Games Toaster

Directory: Producers

Games Toaster’s Irish Computer Games Directory 

PHASE ONE: Developers, Publishers, and Middleware Providers
After vastly expanding our news archive’s category tags, the following is the first phase of Games Toaster’s Irish Computer Games Directory.

Part one coverers producers (developers, publishers, and middleware providers etc). This first phase, like what is to come, will be dynamic; but also contains historic entrees.

The directory comes after many years of looking at the idea of a database or similar. It is planned to expand from producers to every area of computer games in Ireland.

NOTE: While every reasonable effort has been made to make sure all information is accuracy, we can not guarantee such. Please send error reports to errors@gamestoaster.com. Other information is welcome at directory@gamestoaster.com. As always, we can not take responsible for other websites. Research sources: Company Registration Office, Dublin; Google;  companies’ websites; GameDevelopers.ie.

NOTE: Old content being picked up as new

Google News and other sites have picked up some of our old news as new.

UPDATE: This looks like it is happening again for different reasons – on request, Google News changed the RSS news feed they use to obtain our news. The new feed is located at http://www.gamestoaster.com/games_toaster/rss.xml

In order to make our news archive more accessible, Games Toaster is currently expanding the list of categories tags on our news archive; for every new category created a new page is automatically created for the category, apparently because of this Google News and other sites have found our archived news items and listed them as current news – we apologies for any inconvenience caused.

The beast that is Google News picked up at least one new category “e3_2005” at /games_toaster/e3_2005/, this looks to be causing the most redirects.

The most notable other site which has linked to our archive is the Inquirer, who kindly picked up our news article on ‘Streaming music over Live may breach laws’. This article was however published last May; we list the date of publication at the end of articles. We would like to extend our apologies for any inconvenience caused to the Inquirer, and their readers.

Before proceeding with more tags we will publish highly visible banners on this sites side panels which should be seen on any page of this site.

This clarification has been added to all recently created tags, and should appear at the top of the relevant pages.

Irish games companies in the news

The Sunday Business Post reports the flock of some Irish games companies to California this week, for the Game Developers Conference 2006. A second article covers the Galway-based Nephin Games raising $1 million in funding.

‘Game on for Irish tech firms’ centres on Demonware, as well as Havok, Torc Interactive, Upstart Games, and Selatra, the article also lists off BitRabbit, Gmedia, Eirplay Games, Meedja, and PopCap.

To make itself seen among the big players, Demonware is hiring a San Francisco cable car on wheels to transport people around San Jose. The company hired a fleet of Hummer limousines for last year’s GDC, but it has been prudent with its cash.

It has raised just over €1million from private investors, Enterprise Ireland and the Dublin Seed Capital Fund since it was founded in 2003. It is now ‘‘looking at various options’’ to fund its growth after a ‘‘fantastic year’’ last year, according to Collins.

Games events at the Digital Hub

On Thursday, computer games events planned for this month start in the Irish Government’s Digital Hub in Dublin. Exhibitions, debates, and a ‘Careers Expo’ are pencilled in from May 5 to May 18.

The Digital Hub is home to a number of games industry companies, including middleware company Havok, and mobile games developers TKO, and Eirplay Games. As we reported recently, games developer DC Studios are in the process of moving into the Hub.

The Hub’s latest exhibition, ‘Exhibit8: New Frontiers in Gaming’ is open office hours, 9.30am-5.30pm, from Thursday, with the official launch of the events on the same day, incorporating the announcement of the winners of the student games competition Dare to be Digital Ireland.

On Friday (May 6) a public talk titled ‘Censorship in the games industry’ is set to debate censorship in games, chaired by the journalist and critic, Medb Ruane, the panel is to include Ger Connolly, the Duputy Irish Film Censor; Dr Mary Corcoran, Professor of Sociology, NUI Maynooth; and Paul Hayes, a games marketing consultant. Other panel-based discussions lined up are ‘Game Design - Responding to New Interfaces’ (Monday, May 9), ‘Mobile Gaming: Successful Business Models’ (Wednesday, May 11), and ‘Learning Through Gaming’ (Wednesday, May 18).

To guide those looking into a career in the games industry, the Gaming Careers Expo takes places 11am to 5.30pm, on Monday, May 9.

For full listings of venues and times, as well as registration for some events, visit the Digital Hub’s website.

Edited 03/05/2005: changes to the panel of the ‘Censorship in the games industry’ debate.