Dare 09

I haven’t seen any announcement re a Dare to be Digital Ireland selection event this year. Nothing on Dare to be Digital.ie either. Has anyone heard anything?

the main site states that’ Regional selection events will be held in different cities across the UK, India and China before Easter.’ Deadline for entries is 15th March 2009.

see http://www.daretobedigital.com/news/newsfull.php?intStoryNumber=293

Nothing about Ireland – north or south.

Aphra.

Yup, I’ve gotten a (programming) team together so far for this year, going to start looking for artists over the next couple of days.

Not a fan of the new format at all however, really adds unnecessary work and worry to the entry.

This new format is kinda crazy! Making teams work on concepts suggested by the public is an interesting choice. I wonder weather we will see the standard drop because of it? Although there is nothing, as far as I can see, to stop teams entering their own idea in the dreamers section and then just selecting it.

It’s strange that there is nothing for Belfast, I know the Northern Irish team had a rough time last year. It’s a bit of a shame if they are throwing all of Ireland into one region as I’m pretty sure Ireland probably attracts one of the highest rates of applicants from any region.

Is it just for students or recent graduates who aren’t in the industry yet as well?

as far as Im aware its for people who have graduated in the last 2years(i think) but havent held 6months of industry experience. but dont quote me on that, I read it awhile ago on the dare site, think in faq.

Yeah its a very weird system they have.
If you cant submit your own idea how do they pick what team to select?

also did they have a invitation day this year to talk to students about the competition?

As a previous dare participant (Northern Ireland team 07) I can see the good and bad of this new system

Good : It gives all the teams the same starting point, one of the major factors of the competition was that some teams came in with a fair amount of work done beforehand.. I didnt mind it so much personally but I reckon for sure the overall standard will drop.

Bad : I imagine it would be hard to be motivated to be working on something you didnt necessarily have a genuine interest in, but i suppose on the other hand it reflects how the industry actually works (in some cases), and I am sure after concept the participants are given a resonable level of design freedom.

Also, it seems like there wont be Regional Hosting centres this year?

This is probaly a good thing, gives people a even ground when it comes to facilities and mentors. In belfast we had some fine fellows mentoring us, but It was a little bit disheartening being placed in a small basement for 2 months, whilst other teams were Based in EA Studios (Guildford) and University of Abertay!

As far as I’m aware, everyone will be coming to Abertay this year so there’ll be no regional centres.

If the ideas put forward to the site were in, at least some way, vetted then it may be more useful but when you have suggestions of "Half-Life meets Elite" and someone mentioning an MMO then it’s rather pointless. That being said there are a couple of good ideas on the site but I’d imagine most teams will be putting in their own idea and going with that.

As for the change doings something to stop teams working on their projects before hand, well I doubt that really, they still have 3/4 months until the competition starts to be working on something.

Good : It gives all the teams the same starting point, one of the major factors of the competition was that some teams came in with a fair amount of work done beforehand.. I didnt mind it so much personally but I reckon for sure the overall standard will drop.
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No it wont. There is nothing to stop teams submitting their already developed idea or just interpreting a suggestion on the site that closely matches their previously accomplished work. The only reasonable system for checking this is the interview system.

As for the standard dropping, I agree I think any team that adheres to the new system will have a harder time of it. We may see a widening gap between the top and bottom performing teams.