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