Havok & Irish Development…

nice to see you are reading the features!!

well according to the interview on Today FM with Steve C the TCD course is training the next generation of staff for the games industry. See http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/news/viewnews.php?article=369

so that ,and other courses, are addressing some of the skills issues…

and the X Havok folk have knowledge of the business…

and good industry links…

so perhaps not so far fetched….

but I don’t see development agencies falling over themselves at the moment to invest in a development company ..esp an indigenous company

Aphra.

The real problem from my perspective is the nature of the business.
Middleware is good because it allows you to continue to supply a product that people will keep using. The Havok engine is a great asset as they can continue to develop it and sell it to ever growing amount of customers, whether the games it’s put in are successful or not. Also, there is a sole, core competency for the business to focus on.
Games development is far more volatile. A hit now doesn’t necessarily mean another hit in the future. It’s hard to transfer the success of one game onto your next set of games unlike a piece of technology that can continually be improved (one reasons companies are so reliant on sequels, franchises and re-using engines). Also, since you largely start again each time you make a new game, you continually put the company at financial risk both during the period of development from lack of revenue (hard to make money on an unreleased game), and on release if the game turns out not to be a financial hit.
Also, there are several different disciplines involved in game development, art, gameplay, physics, level design, setting etc. not to mention actually making the game fun; so being good at every one those things, as most AAA games are required to be, is quite a tricky proposition (one of the reasons I like it when games limit themselves, focusing their full attention on a less travelled path that they can do well).
Put simply, a business from video games is a lot more volatile, tricky and having various subtleties then a business in middleware technology. So Havok just suddenly making games? Well, they are the king of physics middleware, but as a games company they’d have to learn a lot more skills and deal with a whole new business environment with entirely different method of development and a whole load of new and exprienced competitors. From a business point of view, its best that they stick to what they’re good at then risk it by going off into another area.
Not to say they can’t be a huge benefit to the Irish gaming industry and have a large amount of useful experience, but put simply, from my point of view, Havok is too successful as a middleware company to try risking part of that in the volatile world of video game development

The more important fact is that they could walk into a publisher’s office and say ‘we made Havok, can we talk?’ Who’s gonna say no to that? No-one. Plus as for other disciplines, Havok personnel will have made numerous contacts and will know many good people.

Personally, I think the fastest way to get the industry humming is to flood every college, IT, and university with dev-kits. PSP’s, DS, Wii (if you can get them, GameCube if you can’t) XBox (360 if you can get them).

Let groups of students chew through the docs, samples, tutorials, forums, up-skill the tutors as necessary, and then you’ll see waves and waves of Comp-Sci graduates finishing their courses with a few sample games that they could take to a publisher as a proof-of-concept.

ten’s of students (or hundreds) streaming out of Irish Uni’s with console programming experience, and some demo’s should start to get people noticed.

Well. That’s my thoughts on the matter.

Personally, I think the fastest way to get the industry humming is to flood every college, IT, and university with dev-kits. [/quote:6cd5adbc16]

Paid for by who???

I don’t see the benefit in throwing dev kits at students who are only learning how to program and say "Here, go create a games industry with these"

Students don’t need dev kits to create games or demos, the PC will do them just fine. What they do need, in my opinion, is proper guidance from people in the games industry so any funds that are available should be spent on making guest lectures, etc… more frequent and not on hardware

Dillon,

Paid for by who?
[/quote:6eae1bdf5b]

Let’s not get hung up on cost. Devkits are cheap. Cheaper still to educational bodies. Sponsorship is one avenue. Fly a Nintendo flag, and you’ll get your kits for next to nothing. You can get kits from Sony and Nintendo for less than the cost of a high end workstation.

I can only speak for myself, but after about 2 years (out of 4) of CompSci, I knew enough to get stuck into console home-brew and whatever half-baked libs and tools I could get my hands on.

I think if you put the resources in place, the hungry, self-motivated, and driven students will take up the challenge and get stuck in.

Games dev for the PC tends to be slack. There’s always memory available, there’ always a faster CPU, there’s always a better graphics card.

PC first, I believe is completely backward. If you expose CompSci students, and teach them to program on a fixed hardware console from Day 01, then migrating those students to PC will result in more efficient, memory-mindful students. (in my opinion). Going the other way, tends to be more difficult.

I do agree with you on guest lecture involvement. But there is only so much that a guest lecture can impart in a talk, or workshop.

Devkits, and 24 hour lab access, and the students with the motivation and drive will thrive.

I don’t see the benefit in throwing dev kits at students who are only learning how to program and say "Here, go create a games industry with these" [/quote:c47408d250]

I don’t entirely agree, by the stage students reach their project years they should at least be able to have a good crack at making something, and if they’re interested in games they’re more likely to succeed.
Let’s face it, writing the umpteenth booking system for college gets old after a while ;)

Jediboy, so you’re plan would be to flood unis with games courses, get lots and lots of grads trained up to be game developers, yet as they’re all just out of uni, they’ll not have to know-how or the cash injection required to set up anything themselves, and as they’re are no employers currently in the country, set up high levels o emmigration on graduation….somehow I don’t think the government will go with that one

Students don’t need dev kits to create games or demos, the PC will do them just fine. What they do need, in my opinion, is proper guidance from people in the games industry so any funds that are available should be spent on making guest lectures, etc… more frequent and not on hardware[/quote:f48c698045]
So very, very true.

The fact is that the majority of students in college are there to learn how to program from the ground up, not how to utilize specific hardware. It’s the same reason most courses start their students with just a simple text editing app and a command line compiler, it’s important for students to know what’s going on under the hood when they’re developing rather than just knowing where the "Build Project" button is.

Also, as Kentaree, mentioned, by the time students reach their project years they should have enough drive to want to create something new that interests them. They have many avenues to do this, be it open source projects, XNA and their own projects from scratch. Sure having advanced hardware would be good in some respects but they should be able to excel without that kind of crutch. Games courses could be treated differently but again, I believe that working with console dev kits should only be done at the end of the cycle. Either way they are still in the minority in this country and aren’t really relevant in this case.

You also need to realise that the vast majority of universities have extremely strict budgets for the purchase of new hardware and software. I’d imagine you’d be pretty surprised when you hear of some of the figures and thus it’s easy to understand why most institutions can’t justify the purchase of dev kits.

Wow.

Have to say, I am surprised at the negative waves towards the dev-kit idea.

Omen
My suggestion was to flood uni’s with dev-kits. Not necessarily Games Courses left, right, and centre, but in conjunction with CompSci departments.

As for them laving the country in drones, that’s not what I would envision. Instead it would be a case of attracting studios to start-up, as there are CompSci graduates with console programming experience.

It doesn’t have to be a "feast-or-a-famine" implementation here guys. I use the word flood, because there is a serious lack of kits in the country.

Gizmo
Are budgets really that tight that Uni departments can’t afford 1100 euro (ish) for a multi-license PSP dev kit?

Guest Lectures are helpful, fair point.

If dev-kits are not the answer, what is?

" I don’t see development agencies falling over themselves at the moment to invest in a development company ..esp an indigenous company"[/quote:b2238b470d]

Someone really needs to call the government on its policies then. I remember hearing digital media was high priory for development agencies and talk of it being the basis of our future economy only a few years ago. Has anyone with an experienced team (Business heads and Industry Vets) actually asked for assistance recently? Probably not, so the reception may not be as frosty as we all think? I’m in a very positive mood today I know.

Think any new company should start small: psp, ds, xbox live, mobile, zune, ipod… All possible with a team size under 20. Less wages to pay, smaller timeline, equally as profitable.

Starting a next gen company is near to impossible in my mind. Cost is huge, as is risk.

Oh and if we are spending other peoples money for them what about Bono? He’s loaded :). Elevation partners were interested in buying games companies, why not start one.

Side point: I wish I had been taught in my degree to be "memory-mindful" as jediboy says. With all the focus on OO programming and tonnes of ram and CPU available I would have to concede I was a weaker programmer at graduation point than students who graduated say 10 years ago.

Maybe worth contemplating do developing nations with hand me down computers actually produce better graduates? Anyway I think there should be an "Old School programming" class in every CS Degree.

I don’t see the problem with starting on PSP titles and moving up if they wanted after a few years once the team is proven. I think we have the people for that. Don’t forget that you could make four psp tiles in the time and money being quoted for next gen.

RE: next gen.
I think it would be tough anywhere if entering the market cold, even foolhardy unless the team is very experienced, after all $8 – 20 million going down the tubes on a flop game is no small change. And unless Daddy Warbucks is putting up the cash they might only get one shot.

We should do a head count on the boards someday of people in Ireland with last gen published game experience. There are talented people both here and a Ryanair flight away but getting them to up sticks from good jobs seeing as senior people would be required, to join an unproven company with no tiles to its name and probably only funding for one game?

The company would have to lessen the risk if it were to jump in at the deep end of Next Gen. So the use of middleware becomes a factor. Epic had 30 people working on the 360 gears of War. Having an engine done allows those smaller numbers. But of course those 30 no doubt had years of professional experience under their belts and probably worked together before.

Yeah sounded low. But they said it. Maybe meant to say 30 Full time employees and a dose load of outsourced coders.

"Noting that the average team size for the PS3/Xbox 360 generation is 60 to 80 people, he (Epic VP) claimed that a combination of outsourcing and engine licensing enabled companies such as Epic to run at a much lower full-time employee base and cost.

In this case, that would include an average of 30 employees on the Xbox 360-exclusive Gears Of War, working (as "internal licensees") on the Unreal Engine 3 codebase, which is maintained by 20 employees at Epic for worldwide licensing on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3."

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10971

Or 30 people working on Gears and 150 people working on the tech :)

Accusedly (court case pending) tech centred mostly around Gears of War so much that people are claiming it doesn’t do the job of an engine.

My impression is that like many before, most wouldn’t mind staying in Ireland, but going abroad isn’t that scary either. Canada, BC, seems to be the destination of choice unless something shows up in the mean time.

Where you off to Kyotokid?

Graduates even the masters kind, need experience. Plan currently is Vancouver for me too. Would be happy to join a startup in Ireland after some experience under my belt. Come back after a few years and by then there will be new grads to hire as juniors and experienced past grads to call home.

So no need to say it will never happen, just the conditions for success aren’t in place yet. Keeping the community connected is vital for that to work. Good old GD.ie

Typically canada is a 2nd or 3rd stop in your career, because of visa’s etc you’ll need to get some experience in europe under you belt first before those guys will come calling..lol

ivan you going to bizarre??

Canada – what is that a new province of Ireland? [/quote:98ecff6196]
Yep just west of Connaught.

How is it going to happen[/quote:98ecff6196]

A) Santa leaves a games company under the tree
B) Someone here wins euromillions and hires everyone on the boards
C) Someone here wins euromillions, buys and moves a small UK company
D) Government entices a UK/US company to move
E) Grads save while abroad come home and form a company and work for zero money for a year.
F) Divert worldwide fights going to Canada to Shannon and don’t let them out.

Other than those I don’t know? Any other suggestions in the years this site has been running?

A bunch of guys from Rare came back a few years ago, many of them having worked on classics like GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, with their own engine and game designs but hit a stumbling block when it came to getting governmental support apparently. I don’t know the full details but I remember it was to do with Enterprise Ireland, company size and location. Most of the lads are now either back in the UK or working in various animation/vis houses around Ireland.

As I say I’m not concrete on the details, maybe someone else can shed some light here?

If Frantic and Darkwater are successful it could possibly kick off something.

Canada – what is that a new province of Ireland? [/quote:b4db080c68]
Yep just west of Connaught.

How is it going to happen[/quote:b4db080c68]

A) Santa leaves a games company under the tree
B) Someone here wins euromillions and hires everyone on the boards
C) Someone here wins euromillions, buys and moves a small UK company
D) Government entices a UK/US company to move
E) Grads save while abroad come home and form a company and work for zero money for a year.
F) Divert worldwide fights going to Canada to Shannon and don’t let them out.

Other than those I don’t know? Any other suggestions in the years this site has been running?[/quote:b4db080c68]

More likely, someone here working abroad rises to the top of a games company (ideally a big publisher) and encourages the board etc to open a satellite studio in dublin\cork.

Currently, I’m trying to do this for ye :)lol

it seems the best way to get funding for anything it to start a company in some small town :?: :?:

Maybe they wanted to set up in Dublin…that seems to be a big ‘no-no’ for getting funding.

Unfortunately EI and IDA need to realise to get the talent from abroad its got to be accessible and have all the glitz and glam of a big city. Hence reason ppl move to vancouver,la, san fran, london, paris etc, thats what ppl want. They dont want to be out in the sticks. For example if you take EA, or us, were near the countryside (about 10 minutes drive) but equally the city is within striking distance.

get it near an IT carlow,blanch etc

Rockstar offaly:P

the place where they get up at 4 in the morining to watch diggers going by:P:P

Rockstar Dublin has a nice ring to it…[/quote:d26643d669]
You mean EA – Star Dublin.
Nah…that’d be rubbish. If people were really pushed to try get something to happen, Dave Perry is someone with a name that could do something. No idea what he’s like or if he cares though. You want a figurehead…there’s a possible.

I am currently in 3rd year and when I finish up, would love to have the chance to work overseas. Irish government had loads a cash for the last while and (I feel) did SFA with it. So as the money seems to be gone now I don’t think that it really looks like things are going to be great in the next few years… could get into a debate on the Irish government but….. :evil:

Possible some of you who have had more experience than me will tell me that I am talking out my a**, fell free

Well I’m final year and intending on doing my masters next year and have totally wrote off any hope of getting a job in Ireland. I would like to work here after a while but sure….

…Go Ireland! *cough*

Hasn’t Europe put a dampener on tax breaks? The government can’t do it like they did to get the IT industry into the country 10+ years ago.

As for Dundee…2 of the incubator units are Embreonix and Tayside Interactive. Embreonix run Dare and Tayside sponsor it, so IGDA and other groups already involved with Dare would already have been in contact with these people. If they’ve not thought to try get something working here in the same vein by now, what more do they need? Is there a demand for something like this anyway?? And by demand, I mean a demand that has some chance of success. Remember these units in Dundee don’t deal in games, games just happens to be one of the disciplines that they support.

Omen

Couldn’t agree more regarding Dave Perry. He is the "great hope" in my book. He was back in Belfast last year (or the year before) and was paraded around the city like a rockstar, honorary qualifications from UU or QUB or similar, etc. Industry bodies were falling over themselves to sell Northern Ireland, Belfast specifically to him. Which is great.

But as for tax breaks, I can’t see the EU going for it, unless it is EU-wide, and in direct response to Canada’s free-for-all.

Also someone mentioned funding is strictly for outside-dublin due to de-centralisation. I guess this is inhibitive. Someone mentioned that Game Developers want glam cities, so anywhere outside Dublin could come off as "naff" (for lack of a better word.)

Access, direct international flights, roads, trains, huge (you hear me Eircom, HUGE) bandwidth, would all be high on the list. Is there much room left at the Digital Hub? What about the Media Lab Dublin’s old office?

I think we need some tech-savvy ministers to spear-head this.

Best of luck to all who are heading for Canada and Dundee.

I’d say there is very little chance of Dave Perry doing anything in Ireland.[/quote:9e062f9921]

Reckon he likes california too much.

Don’t go to Dundee, its a hole ![/quote:fa4c14fc67]

you speaking from experience kyotokid?

From what i’ve seen in terms of the course work etc at dundee and similar courses i’d personally do the one in trinity. Seems to cut through the bs and do the hard stuff (if your not up to it, tough), all the rest seem to do a bit of this and that(art\music\design blah, if you want that dont do a programming course). Trinity one seems to be more up to date if their using 360 dev kits and cell tech. Last i heard dundee still used ps2 dev kits. Dont get me wrong, the appreciation for memory constraints etc on ps2 is great but you’ll still get that on next-gen tech but you’ll also get alot more Multi thread\shader tech etc experience, which IMHO is more important.

Omen
But as for tax breaks, I can’t see the EU going for it, unless it is EU-wide, and in direct response to Canada’s free-for-all.

Also someone mentioned funding is strictly for outside-dublin due to de-centralisation. I guess this is inhibitive. Someone mentioned that Game Developers want glam cities, so anywhere outside Dublin could come off as "naff" (for lack of a better word.)

Access, direct international flights, roads, trains, huge (you hear me Eircom, HUGE) bandwidth, would all be high on the list. Is there much room left at the Digital Hub? What about the Media Lab Dublin’s old office?

[/quote:1c03f9fe8b]

Northern Ireland is being pushed as a centre for technical excellence, 100% broadband coverage, expanding flights into Belfast and incentives like the DETI ones that Darkwater are working off are a step in the right direction. I was reading in the ‘Northside People’ newspaper during the week that the Dublin Chamber of Commerce are calling for immediate financial and tax incentives to retain highly skilled, talented workers, investment in next-gen infrastructure and ithe introduction of a targeted system to encourage PC purchases – all to help promote Dublin as a leading location for innovation and investment by 2012.

Dundee was alright…seemed to be getting re-developed as I left, but yeah, it was a working class student town…

I agree with Dave Perry doing squat, but I think if anyone expects the government to do anything, they need a figurehead. Next up I reckon would be Steve Collins. Less vocal, but who can argue with Havok tech. And I guess that’s probably happening anyway when he cherry picks his new grads ;)

"Games could get film-style tax credits"
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/29741/Games-could-get-film-style-tax-credits

Cross out UK and replace with Ireland and submit to government.

the poor old film industry is blue in the face trying to compete with the UK on film tax incentives and the dept of finance makes it very hard work – citing EU competition law and the difficulties measuring the impact…

At the same time France is offering film like grants etc. to their game companies…treating them as art

Dundee/Scotland and other regional areas in the UK are using regional structural funds and RnD funds to support game companies…

there do seem to be ways of doing this to get around competition laws…

Aphra.

True, but Dundee/Scotland don’t solely support computer games, it just happens to be one of the areas under their art/IT umbrella of things to support. France while are supporting games in this way is different as they already have a large install base and are trying to expand it, not create it. The Scottish plan sounds more like what Ireland needs to do, but isn’t that exactly what the Digital Hub was??

I’d say there is very little chance of Dave Perry doing anything in Ireland.[/quote:ce82a6fe73]indeed… particularly as he has said as much on a number of occasions.

He’s had offers to start up studios in the likes of Singapore (etc.) where they offer waaaay more than is on offer anywhere in Europe and he’s turned them down

the poor old film industry is blue in the face trying to compete with the UK on film tax incentives and the dept of finance makes it very hard work – citing EU competition law and the difficulties measuring the impact…

there do seem to be ways of doing this to get around competition laws…

Aphra.[/quote:7770a4c86e]

true….I don’t know enough about the corporation taxation stuff and if there is some fine print….but it doesn’t seem to be a sufficient advantage in terms of games companies…necessary but certainly not sufficient…

maybe it is because corporation tax is payable on ‘profits’ and the grants and other supports are aimed at pre-profit, start ups etc…

Aphra.

I’d say there is very little chance of Dave Perry doing anything in Ireland.[/quote:f974805fa8]indeed… particularly as he has said as much on a number of occasions.

He’s had offers to start up studios in the likes of Singapore (etc.) where they offer waaaay more than is on offer anywhere in Europe and he’s turned them down[/quote:f974805fa8]

Peanut salaries to highly skilled works being one of them :)

Australia getting in on the tax breaks. I think the UK better act before the horse bolts.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=33647%5B/quote:66bedc5975%5D

I think the horse has bolted in that regards, Krome Studios (Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide) has well over 400 employees now. Are closely connected to Microsoft, have a track record with Konami, LucasArts, Vivendi to name just a few.

Just across the road from them you will find Pandemic.

From what I have seen regarding Australia game development is a massive push, but most students in Australia don’t do a BSC or MSC, they do TAFE courses or wok as interns.

Mind you there are countless studios in Australia

http://www.sumea.com.au/

This should give you an idea as to what Australia is going after.

With regards to France their Granting System is based on how applicable socially the game is. So something like Manhunt2 wouldn’t be considered an valid applicaiton. While something with Artistic merit would rate more favourably.

Considering a more European wide game initiative :

http://www.egdf.eu/

So the avenues are there, and anyone that think Ex Havok Guys, Dave Perry, the Government or the likes are our golden ticket really need to consider what it’s going to take for that to happen. Sure some ex Havok guys could setup shop in the morning, get some press and start some games, they still need all the business infrastructure, all the financing, location and countless other elements in place. Otherwise it’s just another wishful startup. (I know about wishful startups, and there is a huge difference between a wishful startup and one that has the potential to grow and become financially sustainable)

Or alternatively we could all spend some time developing small tiny little games, building up a reputation for Irish development and simply tap into the market by making it aware that there is talent here, there is real innovation in gameplay. I look at things like DARE and feel they are the direction we should be gunning for, as these are the roots which open awareness and eventually we will have some small startups that will get the VC’s interested, that will get the Publishers knocking. Expecting a Valve to open up shop over night is unrealistic, even to get NickelodeonGameCreator9 to setup here would be an achievement.

I also don’t have much faith in these game courses popping up throughout the country. It would appear as a ploy to get otherwise un-interested students interested in doing these courses. Where the draw is they think they will play games all day and perhaps make some, but soon realise it’s a tough gig and pack it in. Granted the Trinity course is a step in the right direction and there are surely merits to all courses, but trying to flood the country with developers, where there are no jobs and no real initiatives to setup small studios… it seems like an exercise in exporting even more talent out of the country.

Little birdy told me there are plans to announce something called a Games Fleadh shortly…could be some kind of computer games festival… :?:

true….I don’t know enough about the corporation taxation stuff and if there is some fine print….but it doesn’t seem to be a sufficient advantage in terms of games companies…necessary but certainly not sufficient…

maybe it is because corporation tax is payable on ‘profits’ and the grants and other supports are aimed at pre-profit, start ups etc…

Aphra.[/quote:cc8a3f8cdb]

It’s really hard to see how we could do something here similar to what Canada has achieved. Their tax credits though are of a very different form; you literally get cash back for each game developer employed. It’s not a tax break on profits which is fine, but as Aphra points out very few companies in the early years are too worried about profits – they’re worried about paying salaries.

I talked to a guy recently, a Canadian, who had just setup a game studio in Montreal. For him, it was cheaper than most other possible locations, and just down the road was a ready supply of top talent (Ubi, A2M, ATI, etc.). But fundamentally he gets back something like 40c in the $ that he spends. It’s not a tax credit, it’s not an R&D credit, it’s not some form of loan / equity investment etc., it’s just money back. And you get it back at the end of the fiscal year after your audit.

I’m personally quite optimistic about what we can do here in Ireland, but I’m pretty convinced it is not going to be AAA console game development. But I also think that in time, AAA console game development as it currently stands will be relegated to a niche with the mass market being something quite else; we’re talking about the future of communication, cooperation and play. And there’s no stopping any of us playing in that space because everyone’s just at the starting blocks there.

Steve