irish government finally gets the finger out re games

Helix

Ireland woos industry with new games incentive packages

Ireland's prime minister Enda Kenny has today announced plans to attract more games development to the country using flexible incentive packages.

Games Ireland, a newly formed trade body representing the industry in Ireland, supports the move, which it hopes will change the culture of games development in the country.

"All the biggest brands in the world are almost here now," Games Ireland's communications director Paul Hayes told GamesIndustry.biz.

"We just need to change the narrative and the types of projects they're doing. A lot of them are here in a support function."

A government report published yesterday by Forfás outlined the areas that the government is willing to look at in terms of the incentives, which include tax based incentives, and R&D and project grants.

Hayes explained that these packages would be fluid, and dependant on the needs of each company.

"The industry is evolving so fast that we kind of have to stay flexible in terms of the package of incentives that might work, and almost individually tailor them," he said.

"We'll take the best that we can from the Korean or the French or the Canadian experience, and just try and add what we can. I think as a country we've been pretty good at that and this is the first time that we've really focussed on games with a bit of a laser beam."

Representatives from some of the industries biggest companies were in attendance in Dublin for the launch, including SCEE, Microsoft, Nintendo, Activision Blizzard and EA, all as guests of Game Ireland. Hayes said their input will be vital to the government's plans.

"The video game industry is the most dynamic player in today's entertainment industry. Its unique mixture of creativity, technology, interactivity and fun gives it a head start on the competition," added Games Ireland CEO David Sweeney in an official statement.

"Ireland's rich reservoir of talent, technique and tenacity mean that it is now perfectly placed to play a leading role in Europe's video game industry, The Forfas report is a clear signpost for the kind of Games Incentive Package that Ireland will develop and offer to the fast changing industry to become the best place to develop games by 2016."

Games Ireland itself is only a few months old, but hopes to be able to support those plans by offering exactly what the industry is looking for.

"We're impressed by what TIGA and UKIE and everyone have done," said Hayes.

"We're pretty much going to see what the games industry needs over the next 18 months and then try and deliver that for them in one place."

Games Ireland already counts Activision, BigFish, Popcap, Havok and Demonware among its members.

"We've just come together in the last few months and put the membership together, because there's only about two and a half thousand people employed in Ireland in the games industry, but we're hoping to change that fairly dramatically over the next few years."

The Forfas report identifies six key opportunities for Ireland:

Developing an international cluster - stimulating connectedness between related sectors, nationally and internationally.
Enhancing skills and experience - addressing short term needs and building a continuous feed-stock of creative, technological and commercial capabilities.
Accelerating growth in creative content development - attracting and developing the talent pool - creating the dynamic environment.
Building international visibility - raising Ireland's visibility as a vibrant location for the games sector.
Driving R&D and innovation - incentivising innovation within Irish based firms, anticipating future needs.
Delivering next generation broadband - underpinning future growth with the provision of widely available, competitively priced advanced broadband services to homes and businesses.

With the global games industry expected to grow to £82.4 billion, the report also suggests that Ireland can double its employment in core games to 4500 people by 2015 if action is taken.

"Games can also be a catalyst for growth in a host of other related activities in the digital economy including social networks, search engines, animation, film and video and e-learning," added Martin Shanahan, chief executive of Forfás

"Success for Ireland in the games sector, however, is not a given and will require a step-change in policy and decisive action. The digital economy, of which the games sector is a pioneering force, is different: the sheer pace of change within it, the confluence of creativity, technology and commercial acumen, the revolutionised business models and novel monetisation strategies, the integral role that the customer plays in innovation, and the shifting dynamics through partnerships, mergers and acquisitions.

It demands a more anticipatory, agile and responsive approach to meet its future needs. Effective implementation of the actions outlined in our report will provide companies with the right environment not just for the games sector but in the wider digital economy."

about bloody time

Retr0gamer

To be honest I really wasn't expecting Ireland to go for something like this. It's a pity they didn't go for it when England was thinking of not implementing one because it would have lead to a few poached companies from accross the water. Still it's going to be good for games and jobs here.

super_furry

In fairness Ireland have been punching well above their weight when it comes to attracting games developers in the last decade. There's a great couple of articles on the Dublin developer scene in this month's copy of Edge - well worth picking up.

I think the biggest problem we're going to face is producing enough quality and qualified graduates to take up the jobs.

Genghiz Cohen

We have more game devs than jobs, trust me. I know

Retr0gamer

super_furry wrote: »

In fairness Ireland have been punching well above their weight when it comes to attracting games developers in the last decade. There's a great couple of articles on the Dublin developer scene in this month's copy of Edge - well worth picking up.

I think the biggest problem we're going to face is producing enough quality and qualified graduates to take up the jobs.

There's a lot of good games development courses out there and Irish universities were very quick to run these courses. I'm sure there's lots of graduates looking for jobs in the games industry.

penev10

super_furry wrote: »

In fairness Ireland have been punching well above their weight when it comes to attracting games developers in the last decade. There's a great couple of articles on the Dublin developer scene in this month's copy of Edge - well worth picking up.

I think the biggest problem we're going to face is producing enough quality and qualified graduates to take up the jobs.

You can view that article online now:
http://www.next-gen.biz/features/region-specific-dublin

Also have it in pdf format on there.

gizmo

The issue won't be attracting graduates, it'll be about attracting experienced senior staff over for any new studio founded. Once they're in place they can look to hiring some quality graduates. In the meantime, these folks are still better off going abroad and getting their experience in the established companies so that when the time comes they'll be able to move back home.

Grumpypants

Finally some forward thinking, and not just good news for developers but as with Bioware that's 400 customer service type jobs. Im sure others will open similar service based centres as online especially the free to play games get more and more popular.

ríomhaire

Maybe this'll help my brother get a job :P

hooradiation

gizmo wrote: »

The issue won't be attracting graduates, it'll be about attracting experienced senior staff over for any new studio founded. Once they're in place they can look to hiring some quality graduates. In the meantime, these folks are still better off going abroad and getting their experience in the established companies so that when the time comes they'll be able to move back home.

Of course, the problem being that once you leave to get your experience it's fairly likely that you'll end up settling down wherever you move to.
And once you've put down some roots and made the connections necessary within the industry to start your own company - why move back?

I don't know if Ireland can ever come close to what the UK has in terms of games development. Call centres and translation centres maybe but the UK has a long standing games development tradition and it's right there if you'd like to make a go of it.

RedXIV

gizmo wrote: »

The issue won't be attracting graduates, it'll be about attracting experienced senior staff over for any new studio founded. Once they're in place they can look to hiring some quality graduates. In the meantime, these folks are still better off going abroad and getting their experience in the established companies so that when the time comes they'll be able to move back home.

This is our main stumbling block. we're getting better in the casual and mobile gaming sectors with a good few experienced senior staff but for AAA games? We are woefully underrepresented. Everyone who had experience is long gone. We can only hope that the companies willing to invest here will overlook that

Stev_o

No offence to those who have this close to their hearts but they are about 2/3 years too late. The gaming industry is in decline and losing money fast. In a year or so the bubble will burst and we are going to see a huge number of studio closures. However if this scheme helps small independent studios find their feet then fair play but honestly the furthest I see this going is companies that making "mobile and social media" games having a office over here.

Skerries

yeah Ireland never had the bedroom coding ethic that Britain had back in the 80's and it really shows now with long established games companies from there

hooradiation

Stev_o wrote: »

The gaming industry is in decline and losing money fast. In a year or so the bubble will burst and we are going to see a huge number of studio closures.

Not sure if serious....

RedXIV

Stev_o wrote: »

No offence to those who have this close to their hearts but they are about 2/3 years too late. The gaming industry is in decline and losing money fast. In a year or so the bubble will burst and we are going to see a huge number of studio closures. However if this scheme helps small independent studios find their feet then fair play but honestly the furthest I see this going is companies that making "mobile and social media" games having a office over here.

You're right in that the current economic model for games is struggling but instead of saying the industry itself is in decline, I'd instead say the economic model is due an evolutionary step. We're tantalizingly close to the age of digital distribution only which will cut down on a lot of publishing costs (admittedly not good for the staff in that area) but this will reduce the amount of cost for companies trying to produce their games. The games industry is constantly evolving, and I think it would be foolish to scrap this as being too late. Especially if we get some good, smart start-ups

dreamers75

Wonder how many people from ireland are working in the industry due to courses taken here for the last 15 years.........

gizmo

hooradiation wrote: »

Of course, the problem being that once you leave to get your experience it's fairly likely that you'll end up settling down wherever you move to.
And once you've put down some roots and made the connections necessary within the industry to start your own company - why move back?

Not necessarily, the need to be mobile remains a pretty important requisite for the average game developer on this side of the Atlantic. There aren't really many cities in the UK which have enough studios present to warrant really settling down, at least in terms of buying a house, so I don't see the problem with getting people over in that context. Of course, that raises another issue with regards getting experienced staff in, there'll have to be some pretty good incentives offered in order for them to relocate to a country with so few job opportunities should their current one go belly up.

hooradiation wrote: »

I don't know if Ireland can ever come close to what the UK has in terms of games development. Call centres and translation centres maybe but the UK has a long standing games development tradition and it's right there if you'd like to make a go of it.

We could but it'll take a hell of a long time and at least one of the major publishers to open a studio here to get our name on the map. We can forget about poaching existing UK studios though, what we'd be looking at is one of the larger publishers opening up an internal shop here.

dreamers75 wrote: »

Wonder how many people from ireland are working in the industry due to courses taken here for the last 15 years.........

A more interesting figure would be the number of those working in the industry since the first games development courses started.

dreamers75

gizmo wrote: »

A more interesting figure would be the number of those working in the industry since the first games development courses started.

15 years ago ?

Retr0gamer

I kind of see a bit of an economic bubble burst coming along. Just a theory of mine but I can see smaller companies being unable to compete on the smart phone market when more is demanded from customers at unsustainable prices leading to consolidation of the market leaving only the big players. MOst of the business here is smartphone related and this initiative I can see only really attracting smart phone developers at first. The market there is growing and I think at an unsustainable rate.

crystallove

not sure this is a good news or bad?

satchmo

Gizmo's hit the nail on the head here - it's not a matter of there being enough graduates to fill the jobs, it's experienced devs that'll make the Irish games industry. And we're not going to come home until there's a decent base of companies... this is the first step towards building that base. It can only be a good thing.

gizmo

dreamers75 wrote: »

15 years ago ?

There were game development courses in Ireland 15 years ago?

Shiminay

The Ludo course was running out of Ballyfermot IT and that started in or around 15 years ago. http://www.bcfegames.com/

I spoke with Charles Cecil (creator of the Broken Sword series amongst others) when he was over for the JDIFF this year and his overall presentation was about the production of games and how they're so similar to film (which is of course why they've been a part of the Film Festival for the last couple of years). He said that whatever about developers, who certainly are very much in demand, there's possibly an even bigger demand for writers and artists who're interested in games as their medium. We're not too bad in this country for the aul creative thinking, so it's maybe another area that we should think about adapting to the gaming industry.

gizmo

Shiminay wrote: »

The Ludo course was running out of Ballyfermot IT and that started in or around 15 years ago. http://www.bcfegames.com/

Ah, I was referring more to the three/four year development courses which have sprung up in more recent years.

Stev_o

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I kind of see a bit of an economic bubble burst coming along. Just a theory of mine but I can see smaller companies being unable to compete on the smart phone market when more is demanded from customers at unsustainable prices leading to consolidation of the market leaving only the big players. MOst of the business here is smartphone related and this initiative I can see only really attracting smart phone developers at first. The market there is growing and I think at an unsustainable rate.

This is my own view of it. The money needed to compete on the market and returning a decent profit is becoming slightly ridiculous. People also seem to have quite a rosey picture of game development and sales at the moment and seem to be ignoring the outrageous costs that are going into games these days only for them to be slated by reviewers and have low sales. Something has got to give.

jimi_t2

Shiminay wrote: »

I spoke with Charles Cecil (creator of the Broken Sword series amongst others) when he was over for the JDIFF this year... He said that whatever about developers, who certainly are very much in demand, there's possibly an even bigger demand for writers and artists who're interested in games as their medium.

Tbh, from the casual trawling of jobs posts internationally, the only writers they seem to be looking for are for localisation. Seems its very much a tertiary skill shoehorned in with the developers toolkit - or am I completely wrong?

Blowfish

Stev_o wrote: »

This is my own view of it. The money needed to compete on the market and returning a decent profit is becoming slightly ridiculous. People also seem to have quite a rosey picture of game development and sales at the moment and seem to be ignoring the outrageous costs that are going into games these days only for them to be slated by reviewers and have low sales. Something has got to give.

That only applies to console gaming, which is only one section of the market and not even the dominant one.

Raskolnikov

hooradiation wrote: »

Not sure if serious....

It's true.

Profitability for just about all the major computer games companies has dropped like a stone during the recession. Growth has pretty much stopped, and if anything, the size of the industry has shrank thanks to the popularity of free, web-based/Facebook games.

Blowfish

Raskolnikov wrote: »

It's true.

Profitability for just about all the major computer games companies has dropped like a stone during the recession. Growth has pretty much stopped, and if anything, the size of the industry has shrank thanks to the popularity of free, web-based/Facebook games.

Nope, opportunities for profitability haven't dropped, they've just shifted. Read this: http://www.slideshare.net/timmerel/digicapital-global-video-games-investment-review

Raskolnikov

Blowfish wrote: »

Nope, opportunities for profitability haven't dropped, they've just shifted. Read this: http://www.slideshare.net/timmerel/digicapital-global-video-games-investment-review

There's a few companies in small niche areas that are doing well. However, most of the companies in traditional areas of the market (where just about all the money is) have struggled, and have been shedding staff or closing.

Blowfish

Raskolnikov wrote: »

There's a few companies in small niche areas that are doing well. However, most of the companies in traditional areas of the market (where just about all the money is) have struggled, and have been shedding staff or closing.

It's anything but niche. At the rate it's going by 2014 online/mobile games will be generating more revenue than 'traditional' retail games.