Some good news – digital21

ah, it is out.

I wonder, what would you say if you were asked about the state of Ireland’s games industry and what we can do to grow it.

Dylan’s ideas of direct flights to the west coast and extending the artists exemption are interesting.

I had suggested extending existing film development schemes/prototype funds to include game related projects… but that seems to have gone missing from the article.

Aphra.

If 60pc of companies have games development as their CORE FUNCTION, where are all the games then?

Am I being thick or what?

Erm and another thing, who cares about Halo Rach or CoD sales? Duur we know gaming is a large industry with lots of big sellers.

Were they made in Ireland? Why list them? The article is about Ireland….list the local successes (…)

GAH!

When people are saying developed are they including games that were ported to a different platform?

Reasion I say is because the recent Peggle Nights iPhone IAP was developed here in Dublin, but it was originally a PC Title. Same goes for a rake of J2ME titles.

I guess this is the problem of a self-administered survey.

Companies self report they are doing development even if they are not doing it in Ireland – this is I think a particular problem with a mutli-country company.

Companies may also report porting to other platforms as development.

Might need to rephrase that question in any future iteration.

the article mentions arguably the best known Irish companies internationally..Havok and Demonware (yes I know middleware)..and then Jolt….

Aphra.

Erm and another thing, who cares about Halo Rach or CoD sales? Duur we know gaming is a large industry with lots of big sellers.

Were they made in Ireland? Why list them? The article is about Ireland….list the local successes[/quote:1531a332e1]

Hello from everyone in Demonware who are supplying online multiplayer for CoD:Black Ops on all 4 platforms…..

:roll:

Erm and another thing, who cares about Halo Rach or CoD sales? Duur we know gaming is a large industry with lots of big sellers.

Were they made in Ireland? Why list them? The article is about Ireland….list the local successes[/quote:39b357d9a8]

Hello from everyone in Demonware who are supplying online multiplayer for CoD:Black Ops on all 4 platforms…..

:roll:[/quote:39b357d9a8]

…which is not mentioned in the article.

Yep, that is the networking part of for CoD. I’m interested in content (=that’s my job).

I just don’t think the article paints an accurate portrayal of games development in Ireland. The 400% increase in jobs is mainly due to support roles.

I have to agree with kyotokid – if there’s such potential, where are all the games? As an Irish developer I’m very proud of how Havok and Demonware have done. But if I wanted to move back from Vancouver tomorrow and get another job as a senior graphics programmer working on a serious console game team, I have exactly zero prospects. And until that changes, I have to stay where the jobs are, no matter how much I miss my family.

However, moaning about it is going to make absolutely no difference. Short of a major publisher/studio suddenly deciding to set up development in Ireland for a reason I can’t think of, my only other option is to do it myself – come home and start a games company. It’s an attractive idea, but also an extremely scary one.

The first and main problem is that graduate students won’t cut it, I’ll need some experienced and trustworthy people to work with me. I don’t know where they’d come from. There are definitely experienced Irish developers around the world who would be a good fit, and a few of them might even jump at the chance to move home again while still working in the sort of studio they currently work in. But how many of them would be willing to pick up everything and move back for an unproven studio? Especially when the possibility of that company failing leaves them with no alternative employment prospects. I know I’d be very hesitant myself.

Then I’d need funding. It’s not something I have looked into yet and so know nothing about, but at a wild guess the sort of budget needed to start a studio with enough experienced people to develop a decent prototype/game (a few hundred thousand euro at least from what I have looked into) would be extremely hard to come by. Hopefully someone with more knowledge in this area could give me any sort of a clue.

Lastly, I’d need the know-how of how to run a company, preferably not into the ground. I’m a software engineer, not a business or marketing head. I’d like to think I could learn, but without a lot of support I strongly suspect I’d be doomed to failure from the outset. Preferably someone with experience in the business side of running a decent games studio could take this role on, but again I don’t know where they would come from.

I’m probably being overly negative – for all I know, there’s an Irish company out there with some experienced devs and a few PS3/360 devkits. If there is, I’d love to hear about them. But failing that, this is all very bleak and I honestly don’t know where it leaves things. Besides me, in Vancouver, for the foreseeable future :(

I hear what you are saying but to be fair to the article it is clear about where the Irish industry is employing people: i.e. support, social games, middleware and localisation.

The perennial challenge is how to support more development which takes place in Ireland and can provide that type of work to our experienced ex-pats and graduates.

And do it without the extensive financial supports which Canada are offering.
Dev. companies are not in Canada for the sunshine!

Aphra.

see

http://www.develop-online.net/features/783/In-depth-Canadas-tax-system

Aphra.

Oh I’m well aware of the Canadian tax breaks, as well as the additional credits that came into effect in BC in the last couple of months. It helps hugely, and our project is directly benifiting from it. Something like that surely has to come into effect in Ireland before major development can be set up there.

I wasn’t by any means criticizing the article, apologies if it sounded like that. It was a well-written and positive view of Ireland’s gaming sector, and I think we absolutely need more of that sort of positivity. I guess I just wanted to rant a little, as it’s frustrating that developers like me can’t be part of the Irish scene described there just yet.

Dev. companies are not in Canada for the sunshine!

Aphra.[/quote:c7f2789910]

Well in B.C they are here for the solidid sun in the summer and the awesome ski in the winter ;)

And the up to 40% back tax breaks.lol

Although it hasent been all happy stories out here either recently. Most notably Propaganda/Disney laying off well over 100 ppl.

ah ok…and you have sunshine!

Aphra.