Was there ever an Irish gaming scene?

briany

Let me define what I mean by 'scene', here, because obviously gaming has been enjoyed in Ireland almost as long as it has anywhere else, I suppose...

You know how in those British gaming retrospectives, they go on about games, machines or magazines that were only popular, or most popular, in Britain? Basically wondering if there was ever anything like that in Ireland. Mostly, I have thought that the Irish gaming scene was entirely informed by the UK one and for all intents and purposes was part of it, really, but was wondering if there was ever anything at all in terms of games and games magazines that had a primarily Irish origin, circulation, sensibility and/or appeal, or if the numbers of people involved at the time simply didn't support anything being produced. Even in more modern times the only thing I can think of is those GAA games on the PS2...

Kenjataimu

Speed Freaks for the PS1 was made in Ireland.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_Freaks

CiDeRmAn

The Havok physics engine, which is used in almost everything, including games platforms since the PS2/Xbox and GC, is Irish, born of a lab in Trinity College, Dublin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havok_(company)

There was also an Official Playstation Magazine Ireland edition, it was put together by a team who worked in the basement of Gamesworld (now Gamestop) on Liffey St.
I used to work there and it was previously the store room, but at some point the lads rented it out to the OPM people.
Bit chilly there, and if the Liffey rose too high it would develop into an indoor swimmingpool!

The GAA games weren't developed here though, it was an Australian team called Transmission Games who made some well received AFL titles for their home market, and then had the engine modified to work in gaelic football and, later, hurling as well as a football sequel.

CiDeRmAn

Kenjataimu wrote: »

Speed Freaks for the PS1 was made in Ireland.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_Freaks

I was in a public art exhibition around Stephen's Green a number of years ago and the guy exhibiting next to me was one of the leaders on that team.
They got shafted by Sony, arriving at the E3 that year with a great product, only to get shoved down into some poor area while the surprise of the show was Crash Team Racing, a poorer game and but got pride of place.
Crash Team Racing even resulted in Speed Freaks being delayed in the US so it wouldn't clash.
The Speed Freaks team were gutted.

Retr0gamer

Kim Justice video on gremlin recently was talking about an Irish gremlin studio.

CiDeRmAn

There was a short lived digital computer magazine back in the early 00's, based up near Glasnevin.
I went up there to do an interview on gaming at the time, nominated by the bosses in Gamesworld, as well as lend my new imported GC for review.
They did not "get" the GC, preferring the US stylings on the Xbox instead... uncultured swine!

o1s1n

Atari plant in Ireland.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057379666

Dr Bob

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Kim Justice video on gremlin recently was talking about an Irish gremlin studio.

Remember talking to a lad who worked there as a coder...this was early 90s ( it was in the games shop around the corner from the top of o'connell st and they were demoing a cd32 )

Tchoin

Demonware is another Irish company that although it does not make games, its networking technology is used in many. They have been around since 2003, and recently been bought by Activision Blizzard.

Gunmonkey

There was a Irish gaming magazine called G4 Ireland, came out around the later half of the PS1 time.

Amazed I still have them. Also added a pic of the people who wrote it in case anyone knows them.

http://i.imgur.com/TdYgbdC.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/iEOL95n.jpg

CiDeRmAn

I had the all black "vader" Atari 2600, long since sold on, with the lovely "made in Ireland" emblazoned on the bottom.

Also, the awesomeness that is Super Hexagon is from the legend that is Terry Kavanagh, of this parish.
Here is in action, playing his magnum opus in it's most difficult mode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ96olZr8DE

BGOllie

my neighbour's uncle worked at the atari factory. Near the end he was specialized in fixing outun cabs and pcb after sega contracted atari to build their machines

I'm trying to organise a meeting with him and maybe do an interview as I have toooons of questions for him

K.O.Kiki

John Romero has set up shop in Galway now BTW

Mr.Saturn

There's been a couple studios that have been snapped up by EA and are now dead. Activision still do all their European localization/QC at their Parnell Street office.

Retr0gamer

Gunmonkey wrote: »

There was a Irish gaming magazine called G4 Ireland, came out around the later half of the PS1 time.

Amazed I still have them. Also added a pic of the people who wrote it in case anyone knows them.

http://i.imgur.com/TdYgbdC.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/iEOL95n.jpg

The original games forum mod wrote for them before moving to bigger things at eurogamer and beyond. Never once banned me despite deserving it multiple times.

Apparently he was on the Den promoting it and Dustin just spent the segment ripping into him for being a nerd.

CiDeRmAn

Isn't the guy who plays Dustin filling bags in Penney's now?
Who's laughing now? Who's laughing now!!

SoaringPanda

Gunmonkey wrote: »

There was a Irish gaming magazine called G4 Ireland, came out around the later half of the PS1 time.

Amazed I still have them. Also added a pic of the people who wrote it in case anyone knows them.

http://i.imgur.com/TdYgbdC.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/iEOL95n.jpg

G4 was a fantastic magazine.

o1s1n

I remember that alright, had every issue. Threw them all out recently if I remember correctly

Were there any other Irish gaming magazines over the years or was that the only one?

Retr0gamer

There's was the official Irish PlayStation magazine but that was the same quality as used toilet paper.

CiDeRmAn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There's was the official Irish PlayStation magazine but that was the same quality as used toilet paper.

It'd be rubbish, the paper is too shiny to be functional as toilet paper, plus it was filled with sh1te already!

Published from the basement of Gamesworld on Liffey St, basically the magazine was a printed form of those news collating websites, it just collected press releases from Sony and those publishing games on PS formats and printed them with minimal changes.

brianregan09

One my best mates was running Open Emotion studios which had a few vita and psp releases a few years back and a gaming review website called Gamepinion which he's planning on relaunching in the coming weeks and I'm coming on board as a reviewer

Shapey Fiend

Anybody remember a PC FPS being developed in somewhere like Sligo or Donegal in the early aughts? It's a pretty vague memory but I think the screenshots were quite spiffy for the time. Never came out presumably.

McLoughlin

Wasn't their a Waterford game developer ? I think Michael Jackson Moonwalker was made by them.

Retr0gamer

Pretty sure moonwalked was Segas Shinobi team, one of the am divisions.

Shapey Fiend

Some of the home computer ports were done by Emerald Software in Waterford. There are videos on YouTube about it.

Arcade versions by Sega AM1.

Chris_Heilong

Sega Saturn game used to be printed in Ireland, the song at the end of Metal Gear Solid was recorded in Dublin and something to do with Mass Effect having something Irish that I remember seeing when I finished it but have forgotten. Inst Dsave Perry who made the Earth Worm Jim games Irish?

YourSuperior

Gunmonkey wrote: »

There was a Irish gaming magazine called G4 Ireland, came out around the later half of the PS1 time.

Amazed I still have them. Also added a pic of the people who wrote it in case anyone knows them.

http://i.imgur.com/TdYgbdC.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/iEOL95n.jpg

I had the issue with Duke Nukem on the cover, or was it DN? Either my memory is faulty or I'm just losing it.

The market for gaming magazines was tough in the late 90's. UK magazines that is. Did G4 last long?

Total Control and Arcade finished up within two years.

Linoud

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havok_(software)

Pretty sure this counts, seeing as it's in most games. :-]

Retr0gamer

I used to work in the Havok offices.....

Doing security and Havok was the one company whose offices we were never allowed to go into

CiDeRmAn

YourSuperior wrote: »

I had the issue with Duke Nukem on the cover, or was it DN? Either my memory is faulty or I'm just losing it.

The market for gaming magazines was tough in the late 90's. UK magazines that is. Did G4 last long?

Total Control and Arcade finished up within two years.

I think the coming of the internet meant that, never mind online gaming, the consumption of news in the scene shifted from the month late realm of the printed page to the instant nature of online publishing.
Personally, a bit of a golden area, just before YouTube and clickbait took hold.

Another good metric is looking at the likes of Edge and their E3 coverage, once upon a time it was a big deal in that issue, but in latter years it is still a multipage article but it's no longer front page news, given that most will have already been aware of it all from the aforementioned internet.

YourSuperior

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I think the coming of the internet meant that, never mind online gaming, the consumption of news in the scene shifted from the month late realm of the printed page to the instant nature of online publishing.
Personally, a bit of a golden area, just before YouTube and clickbait took hold.

Another good metric is looking at the likes of Edge and their E3 coverage, once upon a time it was a big deal in that issue, but in latter years it is still a multipage article but it's no longer front page news, given that most will have already been aware of it all from the aforementioned internet.

Oh for sure, web 2.0, the end of dial-up etc., around the middle of the 00's. The newsagents had plenty of gaming mags up to then. Some consumers must prefer hard-copy, the prices are steep enough -- €8 - €9. I haven't bought a magazine in ten years.

YourSuperior

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I used to work in the Havok offices.....

Doing security and Havok was the one company whose offices we were never allowed to go into

Did you suspect anything deeply, deeply sinister going on there?

CiDeRmAn

YourSuperior wrote: »

Oh for sure, web 2.0, the end of dial-up etc., around the middle of the 00's. The newsagents had plenty of gaming mags up to then. Some consumers must prefer hard-copy, the prices are steep enough -- €8 - €9. I haven't bought a magazine in ten years.

I'm only buying Edge these days.
I used to be an occasional buyer of other games mags, back in the 80's and 90's, console specific ones like the 3DO or Playstation magazine, also some PC mags from the States back in the 90's, Boot being a fave, and US games mags like EGM too for a number of years.
But, over time, it's been pared back to Edge, simply for the journalism and articles, things that tend not to be a priority in a five minute Youtube video.

briany

So is this all to say that there was no bedroom coding scene in Ireland around the early 80s to the best of the recollection of anyone here who is old enough to / can remember?

Sparks43

briany wrote: »

So is this all to say that there was no bedroom coding scene in Ireland around the early 80s to the best of the recollection of anyone here who is old enough to / can remember?

In my teenage years I used to code on the spectrum

One of my earliest projects is below if you fancy trying it out

10 PRINT "BOOBIES";
20 GOTO 10

That ; is very important

Sparks43

Sparks43 wrote: »

In my teenage years I used to code on the spectrum

One of my earliest projects is below if you fancy trying it out

10 PRINT "BOOBIES";
20 GOTO 10

That ; is very important

Have just realised that this was my 4000th post on boards.

I've wasted my life

Inviere

10 GOTO 20
20 GOTO 10

A classic

CiDeRmAn

Sparks43 wrote: »

Have just realised that this was my 4000th post on boards.

I've wasted my life

True, at this point you should have 20,000 posts!
That's time wasted when you could have been here, posting 16,000 more things about Repton!
Wasted time indeed.....

Sparks43

Inviere wrote: »

10 GOTO 20
20 GOTO 10

A classic

The basic equivalent of an endless loop

eddhorse

Sparks43 wrote: »

Inviere wrote: »

10 GOTO 20
20 GOTO 10

A classic

The basic equivalent of an endless loop

Insert Simpsons "Thats the joke" funny

CiDeRmAn

eddhorse wrote: »

Insert Simpsons "Thats the joke" funny

But, what is it?

Sparks43

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

But, what is it?

I've never seen one before but I'm guessing it's a white hole!!!!!!!

Shapey Fiend

Read in the paper today PlayerUnknown of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is from Donegal. Bit mad that he just made the Battle Royale mod with pretty much no previous experience and now he's a multimillionaire a couple of years later.

CiDeRmAn

briany wrote: »

Mostly, I have thought that the Irish gaming scene was entirely informed by the UK one and for all intents and purposes was part of it, really, but was wondering if there was ever anything at all in terms of games and games magazines that had a primarily Irish origin, circulation, sensibility and/or appeal, or if the numbers of people involved at the time simply didn't support anything being produced.

Considering the OP, I would say that the Irish market/demographic is just too similar, if not indistinguishable from the UK market to warrant specific games or publications.
I would say that the difference between Irish games players and British games players is no greater than that between games players from England, Scotland or Wales, or Manchester vs Cornish gamers for that matter.
In a nutshell, there's no real place for such Irish centred gaming media and I think people would reject it broadly if they did.
The Irish made things described in this thread have been made with universal appeal in mind, so themselves aren't hiberno-centric themselves.

Even that most Irish of games, the GAA titles on the PS2 were made by an Australian company who re-purposed their Aussie Rules game engine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Games