Great potential seen for gaming sector in Ireland

Ireland is well placed to benefit from growing world demand for electronic games. We have the technical expertise and the science, but also the creativity and artistic skills to succeed, said the founder of Irish companies Havok and Swrve. Steve Collins was speaking yesterday at the press launch of a new exhibition at the Science Gallery, Game: the future of play.

A comprehensive report on the games industry in Ireland was also launched yesterday. The sector employs more than 2,800 people in the Republic and generated sales of more than €2 billion over the past 11 years, it indicates.

This exhibit ranks as one of the most appealing yet offered by the Science Gallery, with visitor participation encouraged at every exhibit. Try walking through a virtual world or make a vicious troll dance. Visitors can play the old Space Invaders game, only updated so they battle the approaching aliens by moving about rather than using a controller.

The old Ping Pong game has also been recycled in an exhibit called Re-Pong where the player paddles have been linked by big springs to introduce a much more challenging game.

“In the last two or three years the games industry has been turned on its head,” Mr Collins said. Development was in the hands of major companies but now anyone can become a developer via phone apps. The changes were “challenging people’s perceptions of what a game is and who gamers are”, he said.

He co-curated the exhibition with gallery director Michael John Gorman and Mads Haahr of Trinity College Dublin. “We wanted to explore where games technology is going,” Mr Gorman said.

The industry report, authored by Jamie McCormick for GamesDevelopers.ie, found that even after some high-profile layoffs and closures there has been an estimated 91 per cent increase in the number of people working in the games industry since 2009.

A Forfás survey, following last year’s report, took account of the contraction in the industry, with about 590 jobs lost. The survey found that although there had been some closures and a reduction in investment by international firms, 11 development firms and one middleware company had entered the indigenous market. Further firms had also set up after the report’s second survey in October.

The major firms all began as small companies, Mr McCormick said, and the future big players in the games industry could begin from two developers working together in a garage.