I’m not really interested in doing any Jams, they’re fun and all but kind of a waste of time IMO. Really the only thing I’m interested in is running some sort of hackspace for games. It’s be really interesting to meet up and do projects. Like if you take a look at the Dublin hackspace (tog.ie) they’re doing alot of interesting things, it’d be great to do some sort of community thing like that for games.[/quote:a616d73a53]
I find the Jam’s pretty educational myself, they are the quickest way to move from vaguely enthusiastic to learning how to get things done. They’re also a practical means of getting together, not everyone who is working has a lot of free time or legal room to spare to get involved in side projects. I can definitely concede that they result in a specific constrained sort of game that limits the exploration that can be done, but dealing with constraints is a normal every day reality of industry.
I would love a Dublin hackspace, or if you are prepared to drop the notion of educators/tutors at the location, a collective games creation space where people can work on their games. They do something like this every Tuesday for some professional indies in Cambridge: http://cambridgeindies.com/. But first you will need to find a location that comes for free/sponsored/price of a cup of tea. I’d recommend trying some of the cafes/pubs/hotels around Dublin that might have an upstairs spare room with tables and chairs and wireless. If you get it going please let me know, I’ll be sure to show up when I can.