Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Well how about the idea of a shindig bbq then at some point over the summer, maybe the June or July one? It’ll make it extra worthwhile for people travelling, or we could have it outside Dublin?
21st still looks good for me.
Jamie
Well again this brings it all back to the main point, can’t something be done? Surely even the members of the board here and the IGDA in the UK might have some documentation that we could use to present to people to show them that there are careers in it, and it is as viable a creative process as television, movies, music etc. are, because you have to build everything from nothing, and it incorporates all these other areas in it.
As for colleges, I’m going to work on a letter to send to the President of DIT, he’s new in this year and maybe he might listen, considering that the problems CS is having in attracting the right people since the bubble burst, as I know that a lot of courses around the country have been having massive drop-out rates because people stuck it down on their CAO and the points have fallen so much.
Jamie
Well it is technically illegal for any chain, be it food, clothes, games, music etc/ to take money to place certain products, but gifts etc. are seen as ok, and it’s one of these areas where it just happens anyway.
Jamie
it’s market penetration,
Non-Games stores can shift PSX/PS2 titles easily, parents etc. can pick one up as a present, and considering there’s nearly half a million PS2’s and even more (still working) PSOne’s which are usually handed down to younger siblings, most stores stock them. Mind you, it’s usually a case of having a few copies of the latest game, and platinum/budget titles as opposed to a full range like in a specialist store.
Jamie
That’s an estimate of a figure, going on LUDO, people coming out of CS with interest in games, animation in colleges like Dun Laoghaire etc.
I know for a fact that DIT frowns on games, I know some people who tried to do their CS degree projects on games and weren’t exactly encouraged to pursue it. I know myself, doing a business course that only for having the head of GameStop going through my course a few years back is there a recognition of the size of the industry, but that is for retail. I’ve been trying to enquire about doing my thesis next year on some aspect of the games industry and am constantly being told ‘don’t do it, you need academic journals backing up everything, blah blah blah’, but I’m going to do it anyway and argue my case for an exemption if I have to.
God it’s fun trying to get people to take it seriously in college, and that’s why it’s p*ssing me off so much.
Jamie
Well my old guidance councellor was probably one of them, because I pointed him in your direction and you seem to be the only academic working in the area, and they take that seriously.
I’d love to get involved to actually get something done about it, and would love to bring it up at a chapter meeting, so does that mean I’ll have to join the IGDA, as I’m not quite on the development side as such?
If anyone can let me know, please say.
Jamie
That’s the problem, and there are very few qualified journalists who in turn will write for the industry, and it can be a problem such as joining the union and getting a press-pass if you’re a freelance with proven work behind you.
That’s why the internet is great, because it gives people a chance to actually write about games, but we need to get out of the fansite mode which is very prevailant at the moment. But again, the union looks down on web journalists, and it’s very hard to get work published in paper, and again in turn it’s then harder to get stuff from the companies because people bullsh*t them about visitor hits, uniques etc. and you need to be able to show them paper, printed with circulation figures so they’ll take you seriously.
Jamie
There have been a number of magazines, most of which failed. The Player evolved into the Irish Playstation Magazine (as in the same company TP Media), but I think their problem was that they had two magazines running at the same time, and they had a fairly successful Playstation magazine, but when they also launched the Playstation 2 magazine, it was when the PS2 launched, and there were massive shortages for ages, and this seems to be what burdened them.
The other magazine, if any of you remember it knocking around for a few issues was G4, a multiformat magazine that came out around the same time as The Player, but again only lasted a few issues.
The problem with magazines in Ireland is that there is just simply too much competition from the huge range of UK and even US magazines that are published, and you would have to do a big deal with the distributers to get any sort of prominent shelf space. Without that, it’s simply a case of your magazine will get lost in the swamp of magazines.
Both sets of magazines also didn’t get the tone right, I found that G4 was a little too much on the slangy side, more a tabloid that I personally don’t find too attractive, and then there was the OIPM which was trying to be serious but was too dry. This is through no fault of the writers, the problem was that the magazine was just basically rebranding the UK magazine, with the same reviews, the same demo disc etc. It gave the writers no chance to do anything other than cover the odd story, or the odd game, and because of this the writers were unable to bring out an Irish feel to the magazine.
Maybe I’m being spiteful, but I’ve just been so pissed off seeing how Irish journalists trying to get into the games industry, and it’s very hard to get to any sort of position where you can do something out of it. Firstly, we are barely recognisable in many cases to many companies. Sony are grand, as they have a base here in Dublin and know the market, hence the ability to exploit the country as successfully as they have, and you can have no doubt about it.
Microsoft were great at the start, and the lady in charge of looking after the journalists in Ireland did a damn good job getting us stuff when we needed it, and after Ireland was un-attached from Xbox UK and put under the mandate of Xbox Scandanavia things were even better. EA also have a base and a person in the structure of the company who is head of EA Ireland, which is mainly a promotion and distribution outlet, as I am unaware of any development in Ireland by them.
However, there are the ‘evil’ companies, the ones who don’t consider Ireland part of Europe. I have consistently found that Nintendo don’t care about Ireland, as I used to have to scream down the phone at them asking them does Nintendo Europe consider Ireland as part of the continent because of their lack of interest in here. I also had problems with a number of publishers who basically said that they didn’t care about Ireland, purely because they stick within the strict guidelines of the UK market. This isn’t true, because most of our television and magazines come from the UK, and there is a massive spill.
It’s frustrating trying to get anything done, and I have every ounce of respect for good people trying to do well in pursuing it as a career.
Jamie
Well the way I ran it when I was running IrishPlayer meant that all the reviews had a minimun length of 1200 words, and a very strong structure, to ensure that as many angles as were possible were covered. Because we weren’t a print magazine, we could go on as long as was needed in some occasions.
As for how people wrote, as long as they covered this structure, they were free enough to phrase it whatever way they wanted. There were usually the first few whenever I took any new reviews on, and that was usually a case of that they were just going on about a particular, not very important, and sometimes it took a few re-writes to get it sounding right and covering everything. I would usually also just make sure that they weren’t too technical, because that puts a lot of people off and as my main audience wasn’t the hardcore gaming market who watch the web for every aspect of information, and just wanted to read reviews, we catered for that.
I also came to the decision early on not to cover news, because you simply can’t keep up unless you have someone full-time, looking into it and researching every shred of information. That is my main criticism of the remaining Irish Games websites, they should focus on just getting their review quality up and focus on other areas, instead of having the odd story up which ages very quickly. There’s nothing worse then going to a website and seeing information you saw last week.
If anything I feel that the likes of PlayerOfGames caters very well for it’s audience, the FPS and PC players, but the other sides like GamIre/WirelessToaster or GamersEurope should just focus on games that people can play, because I tried it damn hard for four years to get it going and gave up in the end. If you don’t have a massive exposure rate, no Irish site will do well because there isn’t any money to fund it, and therefore games companies won’t see you that differently then anyone else. The only reason I felt that IrishPlayer got to the size it was, which was 60,000 people (not including bots/searchs etc) a month was through also having loads of work done in magazines over the country, and on other websites.
I know this is a devs forum so I won’t bore you, but I feel there should really be a proper attempt at a decent Irish games mag, with support behind it, and it’s been across my mind to try something maybe when I finish college because there are a lot of interested and good writers, as well as a fair few not so good ones who could make it work.
Anyway, it’s been a while since I properly sat down and read through the forums so I’m not letting this one slip.
Ronny, all the advice I can say to you is keep up the good work. Keep at it and get your friends to read them, and you’ll eventually be able just to sit down and write, and the style will show. I should be at the next shindig so if you want to chat about it, i’d be more than happy to.
Jamie
