gamedevelopers.ie went live in March 2003 and was launched in April 2003 in the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.
It was prompted by the findings of a postdoctoral research project funded by the Irish Resaerch Council for Humanities and Social Sciences and conducted by Dr. Aphra Kerr in DCU (2001-2002).
The website was initially funded by Nokia and O2 and two multimedia students from DCU – Paul May and John Lynch – designed and developed the site.
Later Demonware supported the website and associated activities. Along the way lots of other local organisations and companies supported events, awards and helped to pay for the day to day expenses.
It was always a volunteer run site. And it was the users and volunteers who made gd.ie what it was. For a while it was an active online space to find jobs, network and support local game developers in Ireland.
With the development of social media we moved to a wordpress site and linked social media including twitter. But things have moved on again.
There is now an active local membership organisation – Imirt – that provides support and up to date information to local game developers.
There are also many small groups, gamejams and other meet ups in cities around the country using various communication platforms such as Discord. On Slack you will find IrishGameDev if you have a pro account.
As a result we are now starting the process of archiving the gd.ie website.
We are archiving gamedevelopers.ie as part of a larger European project on the history and culture of creative media. The GRADE project is networking with groups around Europe and we will run some events to explore how the Irish history of creative computing sits with histories in other European countries.
For now the site remains live while we plan how best to archive it and keep the content and personal data secure. We might post a little news while this happens.
Thank you for all your support, and a special thank you to the people who administered the site, fixed the technical bugs, fought the bots and made our shindigs a friendly place to meet others. We will write up a more detailed history of course that can be covered here.
We will keep an eye on the email and do get in touch if archiving is your thing!