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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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It’s time to tax the super rich.
@James Joseph: it’s time to tax vulture funds and not raising welfare a fiver a week and cutting the Xmas bonus would save a billion a year! They don’t want to collect more from the lpt due to an imminent election. When the shit hits the fan again and the analysis starts , fg won’t have been found to be a prudent set of hands , believe me !
Enda lied. Leo made it worse & Harris hasn’t a clue. FG don’t care about ordinary citizens suffering this way – they only care about themselves & their wealthy influencers. Never wasting a vote on that rotten party again.
@Setrakian: unfortunately it won’t matter who you vote in . government departments are run by long term civil servants with no accountability. Harris is just a public face of the system.until we get accountability it just goes on and on
Great week for the government. Over 10000 on trolleys and 10000 homeless. Should give themselves a raise
@Shaun Gallagher: don’t give the parasites ideas.
@Shaun Gallagher: they just did in October. Another 900 a year.1%.
@Shaun Gallagher: homelessness is a worldwide problem, there is 16000 homeless in NI under SF watch
@Patrick O Connell: So Parrick you are happy with the amount of people who have no home to call their own? There should be no one homeless in this Country if we had a Government that would put Ireland first.
Gotten to the stage where I’d happily vote to bar all serving TD’s and ministers from holding private health insurance.
Let them experience having to use the public health service is the only way to get things sorted.
@Mill Lane: that’s an inspired idea! Won’t happen though the piggies at the trough wouldn’t allow it!
If there was ever a major rail or aviation crash the system would crash. God help us all. Senior management are not up to running the HSE and the Dept of Health are at war with each other wasting money.
@Martin Sinnott: If you had an accident and woke up in one of our hospitals, you would think that there had been some sort of natural disaster such is the scale of the issue. It’s complete carnage. People everywhere. Fair play to the nurses and staff that work in those conditions
@Martin Sinnott: get rid of the gormless failure Simon Harris, finish your studies Simon and let a competent adult take over…
@Gus Sheridan: But who? And could anyone honestly make a difference at this point? Just take the recent situation with the mortuary in Waterford, there’s a written history of that going back to at least 2004 when State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy had written about her concerns regarding it. In 2017 a body had to be taken to another hospital as there was no room in Waterford, it’s this history of poor conditions that drove Prof Rob Landers to write and complain about the mortuary in University Hospital Waterford. Yet the Taoiseach could find no evidence to support it. Did he look?
No dignity for patients, no peace of mind for relatives but at least people can google what’s wrong with them on their high speed broadband or take great comfort knowing that the tax payer is shelling out billions to build a children’s hospital for consultants to make their fortune in the private clinics.
The public & hospital staff know it’s ‘unacceptable overcrowding…’ but where is the URGENCY from Government to adequately tackle the emergency?Plus over 700,000 people on hospital waiting lists,this is unacceptable also….but where is the URGENCY to adequately tackle this?There seems to be a sence of tolerance from Government re ‘unacceptable’ hospital overcrowding,massive hospital waiting lists etc otherwise these ‘unacceptable’conditions wouldn’t be allowed continue year after year!
Don’t worry soon they will all have broadband to stem the boredom.
10,000 in the corridors and at least another 10,000 on the streets , ahhh sure it’s a great wee country , Fu(kin 1st world country on its way back to 3rd world
@Karllye kripton: on its way back?…….
Vote fine gael, fair play to everyone. I’m alright John.
You voted for them so what do you expect !!!!.
Almost 70 years of complacency and you still vote for them.
Before you whinge “who else is there” , how do you know unless you try.
FFFG were democratically elected and this is what you get.
Nothing will ever change until both parties are removed.
But realistically we all know they’ll be in power for a long time to come
Dont worry about it Simon and Leo have appropriated MINIMUM €12 million to fund abortion “services”. You voted for it. Now reap the consequences
@Ismise Máire: whst has this to do with abortion ? This is the result of bad managment and greedy managers.
Shocking. Wouldn’t happen in the private sector because management would be fired and not have public service protection
Ireland, A ship of fools or Banana Republic, take your pick.
I was one of those people..went into hospital in severe pain did not see a doctor fr 12HRS..LIKE A FIELD HOSPITAL..
I’d wager that out of those 10,000 people that were on trolly’s how many were actually serious enough to warrant the need of a bed and how many could have been dealt by out of hours doc.
I saw one night I had to present to ED as I thought I was having a heart attack. There was a mother her kid had a high temp the mother started getting shouty so a nurse came out and asked did you present to caredoc first the mother replied no and was told she’ll be dealt with in rotation. There was a man and woman with a child who vomiting. The point been if people used caredoc for the minor ailments then the figure wouldn’t be 10,000 another thing a fee of €50 should be threatened for cases deemed not warranting specialist care like turning up with a cold or cough or vomiting.
Is it patients or is it patient days. Neither is good but knowing this confirms absolutely as I recall this being an issue before.
have your say