New Here

[Anonymous]

Hi Guys (Girls? propably not :-))

My Name is Willem Kokke, and I recently moved from Vienna to Newtownabbey. I know that’s in Northern Ireland, but I hope that’s no problem :-)

Just a small introduction:

I am 21 years old, from holland, and went for one year to university studying tecnical Informatics in Eidhoven. I spent that year writing a 3d engine, instead of studying, so I kinda screwed uni up, so at the end of the year I left

I tried getting a job in the gamesindustry with my engine demo, and though suffering from programmer art, it succeeded on the first try (LUCKY!!) at Rockstar Vienna (formerly Neo Software) (http://www.rockstarvienna.com)

There I worked on the networking subsystem of a MMORPG that isn’t released yet, I also worked on the ps2 port of tropico, which never saw the day of light

I worked there for a year, and after that I went to Dion-Software, also in vienna (http://www.dion-software.com) where I became a GBA programmer

a coupleof months ago things were looking grim on the financial side for the company, and I decided to find another job.

A good friend of mine from derry, just happened to have start a job where they needed a 3d programmer, so thats how I came to work for Axisthree (http://www.axisthree.net)

Though my job atm is more visualisation oriented, I do have a love for the gamesindustry, and I want to go back one day, either with my own company or not ;-)

In Vienna I was a member of the IGDA (http://www.igda.com)
They have a concept called chapters, which are geographically defined regions where the gamesindustry, and those who are interested in it organise themselves, and meet up once a while

After I came here, i started looking for a similar chapter here, but the closest i could find was the UK NorthWest (http://www.igda.org/chapters/)

I was kindof dissapointed in the state of the gamesindustry here, but the existance of this site made me hopefull

Perhaps An Irish IGDA chapter should be started, because it is a recognised industry standard, which makes it easier to “justify” meetings with your employee

Also,Havok has been known to sponsor the beer on meetings for over a hundred people (at the UK NW chapter)
(BTW this is not meant as a motivation, more as an illustration of the benefits :-)

Is anybody on this board a member of the igda??

If anybody is interested, I’m willing to put some effort into this

Whatever happens, keep up the good work, this community is an example of the only way forward!

–Willem out

[Aphra K]

Hi Willem,

this is an all Ireland site since we all cross the border quite a lot…so welcome on board..

I know about the IDGA chapters but this site is all about finding out who is out there and trying to create a community..we are hoping to start face to face meetings every two months and as things grow then perhaps we can think about starting a chapter…maybe a bit premature at present?

and by the way I am female…although not a game developer!

Aphra.

[Anonymous]

Hi!

Sounds like a good plan, and you are propably right :-)
I just wanted to raise some igda awareness

is the next meeting planned already?

Willem

[Aphra K]

we were talking about the end of June and then taking a break for the summer..

there is another thread here in general discussions on shindigs so check that out…we need suggestions for days, dates. etc..so maybe you can get people talking about that again!

Aphra.

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