIA Members and Texthelp clients
€65 – Non Members

Places are limited, book now to avoid disappointment.

To register, view the full agenda and details, click here or email events@iia.ie

Sandbox

The sandbox symposium on games will run alongside Siggraph, San Diego, CA in August 07.

Focus is the theory and practice of game desgn.

http://sandbox.siggraph.org/about.html

Edinburgh Interactive Festival

Edinburgh Interactive Festival

‘Expanding the Creative Culture of Games’

including an industry panel.

12-14 of August, 2007

http://www.edinburghinteractivefestival.com/

Demonware Summer Internship

Demonware are searching for top Computer Science / Computer Applications students to join their Internship programme 2007.

The purpose of the programme is to bring recent computer science graduates up to games industry standards. Students will work on a project of their own choosing or choose from projects suggested by Demonware, and will also attend lectures by games-industry professionals. They would have all the resources available to them to allow them improve their levels of C++ and, at the same time, get a feel for the games industry as a possible carrier choice.

Those that complete the course may then consider graduating to the Demonware NetCode Training Program, an Activision-sponsored course specifically designed to train recruits for jobs in Activision studios supporting Demonware products.

We’re looking for graduates who:

* are willing to relocate to the US/Canada to work on AAA games
* have completed a Bsc or Msc in Comp Sci, Engineering or Games Development
* have excellent written and verbal communication skills
* are self-starters and can work independently
* have a passion for programming and for learning

The Internship program is a paid three-month project, based in Demonware (Dublin), and will run July – September 2007.

Interested parties should forward their CVs & sample code/applications to jobs@demonware.net with the subject line “Demonware Internship” and a brief cover note suggesting how you meet the requirements above.

Please submit your applications as soon as possible as places are strictly limited.

So, for a summer of challenge and learning get in touch with us now.

Birthday Shindig Review

Friday 27th April saw 40+ game developers and students gather in a lecture room in Trinity College to celebrate Gamedevelopers.ie fourth birthday. The event was hosted by the newly established GV2 research group in Trinity College headed by Steve Collins.

Demonware’s Dylan Collins gave a short overview of the current middleware market as well as providing a backdrop to the recent Activision acquisition. He also hinted at an important Activision announcement due this week.

Mike Brown from Darkwater Studios (formerly the games dev studio of Torc Interactive), updated us on the studios’ recent set up in new offices in Derry, which they are currently hiring for, but unfortunately was unable to release any details of the project they are working on for the NI DETI.

Steve Collins, co-founder of Havok, and now back lecturing and researching in Trinity College announced details of a new Msc in games development starting later this year. Given his industry credentials, the scope of the course material and the significant industry backing, the course looks likely to set a new benchmark for games development education in Ireland and the UK.

The 2007 gamedevelopers.ie award winners on the night were:-

* Newbie Award – sponsored by Manpower
eDen (aka Paul Murphy – student in Ballyfermot on the LUDO course, joined Sept 06)

* Stamina Award – sponsored by Skillground
Nooptical (aka David McGovern, PopCap Games, joined Feb. ’04, 1,571 posts!)

* Salmon of Knowledge Award –
sponsored by Demonware
Gizmo (aka Simon, student, computing, DCU, joined March ’05)

* Person/Group of the Year Award – sponsored by Manpower
Demonware

After the awards were handed out, the merriment continued late into the evening at Mahaffeys’ on Pearse Street, a familiar haunt to those who had attended previous Shindigs.

Thanks to all our speakers and our sponsors (Aphra).

For more on GV2 see http://gv2.cs.tcd.ie/joomla/

Skillground – http://www1.skillground.com/sg/index.do

Manpower – http://www.manpower.ie/

Demonware – http://www.demonware.net/index.html

DarkWater – http://www.dark-water-studios.com/jobs.htm

Game Physics Innovation Competition

Eurographics 2007 Game Physics Innovation Competition

Following in the footsteps of the successful Eurographics 2006 Graphics meets Games competition, Eurographics is delighted to announce the Eurographics 2007 Game Physics Innovation competition which aims to showcase innovation in the use of physics technology in games.

Physics has always played an integral part in the development of computer games, since the very earliest games like Space War which featured gravitational wells and inertial movement. More recently physics in games has become mainstream, with many commercial offerings from companies now pushing the boundaries of what is possible in top games. This competition aims to focus on what is next; what new physics techniques might be employed in future games, can physics help redefine the interface with the user or can entirely new game-play paradigms emerge when full physics simulations are employed?

The competition, organised by Dr. Steven Collins (founder of Havok and Graphics Research Group manager, Trinity College Dublin) and Ladislav Kavan (Czech Technical University in Prague) which forms part of the Game Track in the forth-coming Eurographics Conference in Prague, September 3-7, 2007, aims to inspire a sharing of ideas and discoveries relating to physics innovation, and through the generous sponsorship of Sony Computer Entertainment US R&D, is offering prizes totalling over €2000 to the winning entries:

Overall Prize: €1,500 – awarded to the entry that in the judges opinion exhibited the best combination of innovation and technical achievement

Collada Prize: €500 – awarded to the entry that makes the best use of the Collada standard.

For full details regarding the competition go to http://www.cgg.cvut.cz/eg07/gpic

The competition closing date is August 24th 2007 with the winners being announced during the Game Track of the Eurographics Conference in September. Winning entries will be displayed in the Intel sponsored Game Physics Lobby on the very latest Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor based systems, and will be available to be played by conference attendees. The Game Track will also feature keynote presentations from game industry leaders.

Eurographics 2007 Annual Conference

The Annual Conference of the European Association for Computer Graphics, EUROGRAPHICS 2007, will take place from the 3rd to the 7th September 2007 in Prague, Czech Republic. The conference location is the campus of the Czech Technical University in Prague. The event is organized by the Computer Graphics Group under auspices of the Mayor of the City of Prague, Dr. Pavel Bém.

3D S Max 9 Seminar

The seminar will be showcasing the latest technology from Autodesk 3D S Max 9 with extensions and Maya 8.5.

Tips and Tricks for visualisation, games developers and VFX will be done

Senior 3D specialists will be on hand to showcase the in depth technology behind both new versions of the most widely used animation/VFX packages.

Movies such as Apocalyto, Blood Diamond and Casino Royale embrace Maya technology meanwhile Superman Returns, Pursuit of Happiness and Pirates of the Caribbean rely on 3D S Max technology.

Also at the seminar leading Irish post production companies will be hand to showcase work they have created in the high end commercial market using Autodesk 3D technology. There will be two seminars which will run at 12 noon and 3 pm

The event is scheduled for May the 29th. The venue is the Morgan Hotel, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

This event to free and open to all 3D enthusiasts.

To register for the event please email 3D@eurotek.ie

For more information on the event see www.eurotek.ie

Games 4 Change

————–
June 11-12, 2007
New York, NY, USA
http://www.gamesforchange.org/conference/2007/

Ace 2007

——–
June 13-15, 2007
Salzburg, Austria
http://www.ace2007.org/

Theory And Design Conf

Some people on the boards maybe interested in this.

Aphra.

Paper proposals are sought for the Theory & Design postgraduate digital game studies conference at Brunel University in Uxbridge, London to be held on 14/9/2007. Any postgraduate Masters or PhD student is invited to send a proposal.

The deadline for abstracts to be submitted is 30/5/2007, and the review committee will notify successful candidates by 15/6/2007. An abstract should outline the central argument, focus and study area of the proposed paper, and be no longer than a page, along with a brief biography. A paper presentation should be 20 minutes long, allowing 10 minutes for Q&A. Papers will be published on the conference website and in Isambard Kingdom, the university Second Life web presence.

The theme of the conference is “Theory & Design”, and some sample areas of interest are listed below: Fun, history of games, game theory, combat systems, socio-cultural issues, community, gaming culture, genres, design possibilities for the next generation, ethnicity, sound, character, immersion, play, widening markets, sex, casual games, agency, serious games, time & space, education, economic and industrial analysis, narrative, game auteurs, graphical styles, empirical analysis, gender, intermediality & transmediality, localisation, cultural differences, violence. Other topics related to Digital Game Theory & Design are also welcomed.

Please submit your abstract to Tanya.krzywinska at brunel.ac.uk

Award Nominees

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.

Birthday Invitation..

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.

Darklight Symposium

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.

Birthday Shindig Speakers

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

Iia Annual Congress

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

Gd.Ie Annual Awards

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

Women In Games Prog

Draft programme for Women in Games conference is now online at http://www.womeningames.com/

Netgames 2007

6th Annual Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games: Netgames 2007

September 19th and 20th 2007, Melbourne, Australia
http://caia.swin.edu.au/netgames2007/

Again this looks like it might be of interest to some. Calls for conference papers are coming thick and fast at the moment.

*********

OVERVIEW
========

The NetGames workshop brings together researchers and developers from academia
and industry to present new research in understanding networked games and in
enabling the next generation of them. Submissions are sought in any area
related to networked games. In particular, topics of interest include (but are not limited to) game-related work in:

* Network measurement, usage studies and traffic modeling
* System benchmarking, performance evaluation, and provisioning
* Latency issues and lag compensation techniques
* Cheat detection and prevention
* Service platforms, scalable system architectures, and middleware
* Network protocol design
* Multiplayer mobile and resource-constrained gaming systems
* Augmented physical gaming systems
* User and usability studies
* Quality of service and content adaptation
* Artificial intelligence
* Security, authentication, accounting and digital rights management
* Networks of sensors and actuators for games
* Impact of online game growth on network infrastructure
* Text and voice messaging in games

SUBMISSIONS
===========

We solicit submisisons of full papers with a limit of 6 pages (inclusive of all figures, references and appendices). Authors must submit their papers in PDF and use single-spaced, double column ACM conference format.

Reviews will be single-blind, authors must include their names and affiliations on the first page. Papers will be judged on their relevance, technical content and correctness, and the clarity of presentation of the research.

Accepted papers will be archived in the ACM Digital Library and published
in the workshop proceedings pending the participation of the authors in
the workshop.

Paper submissions will be via online upload to EDAS (http://edas.info/5431). Submission of a paper for review will be considered your agreement that at least one author will register and attend if your paper is accepted.

Detailed paper submission guidelines are available at
http://caia.swin.edu.au/netgames2007/submissions.html

COMMITTEE
=========

WORKSHOP CHAIR:

Grenville Armitage (Swinburne University of Technology, Australia)

PROGRAM COMMITTEE:

Philip Branch (Swinburne University of Technology, Australia)
Kuan-Ta Chen (Academia Sinica, Taiwan)
Adrian Cheok (National University of Singapore)
Mark Claypool (Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA)
Jon Crowcroft (University of Cambridge, UK)
Wu-chang Feng (Portland State University, USA)
Carsten Griwodz (University of Oslo, Norway)
Tristan Henderson (Dartmouth College, USA)
Yutaka Ishibashi (Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan)
Michael J. Katchabaw (University of Western Ontario, Canada)
Yoshihiro Kawahara (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
Martin Mauve (Heinrich-Heine-Universitat, Germany)
John Miller (Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK)
Brian Levine (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA)
Wei Tsang Ooi (National University of Singapore)
Lars Wolf (TU Braunschweig, Germany)
Hartmut Ritter (Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany)
Farzad Safaei (University of Wollongong, Australia)
Jochen Schiller (Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany)
Sebastian Zander (Swinburne University of Technology, Australia)

WEBSITE / PUBLICITY:

Lucas Parry (Swinburne University of Technology, Australia)

LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS:

Warren Harrop (Swinburne University of Technology, Australia)
Lawrence Stewart (Swinburne University of Technology, Australia)

Netgames 2007 will be held on September 19th and 20th 2007
in Melbourne, Australia.

KEY DATES
=========

Paper registration opens: March 25th, 2007
Paper registration closes: May 13th, 2007 (11:59pm New York)
Full-paper submission: May 20th, 2007 (11:59pm New York)
Notification to authors: July 6th, 2007
Early-bird and presenter
Registration opens: July 13th, 2007
Camera ready manuscript: August 10th, 2007 (11:59pm New York)
Early-bird and presenter
registration closes: August 10th, 2007
Workshop: September 19-20th, 2007

Cybergames 2007: International Conference On Games Research And Development

CyberGames 2007: International Conference on Games Research and Development

There is something for everyone at this conference, should be of interest to some gd.ie readers.

*****

The Third International Conference on Games Research and Development
2007 (CyberGames 2007) will be held during 10-11 September 2007 at the Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom.

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION:
To explore the latest developments in the game and interactive entertainment industry.

Papers are invited in the following games research and development topics (but not limited to them) from both industry and academia:

HCI for Games,
Simulation Games,
Pervasive Entertainment,
Games AI,
Game Level Design,
Game Software,
Agents for Games,
Game Animation,
Game Physics,
Simulation Games,
Interactive Digital Media,
Game Audio,
Online & Multiplayer Games,
Games on Grid Computing,
Mobile & Handheld
Gaming,
Edutainment,
Game Mechanics,
Game Culture: Boomer vs Gamer,
Game Hardware,
Game Platforms,
Graphics for Games

Publication: The best 4 papers from Cybergames 2007 will be published in
the online journal “ACM Computers in Entertainment”.

Important Dates:

Full Papers: MONDAY, May 14th, 2007
Special Sessions and Tutorials: MONDAY, April 30th, 2007
Conference Dates: September 10-11, 2007

http://www.coetechweek.com/cybergames/

A Game Of Two Halves

Gaming’s graveyard is scattered with the bones of abandoned studios. In an industry that is epitomised by rising production costs, consolidation, increased competition, new console tech challenges, and fickle consumers, it is hardly surprising that so many indies go belly up. Over the last five years, UK developers have been hit especially hard, including Kaboom, Pivotal, Silicon Dreams, Argonaut, Elixir, and many more. The market is so competitive, the budgets so high, that to screw up a single game can prove disastrous.

Kapooki Games was one of Ireland’s brightest hopes at the turn of the decade. The company set forth in a tide of talent and ambition, with a wide-reaching modus operandi: console games, PC games, mobile phone games, and non-games related marketing applications. A skilled team were compiled from Ireland’s fledgling development base; investors and international publishers were eager to sign up. Yet, almost six years after Kapooki’s birth in 2000, the company collapsed under the weight of debt and deserted projects. Where did it all go wrong?

Kapooki’s story begins in the late 1990’s when Dave Stafford and Shane Whelan began to brainstorm over pints in Dublin’s Messrs Maguire pub, dreaming up prototypes for videogames. They were both employed by educational software company Riverdeep but were intent on establishing a business of their own. Dave Stafford recalls: “We worked towards setting up a games company for a few years, adding more like-minded people to the group from various disciplines as we went. We would meet at least once or twice a week and discuss what we needed to do, be it attend business events, find and contact with people who could provide funding, work on demos, business plans, research technology and so on.”

Dave conceptualised an MMOG called Junk, and spent a number of months designing that universe and creating characters, although he had yet to recruit programmers to help him along. At NCAD, Dave had designed a board game called Lorgaine (complete with wooden play pieces and laminated cards) and now explored its potential for an interactive world. “We had no technical experience in putting together the graphics element of software, certainly not in 3D,” recalls Shane Whelan. “The experience up to that point came from Riverdeep or basic graphics applications, but the end result was non interactive. Riverdeep had a pretty good system for churning out graphics, so we didn’t have to do a lot of R&D. It was just like learning another graphics programme.”

What Dave and Shane lacked in technical experience, they made up for in energy and ideas. Gearoid Coughlan, Roudy Courser and Ger Lawlor joined them, and when Michael Griffin (who had just completed his masters in Information Systems at NUI Galway) signed up, Kapooki started to look like a real prospect. In early 2000, the team attended the First Tuesday Club in Dublin’s Odeon Bar on Harcourt Street. This hugely successful gathering of entrepreneurs and investors was held on the first Tuesday of each month and saw thousands of pounds in venture capital going up for grabs.

“There was space for ten speakers,” recalls Shane. “By sheer coincidence, the guy who organised it went to my school and he offered me one of the speaker slots. I had no preparation – nothing written down – but took to the pedestal. We had no money but we had been working on ideas for the last two years and were ready to start now. That was the extent of my speech. I was stopped three times going back to my seat because there were so many investors who were hungry for business.”

According to an article in siliconrepublic.com, Kapooki’s largest investor was Campus Venture Capital, which injected €500k in April 2000. Other backers included Enterprise Ireland and a number of private investors. Kapooki officially started operations in May 2000, recruiting (amongst others) two graphics experts from Riverdeep, SoftCo programmer Richard Stowe, and 3D model animator Brian Loughlan. With Michael Griffin in place as CEO, the team eschewed a glitzy HQ in favour of more gritty surroundings.

Kapooki HQ was above a tattoo and pound shop on Talbot Street.

Dave Stafford explains: “The company office was in Talbot street, off O’Connell street. We were in a… let us say …economically orientated office space, but after a bit of spit and polish – well okay, carpentry, electrics and painting – we were set to go. We were above a Tattoo parlour, which was fun. It made giving directions to clients entertaining too. The work environment was great when we started. We were willing to devote our lives to making the company a success and for many of us it was a dream come true. There was great camaraderie, which was good, as the hours we put in were astronomical. We were happy to do it if it meant success for the company.”

Microsoft, Disney, Eidos, Vivendi, the Irish Lotto, T-online, SCI, EA, Nintendo, Encore, Hip Interactive, Codemasters, Empire Interactive, O2: all these companies talked shop with Kapooki, and the team worked around the clock to deliver the goods. “From meeting in pubs and in each other’s houses to starting the company and our first year in business, there were no backward steps at all,” smiles Gearoid Coughlan, Kapooki’s former CTO. “Everything was propelled forward. It was brilliant. I don’t think there was a bad day for the first year and a half. We initially had an agreement with O2 to host our MMOG, as they were thinking of venturing into online gaming, but that fell through in the first few weeks. This didn’t dampen our spirits at all.”

The team was focused, highly driven and excited at the thought of creating their first game. In the mind of Michael Griffin, and the rest of the team, the dream was to create an IP that would capture the public imagination and kick-start a franchise. That IP was Lorgaine: The Black Standard, an MMOG based on Irish mythology and a descendant of Dave Stafford’s college project. In this turn-based tactical game, players formed an army from either the Fomorians or the Tuatha Dé Danann, and then travelled ancient Ireland taking part in ritual contests, either for their own renown or as part of a larger conflict. Each war band consisted of 12 warriors of varying types and abilities.

Ger Lawlor worked on various aspects of the game, including crowd simulation, particle systems, camera effects, graphics and audio. “From a developer point of view Lorgaine proved interesting. The new technologies, upon which the game was being built, provided a strong learning curve for a team that had no previous game
development experience. Although it was originally developed as a board game, some of the game mechanics were better matched to the software model and the design. This created an explosion of additional features that could be built into the game.”

Lorgaine was an ambitious project, especially since it was original IP and an MMORPG. Ambition, however, bites the nails of success. Although German ISP T-Online published the MMOG as part of its online offering, the team were not particularly happy with the finished result. Feature creep (software that over-emphasises new features to the detriment of other design goals) was a particular problem, explains Ger.

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“New features were unproven and pulled into the feature set, often against technical advice. There were technical issues with the graphics engine that slowed development and proved unsuitable in terms of supporting the vast universe we planned to build. On top of all that, there was no market research/support that could help change the product’s direction. None was ever undertaken. This raised questions with our investors and the end effect was to destabilise the company financially.”

Kapooki not only focused on big budget games, but also mobile and flash games. A contract with 02 led to two wireless titles: The Big Six, a Six Nations Rugby tie-in; and The Dating Game, especially released for Valentines Day. The team were often under-resourced and forced to work simultaneously on large titles as well as these smaller games. Gearoid Coughlan recalls a client bringing 24 cans Red Bull into the office one weekend so he and another programmer could complete a game. But these projects were funded via shared revenue and were not profitable, especially when set against time and development costs. Even the fantastically-named Night of the Zombie Brain Eaters From Beyond Mars failed to get a release beyond Kapooki’s own website.

The company’s first big body blow came in 2002. Michael Griffin had initiated talks with Microsoft – after various meetings the software giant approved the proof of concept for an Xbox game called Salvation. This third-person action game, based on Dante’s Inferno, cast the player as a witch-hunter who has to fight his way out of hell. Supported by Microsoft development funds, the team spent six months working on this game. Dave, Mike and Shane, created realms of documentation and design, and dedicated an inhuman amount of time and effort toward the project.

In May 2002, at E3 in Los Angeles, the team were told the bad news. “We had completed the proof of concept and were meant to sign deals to proceed with the game, but Microsoft had rearranged their studios,” says Gearoid Coughlan. “The guy we were dealing with was no longer in charge. The game was shelved.”

“Ironically, the game wasn’t our Salvation it was our undoing,” mutters Shane Whelan. Around the same time, T-Online dropped all its “violent” videogames after an alleged games-related shooting in Germany, leaving Lorgaine without a home. 2002 was a tough year for the technology sector as a whole, but potentially fatal for a fledgling start-up. Shane Whelan recalls: “We laid off most of the staff after E3 2002. I left, as did Roudy Courser. I was getting married and just didn’t think it was fair on my family to put up with a struggle.”

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In the minds of the remaining Kapooki staffers, the show had to go on. “We got the company got back up and running and re-hired a couple of people,” continues Gearoid Coughlan. “The investors still had some faith in us and were willing to keep going if we found someone with more experience in the games industry.” Michael and Dave tracked down Les Edgar and John Cook, who represented some of the world’s top game companies, and they agreed to come on board. Kapooki picked itself up and carried on, but its next large-scale venture proved to be the last hurrah.

“We had an idea for a circus game called Frank’s Wild Years,” recalls Gearoid. “Originally this was an 18+ game where you played a down and out clown trying to make your way back into the business to the Big Top in Vegas. We were advised that it was too dark and it wouldn’t sell. So we boiled the concept down to a kid’s circus management game.” Ger Lawlor continues: “Players had to build the greatest circus in the world and could choose various performers to add to their acts, building their acts from scratch using an array of crazy props. When the acts were constructed the show would begin… Your success was portrayed through the crowd response”

Targeted squarely at the PS2 market, Big Top’s development progressed. Then, in May 2005, Kapooki CEO Michael Griffin stepped down for personal reasons. According to reports, Michael wished to spend more time with his wife and young child in Kilkenny – the long commutes to Dublin were understandably getting the better of him. By autumn 2005, with Dave Stafford in place as Kapooki CEO, the team had reached an internal pre-beta stage on Big Top, and the game’s core feature set was close to completion. Only Ger, Dave and Gearoid, were left at this stage. All had been working three months without salary. Big Top was close to a year in the making, around 90% of the game was completed, but Kapooki finally ran out of steam and money.

“Kapooki ultimately closed its doors because we were unable to acquire a publisher
or distributor for Big Top,” says Ger Lawlor. “Most of our funding at that stage was based upon getting a deal – the longer the lead time, the less financially stable the company became. This was despite the fact that we were at different stages of due
diligence with publishers, each of whom (based on my second-hand perspective) seemed to be showing a genuine interest in the game.” Dave Stafford adds: “After five years of constant crunch-time, we all just became exhausted. Even at that point, though, we continued on as long as there was the slightest hope.” That hope was finally shattered in October 2005 when, according to an article in the Sunday Business Post from that time, Kapooki Games collapsed with debts of over €700,000.

What went wrong? Why had one of Ireland’s brightest hopes in games development fallen at almost every hurdle? Dave Stafford ponders: “Well, I think we took on too much initially… We could have done with one or two people with more development experience at the outset, and the business side of the company should have had more resources earlier on. We brought [Les Edgar and John Cook] in later, but I think if we had them earlier it would have helped a great deal.” Shane Whelan adds his tuppence: “In the beginning there was too much naivety on everybody’s part. We needed a bit more business experience and a bit more cross-disciplinarian experience. Nobody had end design experience. Just because you happen to like games, a developer has to understand how software works.”

In the wake of Kapooki’s demise, the team went their separate ways: Michael Griffin returned to his family business, the hotel industry; Ger Lawlor now works in digital television; Gearoid Coughlan works for putplace.com, and is developing a new version of Lorgaine; Roudy Courser is a graphic designer; Dave Stafford is a pixel artist for Upstart games; and Shane Whelan coordinates the higher national diploma game design course in Ballyfermot College of Further Education. Many other employees emigrated to England, the States and elsewhere. Some are employed by major development studios.

Ger Lawlor says that if there is a lesson to be learned from Kapooki’s story, it should be for start-up studios to “attract an industry leader who can champion the company and provide strong guidance to the company at a very early stage… Insight into how successful game studios work is invaluable. Also, plan how you intend to generate revenue outside of the main game development and make it critical to the operation of the company.”

Dave Stafford advises new studios to be “passionate but realistic. It is a big money business, so pick your niche well. As companies like Havok and DemonWare show, an Irish company can make a massive impression on the world stage. In my opinion Kapooki’s demise should be seen more as a stepping stone than a headstone.” Kapooki now rests in pieces, but (from beyond the grave) it teaches us lessons about how to survive the competitive, costly, and cut-throat world of game development.

Author: Pavel Barter

For past features on Kapooki see:

Developments in Online Gaming – http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/features/viewfeature.php?article=4

Also

Michael Griffin won the gd.ie ‘Salmon of Knowledge’ award in 2004 especially for his contributions to the ‘Lessons Learned the Hard Way’ thread. Read it again at http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15

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Interlan

Event Details
Location – The Hub, DCU

Event Duration: 24 Hours
Doors Open: 12 PM Saturday April 7th 2007

Places available: 150

Entry fee: €15 prepaid, or €20 on the day

Sign up and Pre-Pay at our Booking Page

For more see http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/forums/viewtopic.php?p=31106#31106

Dcu Tech Week Talks

Tuesday 13th

Multimedia Showcase, Seminar Room, 1pm

Declan Tuite, a lecturer in the School of Communcations, presents a series of entertaining projects by previous multimedia students including Blown Away, a DCU project which has been featured at the Wired Expo in recent times

Playstation 3 Talk & Demo, Seminar Room 3pm

In a follow up to his talk during Games Week, Neil Costigan will be once again speaking on the power of the Playstation 3 when put to use in the field of Cryptography. He will also be demonstrating some of the tools he uses with the console and giving his thoughts on the difficulties inherent with programming on the console.

More details on these other events can be found at http://techweek.dcu.ie

If anyone has any more questions about these events or would like to come out to DCU just PM gizmo on the forums.

Dare To Be Digital Deadline

Deadline for teams to make their submissions to Dare to be Digital 2007. Submissions are made through the main Dare website.

Robocode Reminder

Just a quick reminder that the Robocode Registration Deadline is tomorrow, Friday 2nd March.

Please ensure your college or university has registered for the Robocode 2007
competition, by close of business Friday 2nd March.

See http://www.robocode.ie for further details.

There are prizes such as a laptop, cash and music players up for grabs.

Students will be competing for the title of “Robocode Marshal” 2007.

More info from

Phil Bourke
ICT Specialist
Tipperary Institute
Nenagh Road
Thurles
Co. Tipperary
Direct Dial: +353 – 504 – 28258

email: mailto:pbourke at tippinst.ie

WEB:http://www.tippinst.ie

Dark Water Update

As reported in the games press in January Dark Water is the newest games development studio on these shores. I caught up with Mike Brown recently to ask him briefly about recent developments and of course job opportunities.

Located in Derry/LondonDerry in Northern Ireland the studio is ‘related’ to Instinct Technology in Muff but as Mike states, it is a separate legal entity with a different board of directors and investors, different business model and a different management team in place. There will be of course some movement of staff between the two companies and the new studio will use the Instinct engine in their first project. According to Mike they will work closely together as ‘business partners.’ The new offices are located at the Northside Enterprise Centre on Glengalliagh Road.

The first project the company will work on is a multiplayer PC game developed in cooperation with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) in Northern Ireland as part of their Broadband Content Initiative. (If only we were so lucky south of the border!) Mike Brown told me ‘The game will be free-to-market and based around an original Dark Water IP but it’s too early yet for us to be making any announcements on the game title or genre.’

Dark Water currently have 12 staff working on their first title and have plans to increase the headcount to 25 by the end of the year. They are however flexible in terms of numbers and have ‘plans to get a second core team in place’ which will happen ‘sooner rather than later’. Mike explained they have ‘the office space to accommodate around 50.’

Currently Dark Water have four key vacancies to fill: Lead Programmer, Senior Graphics Programmer, Senior Network Programmer and Senior Modeller/Artist.

More programming and art jobs will be released in the next couple of months once these key positions have been filled. They are also on the look out for talented Level Designers.

More info at http://www.dark-water-studios.com/

Futureplay 07 Looks For Game Ideas

This may be an opportunity for people to reuse game projects or Dare concepts.

FuturePlay 2007 is asking for teams to submit games for their competition this year.

They are asking for games in the following
categories: Indie Games, Student Games and Serious Games.

Important dates:
March 16, 2007 – deadline for a 1 or 2 page concept via email;
August 1, 2007 – deadline for winners of round 1 to submit a fully working game; November 15-17
FuturePlay conference in Toronto, Canada where winners will exhibit their games and collect their prizes.

Full details are available on www.futureplay.org/games

Women In Games 07 – Final Call

This year women in games is being held in a design school in the University of Wales, Newport and will focus on ‘Aesthetics in play: new platforms, new perspectives, new players’.

This year will see some high profile industry people from the US, the UK and Europe speaking as well as more academic papers and demos of work in progresss.

The deadline for proposals and papers was extended by two weeks and the new deadline is the 16th of Feb so there is still time to send in your ideas.

There is also now a womeningames blog at http://womeningames.wordpress.com/

Original call can be found at http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/news/viewnews.php?article=296

Submissions can be made within the following categories: full paper, short paper, poster, panel or student forum. All submissions will be anonymously peer-reviewed by the Women in Games steering committee.

for full details on different types of submissions, formats and cover sheets see http://www.womeningames.com/

Iia Online Marketing Event

The IIA and Online-Marketing.ie present the second in a series of four Online Marketing seminars.

The second in the series focuses on Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns and Google Adwords. It explores the advantages of a PPC campaign, how the process works with the most frequently used search engines, and most importantly how to monitor your results. You will be taken through a live tutorial to set up your own Pay Per Click campaign.

The seminar will be presented by Anthony Quigley, CEO of Online-Marketing.ie.

Date: Thursday, 22nd February 2007
Time: 9am – 1pm
Venue: Engineers Ireland, 22 Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4
Cost: €145 Members (€195 Non-Members)

Places are limited, book now to avoid disappointment.

To register, view the agenda and full details, visit
http://iia.chtah.com/a/tBFyu2iAbbNMLA9YyhUAbc-ciID/event120 or email events@iia.ie

Dare Comp Now Open

The call for applications for Dare to be Digital this year is now open.

Applicants can enter online and find out more applications at the following URL:

http://www.daretobedigital.com/applications/apply.php

If interested don’t forget the information day is this Thurs and there is an industry talk that evening.

All events take place in the Digital Hub in Dublin.

Latham Talk

William Latham, CEO of Games Audit Ltd., in the UK, will be coming to Dublin to speak on the evening of Feb the 8th at 7pm in the Digital Hub.

Sponsored by Enterprise Ireland and the Digital Hub the talk will be part of a day long event to launch the Dare to be Digital Competition in Ireland.

All invited. Attendance free so spread the word.

Note: the talk will take place in the Auditorium in the old MLE building (walk past the Digital Hub Information office on thomas Street walking towards Guinnesses i.e away from Christ Church Cathedral) and take the next left.

Entrance will be on your left, about 200 metres down.

Latham To Speak In Dublin.

William Latham will be coming to Dublin to speak on the evening of Feb the 8th at 7pm in the Digital Hub. Sponsored by Enterprise Ireland and the Digital Hub the talk will be part of a day long event to launch the Dare to be Digital Competition in Ireland.

Latham, who is CEO of Games Audit Ltd, and has a wealth of experience in the games industry (see biography below) will give a retrospective talk of his work from 1985 to 2007.

Covering his early work as an artist, his Genetic Mutation Art work at IBM, his work as CEO of Computer Artworks Ltd for 10 years which produced hit titles such as The THING through to his work as CEO of Games Audit where he works for Investment companies investing in the games industry and in the area of completion bonding.

Recently, Latham returned to his early evolution work (frozen since 1993) with the Mutator2 code connecting the old Mutation and Form Grow systems into modern genetics research, with very surprising results.

Williams’ Bio:

Formerly William Latham was CEO of Computer Artworks, which developed the hit The THING for Playstation2, Xbox and PC, which was based on the John Carpenter film of the same name. He has also worked on hit games for Warner Interactive, Mattel and Virgin Interactive.

From 1987 to 1994 he worked for IBM in their Advanced Computer Graphics and Visualisation Division where his pioneering work on Procedural / Mutation work achieved world wide recognition at SIGGRAPH and other events.

William has a wealth of experience in games development and business and has closed and managed deals with Microsoft, Nokia, Atari, Vivendi Universal, SCi, Sony SCEE and Virgin Interactive. He has direct experience in film rights negotiation, copyright issues, games negotiation, digital assets management and games technology development.

In 2004, recognising the ongoing increase in games budgets and increasing investment from financial organisations outside the games industry William founded Games Audit – a project management and audit operation for the games industry.

William has an MA from The Royal College of Art and a BA from Oxford University, and is on the Advisory Board of the Develop Conference in Brighton and the Bradford Animation Festival.

In 2005 he became Professor of Creative Technology at Leeds Metropolitan University and is a visiting Senior Research Fellow of Goldsmiths College (University of London). He remains CEO of Games Audit Ltd.

More information on the Dare to be Digital Information Day at http://www.daretobedigitalireland.com/events.htm

Note: the talk will take place in the Auditorium in the old MLE building (walk past the Digital Hub Information office on thomas Street walking towards Guinnesses (i.e away from Christ Church Cathedral) and take the next left. Entrance will be on your left, about 200 metres down.

Groove Games Establish Skillground In Ireland

It appears to be a good month for announcements of game related startups in Ireland.

Groove Games, of Toronto, Canada, and publisher of Xbox and PC games like WarPath (2005) and Playboy: The Mansion (2004), has established a presence in the Digital Hub in Dublin, Ireland.

Operating as SkillGround, the company will offer online gamers the ability to play video games for money. Their site, www.skillground.com will be officially launched later this spring but is up and running now if you want to check it out.

In Dublin the company has begun hiring and has recently been joined by Damian Ryan, formerly known to gd.ie readers for his involvement in establishing the Digital Media Awards (2002) and the Golden Spider Awards (1996) as well as online agencies; ICAN in 1998 and Brando in 2005.

SkillGround have informed us that they have a number of commercial, sales and advertising positions open at the moment which we will be posting in the jobs section of gd.ie soon.

Dare To Be Digital Info. Day

The Dare Information Session for students, tutors and industry takes place on Thurs, Feb. 8th in the Digital Exchange, Crane St, in The Digital Hub, in Dublin.

The event kicks off around midday and includes time for networking, a guest speaker and presentations by judges and participants who have taken part in the event in previous years.

This year the winning Irish teams will spend 9 of the 10 weeks working on their game in Ireland and one week in Scotland.

For more information see http://www.daretobedigitalireland.com/events.htm

and to register to attend or more information contact
daretobedigital@thedigitalhub.com

Dare To Be Digital Info Day

The launch of Dare to be Digital this year will take place on the 8th of February in the Digital Exchange, Crane Street in Dublin 8.

Start time – Midday

More information at http://www.daretobedigitalireland.com/details.htm

Magee Appoints Ernest Adams

During the November shindig and CGames Ernest Adams was in Ireland doing his highly popular workshops and he revealed that he had been appointed visiting professor at the University of Ulster, Magee based in Derry, Northern Ireland.

When contacted about the appointment the School of Computing and Intelligent Systems at Magee told us that they had been successful in obtaining funding, from the Royal Academy of Engineering, to appoint Ernest Adams as a Visiting Professor, under its Integrated System Design scheme.

As many of the gd.ie readers will know, Ernest Adams, is an author and games consultant with over 17 years experience working for companies such as THQ, Ubisoft, Elixir Studios and Electronic Arts. As part of the appointment he will deliver a number of workshops on games design and development from the perspective of integrated systems.

Professor Martin McGinnity, lead applicant on the funding proposal said:

“I am delighted that we have been successful in appointing someone of Ernest’s calibre and experience as a Visiting Professor to the School of Computing and Intelligent Systems and am sure he will make a significant contribution to the school over the next three years. He will bring a fantastic insight and experience to our students in terms of real commercial aspects of computer games development”

In September 2005 the School launched two new degree programmes focusing on computer game design and development. By gaining an appreciation of the technical challenges involved in the design of highly sophisticated integrated systems such as computer games, students are developing a range of skills which will greatly increase their employment opportunities within the sector”.

The first week-long workshop will begin on Monday 22nd of January, 2007 on the Magee campus. During this workshop participants will cover a range of topics including:

*An overview of the interactive entertainment industry,
*Fundamentals of game design,
*Balancing game mechanics,
*Principles of character design.

A second workshop is scheduled to run just before Easter with two further week long workshops planned for 2008 and 2009.

More information regarding these events can be obtained from: Dr. Shane Wilson (e-mail: s.wilson@ulster.ac.uk).

For more see
Press release on new courses at http://news.ulster.ac.uk/releases/2005/1794.html

Info on
BSc (Hons) Multimedia Computer Games
http://prospectus.ulster.ac.uk/course/?id=3712#4

BEng (Hons) Computer Game Development
http://prospectus.ulster.ac.uk/course/?id=3059

Games Education In Ireland Ii – The Academic Perspective

The first is from Dave Bustard and Darryl Charles of the School of Computing at the University of Ulster (Coleraine), Northern Ireland and the second is from Emmett Kilbride at Ballyfermot Senior College, Dublin in the Republic. I received many more e-mails with regard to the feature and some suggested it is a good topic for a face to face discussion rather than a feature. Perhaps it is something for a future Awakenings or other games conference?

Response 1: Dave Bustard, Darryl Charles, University of Ulster (Coleraine), Northern Ireland.
This article raises many debating points but our response concentrates on two of the more central issues: the implications of having the word ‘games’ in a course title; and developing suitable designs for games courses.

Course Titles
The article seems to be suggesting that all courses with ‘games’ in the title share the same objectives. Is that true? Currently, for example, the University of Ulster offers a number of combination courses with the structure ‘X with Y’, meaning two-thirds of subject X with one-third of subject Y. This includes ‘Computing with Business’ and ‘Business with Computing’. Hopefully, no one would assume that these are the same, as the first is designed for those aiming for a career in Computing while the second focuses on Business. Likewise, our offering in Digital Games is the BSc Hons Computing (Digital Games Development), which is intended to indicate that we offer a degree in Computing, with a ‘pathway’ or specialism, in Digital Games Development. Our goal is to produce graduates ready for the computing industry, in general, together with knowledge of the games industry and some experience of digital games development. In particular, each student has a significant final year project that involves the design and development of a small game, the results of which can feed into a portfolio to impress potential employers. Some students may also continue to postgraduate study.

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Course Design
Over many years, governments have been pushing higher education institutions towards business models that have students as ‘customers’. The article seems to go one step further by implying that employers are actually the main customers, with graduates as the ‘product’. Is that appropriate? In practice, both perspectives are relevant but are simply two of many factors and constraints that need to recognised and balanced in designing any course. Another, for example, is the gap between course design and the emergence of the first graduates. This requires some forward speculation as the requirements and employment prospects for a subject like Computing, and even more so with Digital Games, may well change substantially in the intervening period. In practice, this issue is handled by updating course content every year, with major reviews and revisions implemented on a larger cycle.

In relation to Digital Games teaching at the University of Ulster (Coleraine), the main design decision in covering this topic was to decide that it would be part of a general degree in Computing rather than taught as a main subject. This is because the games job market is relatively small and seems likely to stay that way. We wished to give students an opportunity to seek a job in Digital Games but also to have the wider knowledge and skills that allow them to consider other careers. This is especially important as those who enter the games industry don’t always stay in it. A broader course also gives students more flexibility when their interests change or their performance in some areas is less than the subject requires. In our case, students can switch in and out of the BSc Hons Computing (Digital Games Development) course and indeed can take all of the games options and still opt to graduate with a BSc Hons Computing degree.

Dave Bustard, Darryl Charles
University of Ulster (Coleraine)
10 Jan. 2007

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Response 2: Emmett Kilbride – Ballyfermot Senior College, Dublin.
Firstly let me start by saying that in my opinion education is much more than simply delivering programmes based around specific applications. It involves developing the social skills of students: how to work in a team, how to meet deadlines and recognise authority and respond in an appropriate way. There are no modules that teach these skills and it is indeed the teachers that impart this vital knowledge throughout the academic year.

Having links with industry could be an important part of a course. However, there are issues that companies must be aware of. In the past, it has been my experience that companies have an agenda when it comes to developing student skills. Companies naturally try to influence the curriculum in the direction that they see as being viable at that particular time. An example of this might be when an animation company wants students with strong animation skills. While this may be true of one company what about the other company who want students with scene and modelling skills. A balance must always be sought for the benefit of students. Ballyfermots’ courses are designed to try and meet the various needs of employers as much as possible. Hence the college has both games courses and animation courses.

Companies are also responsible for the training of their employees. Life long learning is now recognised as an important aspect of all workers employment. In this way companies can develop an employee’s direction and skills to suit that particular company. Education should not stop when the student leaves the college.

Course Updates
At this point I think it is worth mentioning the way in which modules are written and then implemented into a course. Firstly the teachers get together and discuss what changes need to be made to a module to keep it relevant. A teacher is then assigned to update or write the new module. This is no easy task. There is a particular format in which the module must be written and all aspects and outcomes expected must appear in the module descriptor. This then moves to the internal verification system within the college itself. If it passes it then goes to the NQAI for submission as a Locally Devised Module. This will then be further scrutinised before approval is obtained.

This process can take an extremely long time as there are many submissions from colleges that must be accessed. The system is there to protect the students from receiving sub standard teaching and modules. When the module is passed it can then be implemented into the course curriculum the following year. Module descriptors must adhere to stringent quality guidelines as set down by the national awarding bodies, FETAC and HETAC.

Short Courses
In relation to the ‘courses are too short’ comment I feel I must respond in the following way. Today in BCFE we have the Ludo One year course. This programme is an introduction to the various aspects of game creation. Students can then progress to the two year HND in computer games. Here the skills students obtained are taken a step further and an advanced set of skills can be obtained. Upon completion of this, and provided a merit profile is obtained, the students can further progress to a one year degree programme which is validated by DCU.

It is possible for a student who meets the entry requirements of 5 passes for the Ludo course to leave BCFE with a Degree in Media Production Management, not to mention all the other skills that have been obtained. No other Further Education facility offers this unique progression towards a recognised degree and it is something that we are very proud of in the college.

The Ludo course offers a simulated Work Experience module. The classes are divided into the various sections and teams such as graphics, sound, programming and so on. This provides students with the opportunity to work in a team environment. I personally think this is crucial, so much so that it is a core module on the programme, which means every student who wishes to receive a full award must partake in the module.

Another point worth mentioning is that students from the two-year programme CGHND have entered the Dare to be Digital competition and last year the team won their heat in Ireland and went on to represent Ireland in Edinburgh.

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Links with Industry and Resource Issues
As with everything in education and business, it is dependant on funding. How many industry experienced individuals are willing to come and teach in a college when it would mean a significant cut in wages. Guest lecturers are indeed a good idea but again we come across the same issue, are employers of these professionals willing to allow their personnel time off to come and provide lectures?.

BCFE has to make difficult budgetary decisions every year. Two years ago it was decided to invest yet again in the games course. New computers and software was purchased and so the course was upgraded. We moved to max 7 which had just been released. Now in an ideal world the Ludo course would have max 9, new core duo computers, all the latest software and so on and so on. However this is not the case nor will it ever be. The games industry offers no funding whatsoever to BCFE in relation to equipment or software.

I have a discussion with my students every year about not having the latest computers and software. Indeed some students may have a superior computer system at home. However I think, and I stress this to the students, that there is terrific value in working with older programmes and computers. In real life and in the industry it is seldom that a company will upgrade their computers or software every six months. There is a lesson to be learned in the way that we have to deal with these deficiencies. It is in my opinion a valuable lesson. Students and teachers must use work arounds and think creatively as to how to achieve a solution to the various problems that will and often do arise.

BCFE will be hosting the Animates festival in 2007. Industry specialists will be offering workshops and discussions on all aspects of animation and graphics within the games industry and the wider animation industry. Funding will be sought from the industry here in Ireland and we are hoping that companies will realise what an opportunity this represents for the Irish gaming industry. The key question is will this funding be forthcoming?. We have the contacts but the payment of these lecturers and the cost associated with hosting an event of this size and calibre is the key issue. The games industry cannot complain about the lack of industry guest speakers and interaction if it is not willing to help with funding these opportunities.

And finally
It is difficult to justify preparing the students for the game industry alone. The multi media industry in all its various forms is also an employer and as there are not a huge number of employers or indeed a large games industry to speak of here in Ireland it would be remiss of the college to focus on this one area alone. Students must be given the widest opportunity of achieving employment and the skills they obtain must in some way reflect this.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is the fact that both sides of a complex problem are recognised. Both the industry and the education sector have very different needs and it is doubtful whether these needs will ever totally converge, however discussion and a setting out of the various problems and challenges that lie ahead can only be seen as a good thing.

Emmet Kilbride BA (Hons.) MedProMan
Ludo Course Co-ordinator, BCFE.

Editor’s Note:
If you want to comment on this article please go to Education threads on the boards at
http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/forums/viewforum.php?f=17

More information on courses and research at the institutions mentioned above:

UU (Coleraine)
BSc Hons Computing (Digital Games Development) with DIS
http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/courses/viewcourse.php?article=21v

or http://prospectus.ulster.ac.uk/course/?id=3311

See also the blog of the games research group at UU at http://creativecomputingcoleraine.blogspot.com/

Ballyfermot Senior College Dublin.
HND in Computer Games Design
http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/courses/viewcourse.php?article=7
Computer Games and Interactive Entertainment Development (LUDO)
http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/courses/viewcourse.php?article=8

or see http://216.240.136.7/bcfe/courseinfo.php?course=31
and http://216.240.136.7/bcfe/courseinfo.php?course=32

Demonware Support Gd.Ie

Those who are awake this morning will have noticed that we have a new logo on the top of the homepage!

Gd.ie is pleased to announce that DemonWare has kindly agreed to support gamedevelopers.ie in an agreement which will see the website not only able to pay its ongoing maintenance and hosting costs but also start to commission more features and articles over the next two – three years.

Speaking to gd.ie Dylan Collins, CEO of DemonWare, said, “We’re very proud to be involved with gamedevelopers.ie as it’s a fantastic resource for students and crucial to the development of the Irish games industry”

Gamedevelopers.ie is currently run by a group of volunteers who source content and fix any technical problems which may arise. The website relies on the game development community at large: industry, students and interested others, to contribute content, ideas and funds.

Gamedevelopers.ie developed out of a university research project conducted in DCU during 2000 by Dr. Aphra Kerr. It was developed by two DCU multimedia students, Paul May and John Lynch and launched in March 2003. The website was redesigned by Ian Hannigan, Dave Kearney, John Lynch and other gd.ie people in 2005. The website development and running costs for the first three years were supported by Nokia and 02 Ireland.

Note on DemonWare:
DemonWare is a network middleware provider for nextgen consoles and PC. DemonWare was founded in 2003 by Dylan Collins and Sean Blanchfield. They have offices in Dublin, Ireland (Headquarters), Los Angeles (Sales) and Vancouver (Support).

For more see http://www.DemonWare.net/

Dare To Be Digital Info

The following has been forwarded to us by the Digital Hub.

More info to follow shortly.

****

The Digital Hub hopes to hold the biggest Dare to be Digital competition to date in 2007. For the first time Dare to be Digital is an all island competition with one team from the north and south representing Ireland.

The teams will be hosted in Ireland for the first 9 weeks of the final and will then travel to Scotland to compete with teams from Scotland, Wales and England. The final games will be showcased at the Edinburgh festival before the final judging.

This competition is a must for current 3rd level students and eligible recent graduates that are interested in representing Ireland at the Dare to be Digital final in Scotland in 2007.

Please visit www.daretobedigitalireland.com for more information. (revised address is now live)

Internet Assoc Events In Jan.

Introduction to Online Marketing
Date: Thursday, 18th January 2007
Time: 9am – 1pm
Venue: Engineers Ireland, 22 Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4
Cost: €145 Members (€195 Non-Members)

The IIA are delighted to present this half day seminar in conjunction with Online-Marketing : http://iia.chtah.com/a/tBFo2HMAbbNMLA47y2lAbc-ciFH/online

The seminar is an introduction to the principles of online marketing. The seminar will demonstrate how you can use online marketing to drive customers to your site, how to get the highest click through rates from search engines and how to measure your return on investment.

Writing for the Web
Date: Wednesday, 31st January 2007
Time: 9.30am – 5pm
Venue: Engineers Ireland, 22 Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4
Cost: €220 Members (€270 Non-Members)

The IIA and iQ Content http://iia.chtah.com/a/tBFo2HMAbbNMLA47y2lAbc-ciFH/iq present the second in the Masterclass series on Writing for the Web.

The Masterclass is designed for both public and private sector and will be of particular interest to Marketing Managers, Communications Managers, Content Writers, Editors, Webmasters and Online Sales personnel.


Places are limited, book early to avoid disappointment.

To view the full course outline or for more details, email mailto:events@iia.ie or visit http://iia.chtah.com/a/tBFo2HMAbbNMLA47y2lAbc-ciFH/event119

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