Imirt AGM 2016

Please join us for the Imirt AGM 2016, 6pm Fri 4th at Startlab Galway. Find out about Imirt and our plans for the coming year, meet the recently elected board and have your say about how Imirt can help represent game creators in Ireland. Let us know on the Facebook event page if you're planning to come along.

Both members and non-members are welcome to attend and we will also live stream the event on the Imirt twitch channel.

The Imirt AGM is on after the "Creative Stories - From Practitioners in Games and Animation" session in GMIT from 2-5pm and there will be a Galway Game Dev meetup later on nearby. If you have any questions you would like us to address at the AGM please email: contact@imirt.ie

Imirt Board Election 2016 results

Here are the results of the recent Imirt board election. Jen Carey and Alan Duggan will be joining the board, and Stephen Kelly has been reelected. The 7 members of the Imirt board are now:

Jen Carey, Alan Duggan, Chris Gregan, John O' Kane, Stephen Kelly, Colm Larkin, Brenda Romero

We would like to once again thank departing board members Owen Harris and John Halloran for their huge contributions to Imirt over the last couple years.

Thanks also to Elaine Reynolds and Ian Dunbar who helped with the election process. Many thanks to everyone who voted in the election and a special thank you to everyone who put their names forward.

Imirt Board Election 2016

Nominations are closed and voting for Imirt's new board will take place from Friday 23rd to midnight on Friday 30th September 2016. Details of how to vote will be sent to members by e-mail on Friday 23rd. You can get details about this years fantastic nominees here: http://www.imirt.ie/election-2016

Important note: As a present to everyone who's helped us along so far, all existing members will have their membership extended until the end of 2017! \o/ So there's no need to sign up again! :D New memberships also last until the end of 2017.

3 out of the 7 board seats are being contested in this election. These spots have been made available by board members Owen Harris, John Halloran, and Stephen Kelly. Owen and John shall both be stepping down after excellent work advising Imirt since before the Steering Committee was formed. Owen has coordinated initiatives like the ID2015 fund for GDC 2016, has run Imirt panels at multiple events, has highlighted Irish work with the press and he has been instrumental in engaging community nationally and internationally. John has organised funding from EI, managed Imirt events including the Unity event, talked with press, and handled our bank and accountancy interactions. Stephen unfortunately drew the unlucky short straw (sorry Stephen!) and he is also involved in this years nominations.

If you have any questions please email contact@imirt.ie and thank you for supporting Irish game developers!

Dr Aphra Kerr - DiGRA Distinguished Scholar

Congratulation to Dr Aphra Kerr on being selected for the inaugural class of DiGRA Distinguished Scholars! Dr Kerr has and continues to be instrumental in leading the Irish Games community and getting it to where it is today. Well done Aphra!

 

Digital Games Research Association

DiGRA is the association for academics and professionals who research digital games and associated phenomena. It encourages high-quality research on games, and promotes collaboration and dissemination of work by its members.
http://www.digra.org/the-association/about-us/

2016 Imirt Board Elections

Update: The deadline for nominations is Wed 31st Aug 2016

The 2016 Board elections for Imirt will happen in late September. There will be three seats available for nominees (next year the remaining four board spots will be available). One is being vacated by Owen Harris after a lot of excellent work setting up Imirt and helping to run it ever since. After a draw of straws the two remaining seats will made available by John Halloran and Stephen Kelly who will both join in this years nominations.

To become a nominee you simply need to be a member of Imirt and e-mail contact@imirt.ie expressing an interest (i.e. you self nominate). We will then ask for a bio and optional photo to put on the Imirt website in the run up to the elections. Also if you have any other questions or suggestions please get in touch!

Imirt Game Developer Survey 2016

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!

 

Imirt Inspire 9: Ryan Morrison

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. 

Imirt Inspire 8: Drew McGee

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.

Imirt General Meeting + The Galway Game Expo

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.

Imirt Inspire 4: Henry Smith

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.

Creative Europe funding seminar video and slides

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.



GDC 2016 Financial Assistance Fund

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



Seminar on Creative Europe Video Games Development Funding

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.

Imirt Inspire 3: David Lloyd & Barney Cumming

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.

Imirt Inspire 2: Chelsea Howe

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.