The problem with writing articles for the site is twofold: 1. time and 2. topics.
I don’t have a problem writing games industry articles for the site, but as the site has pretty much focused on just the development side of the industry, whereas i’m in marketing/pr/publishing there isn’t really much scope for me to write articles.
That said though, if the remit of the site broadens a lot (ie the games industry in Ireland, not just development) wbich would more accurately reflect the actual industry we have in the country, then it would certainly help attract a lot more people into the site. Most of the people I work with are in QA, Customer Services, Producers, IT support. Not the glamourous lead programmer roles or artist roles.
I’m a lot less active than I used to be, and there was no birthday event, no 7th birthday and it seems like a lot of people on the site who were active aren’t any more. Also shindigs haven’t been organised with much notice, so I haven’t been able to attend the last couple.
Most of the people working in the games industry in Ireland do not work in development, or come from Ireland. I know when the site started we all hoped that there would be big developers coming here etc etc etc. It didn’t happen, but we got a large number of publishers setting up.
I’d be more than happy to write up some articles on the business/marketing/pr side of things if people are interested in them, and can actually tell me what it is you want to know.