New Games Start-up in Dublin – September

You mean the recruitment agency advertising on this site??

I’ve been talking to the agency too. They won’t give any details. The company should be getting back to the agency with more info later this month.

I was talking to the editor of Develop magazine last night and he knows nothing about such a move happening, and he is supposed to be the guy in the know.
Also someone mailed the recruitment agency today an they said they haven’t heard anything from the company in a while.

I wouldn’t be overly confident about anything happening there.

Got a phone call a couple of weeks ago from some guys leaving america to come here and set up.

It was “Rare” contingent and they were supposidlly setting up this, or next month.

They were phoning me looking for ianything I could help with in the line of setting up in Ireland, funding and the like. Maybe its these guys.

On of the guys was a cousin of a drinking buddy of mine from Dublin hence the tip off to me.

Anyway I reckon this is the likely situation.

Back when I called the the agency a month ago, they told me that the company was planning to be set up around September. Yesterday I heard that the agency hasn’t heard anything from the company in a while. Seems a bit iffy if you ask me.

I have just been onto the recruitment agency and was told that they are

still negotiating with various govt bodies etc. Its not going to happen for a while yet[/quote:58d53202fd]

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding – but is there a suggestion here that Rare, as in the former Nintendo studio/now Microsoft studio, is considering a codeshop here? Or a breakaway group from Rare is looking to set up here? All this talk of “Rare” has me confused :confused:

I don’t know if this is related, but it probably is:

“300 jobs for Dublin

A computer games developer is planning a 300-job facility in the Dublin area according to a source at BrightWater Selection. The identity of the firm is not yet known, although the source said it was not Electronic Arts, the Nasdaq-quoted software giant.”

This is from today’s Sunday Business Post. And so the plot thickens..

..I thought I initially read that this company that was planning to set up currently employed just 70 people – could they really make a leap to 300+ just like that? Unless this is a different company? Anyone want to make any suggestions? ;)

A facility of this size would be a great start for attracting further investment too. God I hope this is true.

A company called ‘Asylum Entertainment’ were speaking to Enterprise Ireland & the IDA earlier in the year about opening a Dublin office (some of them were at EI’s seminar with Bernie Stolar).

The MD is married to an Irish girl…

http://www.asylum-entertainment.com

Funnily enough, Asylum employ 70 people at the moment, so they match Brightwater’s vague description which I can’t seem to find online anymore..

Which makes me wonder if the 300 jobs planned by a company as reported by the SBP is in fact Asylum, or indeed another company with seperate plans. It seems odd to me that they could go from just 70 employees to 300. Unless the 300 figure is derived from expected growth i.e. they plan to employ 300 people by 200X.

Interesting. We may have found our company.

Got post today saying that applications for this job are being put on hold as the future of the company setting up in Dublin is being put into doubt or something along those lines.

Damian.

Damian..

Can you contact me…those screenshots weren’t attached to your e-mail…

Aphra.

Got post today saying that applications for this job are being put on hold as the future of the company setting up in Dublin is being put into doubt or something along those lines.

Damian. [/quote:bec83f041b]

:(

Im sorry about this post being so off topic but I have recently been finding out more about future employment opportunities in Ireland. I came across the name Havas Interactive Ireland. On http://www.gamestester.com it has an interview with Ivan McCloskey who is a QA Manager of some sort with the Dublin company. I have been able to find out very little about them. I take it they are now defaunct. Does anyone know anything about this matter.

Well I did a Google search and got to CendantSoft.ie which was using the name, but on the site they just had the Vivendi Universal Interactive Games logo.

VUIP has a software localisation studio for a lot of it’s titles in Dublin, it’s based in East Point Business Park in Clontarf and as far as I’m aware from my journo days Havas was bought over by VUIP a few years ago, so that might explain that conspiricy theory >:)

Jamie

I had a mate who used work for them, they had offices on the west coast too, I think. Havas was either parent company of Vivendi or it was the other way round. As far as I know, all the company did here was localisation of games for all of Europe.

Chris

Havas Interactive became part of Vivendi Universal in Ireland and they employ from 70-140 people in East point business park in Dublin localising games for global markets.. The numbers go up as they work on the titles for the Christmas market..

Aphra.

Thanks for all the infomation guys. The mystery is here there website has gone to. It was supposed to be http://www.havasinteractive.com but is invalid. Do you any of you happen to know if they still have their QA Testing department? Aphra – You seem to know about this, are you able to offer me any help? I ask because I would love to test games with an Irish company before moving to England.

http://www.vivendi-universal-interactive.co.uk/

AFAIK (much rumour and speculation) the IDA tried to push a venue outside Dublin while the company wanted a city venue. The IDA werent going to give the same financial support to a company moving to the city (in accordance with their current policies), so things kinda fell apart. I havent heard of any updates since then.

Dave

As I see this thread again, it reminds me that in September shindig there were three guys from Rare (two of them were the Nesbitt brothers I think) due to setup a company called Booga Boo or something like this ? Do they have a website ? Do you have some news about them ?

I think they were the Doyle brothers . One of them, Andy Doyle (the younger of the two, and a non-game developer) was a past pupil of Ballyfermot.

I was wondering if they had a site yet myself…

I had sent in my CV to the agency at the time and as the games company didn’t seem to be coming through, they instead sent me vague details of a ‘major web company’ that sounded very Google-ish to me.

The ex-Rare lads are at http://www.bugaboo-studios.com. Not much on the site at the mo, but I have high hopes for these guys.

Thanks Pete…

cool I’ll have a look right now !

The domain is registered in the UK ???