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IF YOU WERE asked to name as many gaming companies there are in both Ireland and Northern Ireland, how far would you get?
Outside the big players like EA Bioware, Activision Blizzard and Zynga setting up offices here, and middleware companies like Havok and Demonware, there are many independent game studios not only in Dublin, but dotted across Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The history of the Irish games industry goes back much further than you would initially expect. For one, hands up how many people knew that Atari opened up a plant in Tipperary in 1979, where it manufactured 2,000 cabinets a month for games like Gauntlet and Marble Madness until 1998?
Or that one of the earliest known games studios, Emerald Software, was based in Waterford (it was founded in 1988 and made ports of Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker for the Commodore 64 and MSX among other 8-bit platforms before shutting down in 1991)?
The game development industry in Ireland is slowly growing in size and has been around longer than you might think. Yet despite the long heritage, it hasn’t really been clear what shape the industry currently is or exactly how many development studios there are.
It’s something that Jamie McCormick, who has been actively involved in the games industry in Ireland since the 90s and current venture is Scraggly Dog Games, is trying to change.
His latest project, GetIrishGames.ie, aims to shine a spotlight on the growing Irish games industry, and part of that project involves mapping the industry from past to present.
While the mapping project itself is in its third year, it was really 2001 where it all began. Dr. Aphra Kerr, currently a senior lecturer of sociology at NUI Maynooth put together a project called ‘From Traditional Visual Media to Contemporary Digital Media: The Emergence of Digital Games‘.
From there, she and a few others within the industry founded gamedevelopers.ie, a service dedicated to supporting local companies, indie developers and freelancers in the industry. Part of that work involved compiling reports to show how the industry was progressing, the first was released in 2009 while the second was in 2012.
After McCormick put together the second report, he decided to take on the task of mapping the entire gaming industry in both Ireland and Northern Ireland, providing a clear view of the sector.
It’s still very much a work in progress, but acquiring the information for all the companies – relying on public records as well as getting help from Ordinance Survey Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, and gamedevelopers.ie among others – took a significant amount of time to compile.
One of the main problems facing games development here was the lack of data about the industry. Since the Clustering Development Team, a group dedicated to increasing the number of digital jobs in Ireland, was created in 2012, it had been relying on old data which isn’t preferable when recommending new policies.
For the first time, they all have the same information so they could agree on something, and the second thing that they said to me is when the government makes a policy decision… they make that decision that’s based on data that’s two to three years out of date and when they do make it, it’s another two or three years before they can see the impact.Between the map and the timeline, we have a real view of the gaming industry.
Identifying the companies is only the first part of the task, with classification, more in-depth categorisations (currently a significant number of entries on the map have either hardhats or question marks companies) and profiles have yet to be compiled.
But what’s there already offers enough for those both in Ireland and abroad to understand how developed the industry is. Those looking at moving here can see what other companies are in the area so if their original plan doesn’t work out, they can have a backup, while those studying game design can see what opportunities there are.
McCormick is currently working on the project by himself, but is open to extra help and donations to the project.
While its primary aim is to help those in the industry, as well as those working abroad, understand the shape the industry is in, it’s also hopes to raise the profile of the local games industry among the general public.
While there are gaming events held regularly, McCormick says they’re more about “connecting developers with developers, whereas what we need to do is connect consumers with the games.”
But it also extends much further than that. Ireland sees €240 million spent on games and his aim is to see one per cent of that market (€2.4 million) going towards homegrown companies and developers. The obvious caveat is the games have to be good before people would buy them, but McCormick feels that if the project works, it will mean more traffic to the site, and hopefully more Irish games will be purchased.
For now, the focus is on raising funds for the project through on-site donations and events, with the possibility to apply for EU funding later on this year, to help speed up the project. Regardless of what happens, McCormick intends on finishing it and jokes “I’m at the point of no return, but what can you do?”
Those interested in helping out or donating to the project can find out more details here.
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Best of luck to him , I will always have great respect for Hugo Chavez for trying to be a president for the common man and for sending the yank vultures and their puppets packing .
Absolutely 100% agree with you. Any one in any doubt should google John Pilgers documentary, the war on democracy. Chavez is a man of the people that big business want to see the back of.
Great documentary by Oliver Stone about Chavez “South Of The Border” worth a watch, tells how the US tried and failed to bring him down. Great interviews with him and other South American leaders about their refusal to be governed by US policy, it’s an eye opener.
Best wishes to him. He’s an inspiration.
don’t know much about Chavez,
but the fact that extreme right-wing yanks seem to hate him, makes me think he’s ok.
anyway – hope he defeats his cancer.
There is a very real possibility that his cancer was deliberately induced by the US military industrial complex in my opinion.
seriously? bit too much conspiracy perhaps?
Not really Simon. The CIA tired similar stuff with Fidel down the years.
They tried to give him cancer?
How do you give somebody cancer?
Exactly..
I can selectively quote parts of a random article from the internet too, first line under the heading… “Can you give someone cancer? If they’re healthy probably not”.
You want me to copy and paste entire articles here?
The point – and it’s embarrassingly obvious – is that while nobody knows whether his cancer was deliberately induced, it’s a possibility and a reasonable suspicion given the various ways the US tried to murder Fidel Castro down the years.
ha you quoted one part of an article to suit your own agenda! The US are capable of most things, so if they wanted rid of him I’m sure they could find a more effective way then giving him cancer, which your article goes onto say is a highly unreliable way of assassinting someone.
It’s highly unreliable yea but very discrete , I know it’s what I’d do it can’t be traced
A dose of radiation sufficient to appreciably increase cancer risk would undoubtably cause acute radiation sickness (about 3 to 5 sieverts).
Then, if the exposed person survives radiation sickness, there would be a ~10 year latency period before there’s an increased risk of Leukaemia, then if they don’t get Leukaemia, another 10 to 20 years would pass before there’s an increasing chance of solid cancers.
The maximum increase chance of cancer from radiation is ~40%, the risks are not higher as the exposed person would more likely die from radiation sickness at higher doses, they wouldn’t survive to get cancer years later.
Do you have a source for that, David?
Studies of the Mortality of Atomic Bomb Survivors, Report 14, 1950–2003: An Overview of Cancer and Noncancer Diseases
The Japanese Life Span study is the gold standard, 130,000 atomic bombing survivors monitored since the mid-1950s, since Japanese doctors started to notice increased cases of leukaemia.
The Excess Relative Risk per Gray (roughly the same as a Sievert) is 0.42, since the baseline cancer rate is ~30%, this gives a cancer rate of 42.6% for 1 Gray dose.
For an additional increase of 40% (30+40%)= 70% cancer rate, the radiation dose would need to be massive, undoubtably accompanied with severe radiation sickness.
Where is that’s documentary pls love to see it
Here’s a great one filmed by two Irish reporters, they were in the Chavezs’ office when the coup happened. They stayed behind, when Chavez and his ministers fled; they said they wanted to film the revolution happening. They got both sides from the inside, it’s a real eye opener, an excellent documentry:
Venezuela has one of the most democratic systems in the world.
Here’s what former US President Jimmy Carter of the Nobel Prize-winning election monitoring Carter Center had to say about it:
“Of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”
All Venezuelan expatriates get a vote. Those people are likely to vote for the opponents of Chavez, yet he still gives them the vote.
The people of Venezuela keep voting for Chavez, because he is of them.
It’s amazing that just because Chavez has stood up to the United States people make him out to some kind of hero. He presides over a massively corrupt country, which usually happens when one man resides in power way beyond what is healthy for any supposedly democratic country.
He keeps getting elected. Pesky democracy!
Because he has made it easier and easier for him to get elected. Himself and Putin have a lot in common.
At least he’s not owned and operated by Goldman Sachs, like BOTH of the selected candidates in the USA’s farcical overture to democracy.
That article doesn’t even back you up. Anybody that knows anything about cancer knows you can’t give somebody cancer.
Are you pretending to be dim or does it come naturally. Read. The. Comments. Again… S l o w l y !
I agree its unlikely but to rule if out is daft , best way to kill someone is to make it look like an accident.
Petr no need to get upset because you were wrong
Exactly, Kevin. Quite a simple point to grasp really.
A large dose of dioxins will induce cancer in most people. There are many carcinogenic compounds that can be administered covertly in food. It’s not science fiction
No, the amount of Dioxin required to greatly increase cancer risk would cause obvious symptoms – Chloracne. Just look at what happened to Viktor ‘s Yushchenko’s face after he was poisoned by Dioxin.
Caracas is one of the most dangerous places on earth. I suspect Damascus would be safer. Roaring inflation and shortages makes his rule not much of a success. It would be possible to have clinics in slums areas without wrecking the economy. He or his heir won’t be able to buy support for much longer.
I wish Mr Chavez all the best and I admire what he has done for working people in his country and the region. For too long the United States have treated South America as their own private plantation.
have your say