Best Irish Game Ever

cr1spy

Myself and a few friends were thinking the other day about the Irish games industry, or rather the complete lack of one. We were trying to think of Irish games, but all we could come up with were web-based games, nothing for a major console/PC.

It just seems strange that there's no major companies at all. Even relatively less-well off countries such as the Czech Republic ( VietCong, Hidden & Dangerous, Operation FlashPoint) produce games. Ireland has some of the highest PlayStation pentration rates in Europe, and has plenty of skilled IT people, so why are they making games?

The biggest thing we came up with was the Havoc physics engine designed by a team of former Trinity students.

Maybe I'm wrong but is there quality Irish games out there?

BKtje

Championship Manager is Irish isn't it?
Thought i read that on the cm forum just before the release of the latest one.

Rabies

Speed Freaks on the PSX was developed in Ireland, i think :dunno:

BLITZ_Molloy

Pot 'O Gold/Leprechaun the arcade game.

Although I'm guessing that it wasn't developed in Ireland because they managed to mispell all the locations and the Leprechaun doesn't carry a knife on the Limerick stage.

CombatCow

Originally posted by Rabies
Speed Freaks on the PSX was developed in Ireland, i think :dunno:

yeah it was,by funcom.


CombatCow

DiscoStu

what happened to that studio they had in dublin?

Creamy Goodness

what about that Hugo game the character from tg4 they must of been irish???

BLITZ_Molloy

I think there were alot of big games like the Final Fantasy's localised for Europe in this country.

I'm not surprised there aren't many development houses in Ireland. The English and French based ones have been struggling for several years now and those are countries with much bigger resources for this kind of thing.

CombatCow

Originally posted by DiscoStu
what happened to that studio they had in dublin?

They stopped making psx games,and relocated to oslo in norway to make online pc games.They also brought out an adventure game a good while ago - The longest Journey

Vivendi universal have a publishing place in dublin,ok they dont make the games,but they do test them.

CombatCow

DrEvil

Funcom made speed freaks and they were based in clonskeagh(beside UCD). they've moved out of ireland now a few years

Do microsoft do any game development here? Their euro HQ is here they must do something. I do know they do localisation though

Bigshot

Wasnt their some Moto Cross Game made hear a few years ago?Cant remeber the name of it. Could be wrong of course.

Mr E

Wasn't The Longest Journey a Funcom game? One of the best point'n'clickers in recent years....

Asok

Speaking of game developers did Torc Interactive ever finish their engine?

SheroN

it's all localisation and testing that microsoft do in dublin.

amp

Blizzard definitely have some coders here because a customers boyfriend is one.

ykt0di9url7bc3

(doh! of course)

/me slaps forehead

GL minesweeper






TAXI!

po0k

Originally posted by Cr3m0
what about that Hugo game the character from tg4 they must of been irish???

Húdí or Húdaí or something.

Bloody terrible tbh
About 16 frames of animation.

SheroN

I think they bought that off ITV aswell.....i rememer that same character used to be on some ITV saturday morning tv show with any crane.

cr1spy

Ok, thanks for the replies people, it seems like there isn't really a "proper" games industry here.

Does anyone have any reasons why not?

(and btw, I remember that Hudaí game, and words can't describe how bloody awful that was)

DrEvil

the only thing relating to game developing in ireland that i can find is at http://www.gamedevelopers.ie

n1ck

Its clearly Hugo that cartoon dude that is on TG4 that people control with the buttons on their phone, he was developed into a pc game i think which got about 4% from PC Gamer.

WetDaddy

Is there talk of a GAA game being developed?

A friend of mine mentioned it to me. To be honest, it could be really good. Not really a GAA fan myself, but the speed / force of it could make for something interesting...

Hurling too...

Ohhhhh... I feel so patriotic...

Kiith

there are two GAA games being made, i think. one by sony and one by the GAA themselves. not sure of any details about them.

monument

Originally posted by Kiith
there are two GAA games being made, i think. one by sony and one by the GAA themselves. not sure of any details about them.

An Aus dev is making one for SCEI/SCEE on licence by the GAA.

Originally posted by Asok
Speaking of game developers did Torc Interactive ever finish their engine?

Still working on it I think. They had a video of a tech demo for it a few months back.

DrEvil

Originally posted by Kiith
there are two GAA games being made, i think. one by sony and one by the GAA themselves. not sure of any details about them.

i'm pretty sure there are two in development. There is an official one by some aussie group which is licensed by the gaa and uses the engine off an aussie rules game. AFAIK there is another gaa game being made by some independent irish ppl which is unofficial. I just imagine FIFA versus PES happening with gaa

WetDaddy

Monument,

If you have a link to that tech demo, I'd be very interested in seeing it...


-S

regeneration

The main problem is that the IDA doesn't seem to be trying to attract the multimedia groups into this country.
I wont names names, but example. an unamed (but v. large) games company were supposed to be setting up shop in Ireland. I applied for an agency listed position, looking for gamesy graduates (me). Now after about a month waiting for a reposonse, they got back to me saying that their relocation was put on hold, and would get back to me when it was alive again. They never did, so I suppose it was canned and the copany went elsewhere.
Now a few months later, I read of a reputable rumour that the IDA (or whoever tries to get these fellas into the country) were forcing this company to locate in an office outside of Dublin; the company wanted to locate in Dublin, and not take part in any decentralisation (fair enough I suppose, company's prerogative), so eventually, they said to hell with it, and left.

There are small games development companies out there, like torc, UpstartGames etc; but none of the major players.

tHE vAGGABOND

First, the brothers who founded Championship manager have nothing to do with Ireland. As it says on the website, "A game made by two football fanatics, Oliver and Paul Collyer, from their bedroom in sleepy Shropshire".

A lot of companies in the games industry are suffering, and every month or so you hear stories of companies closing, or letting staff go. People are not expaning, so therefore offices are where people found them, or where there are the most talented people from which to hire people. Be that near places like Dundee (uni with several games degrees) or London where you have 10 million people to hire from

The question you guys should be asking, is why irish people are not setting up games companies in ireland, let alone generally. Every large games developer or publisher has irish people all over its range of talented employees, yet none of them return home to set up companies. That is strange?

People on the street are also the problem, by blanketly buying EA Sports Game 7 and not Risky New Different Game 1 by new studio that new studio is ****ed due to bad sales and therefore cannot hire, expand or develop..

sceptre

Originally posted by Cr3m0
what about that Hugo game the character from tg4 they must of been irish???

German (or Dutch or something) as far as I know - they overdub for TG4.

Captain Trips

Originally posted by tHE vAGGABOND


People on the street are also the problem, by blanketly buying EA Sports Game 7 and not Risky New Different Game 1 by new studio that new studio is ****ed due to bad sales and therefore cannot hire, expand or develop..

Yeah that's very true. I think that also the problem is with the big brands like above or the 40 million or something obscene spent on HL2 means that it will be the one people get and will skip something because it doesn't have a kick ass gfx engine.

Average joe has an average PC or a PS2. They will buy the big brand games to go with the big brand PC. The more alternative side of things is less catered for and in Ireland the market is still small compared to e.g., UK.

Zombrex

AFAIK FunCom are from Scandanavia, they just had a studio in Ireland which made a few console games and then was closed down when FunCom started into the whole multiplayer thingy with Anarchy Online. Shame really.

Gremlin used to have a studio here a long time ago that made Little Devil, but that closed down.

...sigh...

RobertFoster

They've been promising a GAA game since before 2000...and it was destined for the PS.

dangerman

Funcom, that brings back the memories.

When I was in transition year I did playtesting there for their in-development motorcross bike game. Ended up going back in a few times for playtesting as the game went on.

Speed freaks was being developed at the same time, and if i remember correctly was a decent hit and made it to the cover of at least one ps magazine?

They were really nice people. I'll never forget the room they had full of all the consoles and at lunch we'd have quake 2 tournaments etc. Great stuff.