Well, it's been a busy first year for Imirt!
In this years survey we'd love to get your feedback on the work that's been done so far and find out what you think Imirt should focus on in the future.
The survey is open to anyone involved in the games industry in Ireland, you do not need to be an Imirt member to participate. The survey will finish on 19th Aug 2016 and we will share the results on the Imirt website.
The survey form is available here, thank you for your support!
Ryan Morrison has made a name for himself within the legal industry as someone focused on making sure the law protects everyone, not just the financially superior. Whether it be matters of intellectual property, complex contract issues or just making sure you are comfortable as you take your company forward into the future, Ryan has handled it all. Deemed “The Video Game Attorney” by the countless developers he has helped through his free online legal Q&A’s, Ryan understands that this new and innovative industry requires a new and innovative approach to law.
Drew McGee is a freelance writer currently working in video games. He is the lead writer for Stoic’s recently-released Banner Saga 2 and was the quest writer on the BAFTA-nominated original Banner Saga. He worked at Bioware on Star Wars: The Old Republic and wrote for small published indie games before that (Domain of Heroes, and Bumble Tales). When he’s not writing, he’s traveling and strumming a ukulele.
Jeff Vogel started Spiderweb Software in 1994. Since then, he has made many indie/shareware fantasy RPGs for Windows, Mac, iPad, etc., including the Exile, Geneforge, Avadon, and Avernum series and Nethergate: Resurrection. He writes about indie games and the industry in general at his blog The Bottom Feeder.
We're co-hosting the next Imirt General Meeting with The Galway Games Expo on Sat 7th May 2016. You can find more info about the Galway Games expo on their Facebook page. The expo runs from 2pm to 6pm, with the Imirt GM following straight afterwards.
The GM is open to members and non-members, all welcome. Hear from the Imirt board about what’s coming up, ask us questions, and give us your feedback! Special guest speaker on the night will be George Thomson from EA Galway.
If you have any questions or suggestions you would like the board to address at the GM please send an email to contact@imirt.ie.
The Imirt Games Directory is now live! This is a showcase for the incredibly diverse range of Irish games creators.
Many thanks to everyone who sent us in their details. If you would like to be included, just fill out the linked form on the directory page.
Henry used to be a UI programmer for BioWare on games like Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 3. In 2012 he went "indie". His first project is the award-winning party game Spaceteam which is (still) taking him on some fun adventures. He also started the Spaceteam Admiral's Club so that fans can help him make and share more games, for free. He loves user interfaces, board games, and puzzles. His next project is another local-multiplayer co-op game called Blabyrinth.
IMIRT recently teamed up with the MEDIA Office of Creative Europe Desk Ireland to hold a seminar on how to access Creative Europe funding available for Video Games Development.
Many thanks to everyone who came along on the day and tuned in for the live stream, it was great to see such a big turnout. For those who missed it, the video and slides from the talk are now available online.
Thanks to Irish Design 2015 we will be able to provide financial assistance of €500 to 6 Imirt members attending the Game Developers Conference, March 14th - 18th in San Francisco.
The Game Developers Conference is the world’s premier conference for developers and is a great event to attend to further career, knowledge, and experience of the games industry. Imirt members can get the finer details of how the fund will work and apply here: http://www.imirt.ie/gdc-2016-fund
The MEDIA Office of Creative Europe Desk Ireland is teaming up with IMIRT, The Irish Game Makers Association, to hold a seminar on how to access Creative Europe funding available for Video Games Development. The seminar will focus on the upcoming deadline for the Creative Europe Video Games funding which is March 3rd.
The seminar takes place in The Morrison Hotel, Ormond Quay Lower, Dublin 1 on Thursday January 21st from 10am – 12.30pm and is free of charge to attend.
The event will be live streamed at http://twitch.tv/imirt_ie starting at 10am.
This annual funding call which is now open, offers funding for Video Game companies from €10,000 to €150,000 for concept and project development. Previous recipients from Ireland include Story Toys and Tribal Interactive.
A video games company can apply if they are registered for at least 12 months and have produced a game with a strong narrative structure, which has been commercially distributed since the beginning of 2013. The type of games that Creative Europe is looking to fund are narrative storytelling video games regardless of platform or expected distribution method. The story must be told or shown throughout the whole game (in-game storytelling) and not only as an introduction or an ending to the game. In all cases the video game must be intended for commercial exploitation.
If you are interested in attending the seminar, click here to RSVP by Tuesday January 19th.
For more information on the Video Game scheme click here.
David and Barney have been working on games together for nearly a decade at a series of Melbourne companies that either shut-down or were absorbed by the all-consuming Electronic Arts. A few years ago the Coder/Artist duo decided to start their own little indie thing called Powerhoof. Their first game, Crawl, is a local-multiplayer dungeon crawler and was released on early access a little over a year ago. Since then the boys have been adding more and more content to Crawl, with a brief hiatus to release another little local-multiplayer game called Regular Human Basketball.
Chelsea Howe is an award-winning game designer currently working at EA Mobile as a creative director. Previously, she was lead designer on TinyCo’s Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff and concurrently ran a course on playful design at California College of the Arts. In 2015, she was featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Games. In addition to co-organizing the Queerness and Games Conference, Chelsea also ran the San Francisco Global Game Jam for four years, talks about game design at places like GamesBeat, GDC, UCSC, and more, and in 2013 found her way onto the GDC Advisory Board.
Contact: info@imirt.ie
7 DECEMBER 2015 — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Imirt: The Irish Game Makers Association has made available €46,150 in tuition scholarships to 25 of its members in partnership with the Game Developers Conference (GDC) and UBM Tech.
The Game Developers Conference (gdconf.com) is the premiere conference for game developers in the world and is held each Spring in San Francisco, CA. The conference attracts 30,000 attendees from all over the world and offers workshops, talks and opportunities for game developers to network with international game developers, prospective partners, publishers and hardware manufacturers.
“GDC is the single-most important event of the year for the game industry,” said Brenda Romero, chairperson of Imirt. “By providing these scholarships, we not only increase the Irish presence at the show, but increase the knowledge base within the country as well. We’re grateful to GDC for making this possible.” Romero also serves on the GDC Game Design Advisory Board.
The scholarship provides attendees with an all-access pass to GDC, normally valued at €1845.
Recipients will be able to attend the main GDC conference as well as the two days of tutorials and summits that precede the main event. Winners were selected based on answers submitted to the review committee which was composed of Romero, Laralyn McWilliams and Llaura NicAodh.
For winner Jen Carey, a Dublin-based game writer and designer, the GDC scholarship provides a
great chance to network with international game developers she would not otherwise meet. “Since collaboration is such a big part of creative industries, the opportunity to get to know so many amazing people is invaluable,” said Carey. “I'm hoping to learn from everybody there and in turn let them know about the brilliant work done in Ireland by so many talented people."
Imirt: The Irish Game Makers Association represents game makers from all disciplines throughout
Ireland, both analog and digital. Among Imirt’s members are thirty nine company founders based in Ireland as well as developers from thirty four game companies developing games on consoles, PC, mobile, VR and tabletop. Imirt members come from all sectors of the game industry including
developers, educators, middleware and support services.
Imirt has teamed up with the GDC scholarship programme to offer 25 FREE FULL PASSES to GDC 2016. Details of how to apply for this scholarship are here.
You need to be a member of Imirt to be eligible, so sign up and support game makers in Ireland. The closing date for applications is Thursday 3rd of December.
Dren McDonald has worked in the game industry as an audio director, composer and sound designer on titles such as Gathering Sky, Transformers: Age of Extinction The Official Game, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Commander, Dangerous Dave in the Deserted Pirate's Hideout HD, Skulls of the Shogun, Elevate (2014's Apple App of the Year), Cooking Dash 2016, Diner Dash 2015, Ravenwood Fair and over 60 other game titles.
The first Annual General Meeting for Imirt will be held on Nov 5th at the NDRC from 6:30pm-8:30pm. This is a great opportunity to meet the newly elected board and to find out about what we're planning for the coming months. The meeting is open to members and non-members alike so please feel free to come along.
We'll be live streaming the event on Twitch, and the video will be available afterwards. After the AGM we'll be heading over to Arthur's Pub for refreshments.
To attend, please register on our Event Brite page.
See you there!
To get in touch with Imirt email contact@imirt.ie
NDRC,
The Digital Exchange,
Crane Street,
Dublin 8, Ireland
http://www.ndrc.ie/contact
http://www.twitch.tv/imirt_ie
http://www.arthurspub.ie
The election results are in and the first elected Imirt board members are:
We would like to congratulate everyone who was elected and wish them well in their important role supporting the Irish game development community. Congratulations also to the very worthy nominees who ran in the election but who didn’t get voted in this time. We hope to see them run in next year’s election in addition to some new faces. There were a number of people in close contention for the 7th seat on the board, demonstrating the support many of the nominees had from the Irish dev community.
There will be an AGM in November for all members which will be a great opportunity to hear from the new board and to discuss and issues you would like to bring up. Imirt is in the process of being set up as a limited company and transitioning from being run by the steering committee to the newly elected board. There will be a board election every year, where half of the board seats will be up for election. That means that some of the board members will serve for 1 year and others for 2 years.
If you would like to get in touch with Imirt email contact@imirt.ie
If you are not yet a member, you can join Imirt here: http://www.imirt.ie/join/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Imirt/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/imirt_ie
Website: www.imirt.ie
There’s also a #imirt channel on the IrishGameDev Slack group.
Thank you to everyone who has joined Imirt, shown support, voted in the elections and particularly thanks to everyone who put themselves forward for election.
Many Thanks,
Paul Conway & Elaine Reynolds (Imirt Steering Committee Members)
Voting for Imirt's first board will take place from Monday 21st to Friday 25th September (voting closes at midnight on the 25th). All members who sign up before midnight on THURSDAY 24th September will be eligible to vote. Details of how to vote will be sent to members by the 21st. It'll all be online so doesn't matter where in the world you are.
Take a look here to find out more about the 15 nominees and why they are running for election: http://www.imirt.ie/nominees/.
Sign up for Imirt here for only €20: http://www.imirt.ie/join/
If you are thinking of joining Imirt but haven't joined yet, sign up now to ensure you are registered to vote in this historic election!