Imirt Board Election 2017
Voting for Imirt's new board will take place from Wednesday 13th to midnight on Friday 22nd September 2017. Details of how to vote will be sent to members by e-mail on Wed 13th September. To vote you must be a registered Imirt member. You can sign up for Imirt membership for only €20. If you have previously registered, your membership is valid until the end of 2017, there's no need to sign up again.
4 out of the 7 board seats are being contested in this election. Founding board members John O' Kane and Chris Gregan will be standing down. Many thanks to John and Chris for their great contribution to Imirt and the Irish game developer community over the last several years, we wish them every success in future. Current board members Brenda Romero and Colm Larkin are standing for re-election this year.
If you have any questions please email contact@imirt.ie and thank you for supporting Irish game developers!
Ben Clavin
Ben Clavin is a co-founder of Pewter Games Studios. Having released the game “The Little Acre” on PS4, Xbox One, Steam, iOS and Windows 10, showcased at many conventions such as GDC, PAX, Gamescom and many more, securing deals with platform holders and publishers alike, and unlocking funding both nationally and abroad, Ben has the experience and insight necessary to help other companies achieve their goals.
What I hope to achieve
With the help of IMIRT, Ben would like to demystify and educate Irish developers on how to unlock funding for their projects, while increasing support systems for teams looking to showcase on the international stage.
Contact
Twitter: @BenClavin
Christopher Conlan
Christopher is a co-founder of Pewter Games Studios, where he juggles being a game-designer, writer, and general business-person. As a company, Pewter Games has achieved a number of successes culminating in the launch of The Little Acre, which was published by London-based Curve Digital, and simultaneously released on Steam, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. More recently, Pewter Games’ second title was selected by Creative Europe for the Video Games Development scheme. Representing the studio, Christopher was the recipient of South Dublin’s ‘Best Young Entrepreneur’ award in 2015, as well as the ‘Best Game Script’ award at the 2017 ZeBBies.
What I hope to achieve
In the last five years, we’ve seen a surge in growth in Ireland’s games industry. I believe that the next few years will be pivotal in determining both the scale and longevity of its ongoing success. In order to be in a position to nurture it, I’d like to help move Imirt towards becoming a fully-fledged trade body capable of providing tangible support to current and future games companies. In order to achieve this, I’ll assist in lobbying government on issues such as tax, while also helping to guide the rapid growth of talent in the country by improving ties between colleges and industry. To aid in this, I also hope to demonstrate the need for support at a national level by communicating with a number of mainstream media outlets, as well as increasing the number of industry events held in Ireland.
Contact
Email: chris@pewtergamesstudios.com
Twitter: @ChaosResolution
Web: www.pewtergamesstudios.com
Rob Dalton
My primary role in the games industry has been that of artist/illustrator. I started out in 2001 as a 2D games artist for PlayJam on their Sky Interactive channel essentially reskinning classic games with illustrated vector graphics. From there I moved to Kuju Entertainment, focusing mainly on pixel art for pre-smartphone phone games. Moving back to Dublin resulted in a shift into corporate finance and, to stay sane, freelance illustration and graphic design. I was lucky to work with a couple of very interesting start ups and, nowadays, am based in Dublin and Belfast working as the Lead Illustrator/Designer for The Creativity Hub, creators of Rory’s Story Cubes and two new games which will be released at Essen Spieltage this year. One is a storytelling game, the other a card game where the winner adds new rules. Both focus on creativity and encouraging the use of imagination.
What I hope to achieve
Throughout my time in the games industry, I have always been a background player. I’ve worked behind the scenes as an artist and was happy to stick to the shadows and just get on with my job. In my last role however, I realised that I had amassed a rather large body of knowledge and experience in my time in the games industry and the world of finance and was very pleased to be able to assist a junior graphic designer in their role. If I’m elected, I would like to spend the next two years becoming more actively involved in the Irish game development world. With nearly twenty years experience of lovingly producing work for a pittance, I think I’m eminently qualified! Working with The Creativity Hub in Belfast has helped to drive home something that I’d always believed, that games can be more than entertainment. Games can cross barriers, help heal communities and encourage developmental growth. Assisting to build networks and resources for new or future developers, designers and artists, as well as us more “seasoned” folks still hacking away at it, would be a great way to give something back.
Contact
twitter: @landrobot
Facebook: facebook.com/landrobot
Web: landrobot.com
Skype: landrobot
LinkedIn
Colm Larkin
Colm is a programmer, game designer and board game enthusiast. He runs Dublin-based indie game studio Gambrinous, known for its first title 'Guild of Dungeoneering'. He has been serving on the board of Imirt since 2015. He also runs 1GAM Dublin, a gamedev meetup where you are encouraged to share rough prototypes, which has been held monthly since April 2013.
What I hope to achieve
My primary drive with Imirt is to try and see more Irish games brought to international attention. Over the last two years I have been working hard on Imirt's efforts towards this goal. I have championed our efforts to organise events with speakers from abroad, and run the monthly Imirt Inspire Interview series. I would love to see Ireland & Imirt host a yearly game development conference. If reelected to the board I would continue my work in these areas.
Contact
Email: colm@gambrinous.com
Twitter: twitter.com/gambrinous
Olivier Masclef
Olivier is managing director and co-founder of Black Shamrock, a fast-growing studio in Dublin making RPG and strategy titles for PC and Console. He made his start in the games industry in 1994 as producer for Infogrames, making adventure and RPG titles. He then worked at Appeal as project manager on Outcast, and then as founder and CEO of Widescreen games. In his career he has worked with many publishers in Europe, the US and Japan, including Namco, Bethesda, and Eidos. He has also been involved in non-profit organisations as founder and president of Imaginove, as a board member of SNJV, and also as a board member of LyonGame, who pushed for the creation of the GameConnection events. Olivier also works in college education with Gamagora (University of Lyon's dedicated video game course).
What I hope to achieve
Among other challenges, most of us need to find publishers, distributors and investors for our games. I would like to help the Irish game development community with this, using the international network I have grown for more than two decades in the games industry. With SNJV, I helped lobby the French government and the European Commission to set up the French video game tax credit. A video game tax credit can help our studios, and I am sure we can push for this kind of governmental incentive for the sector here in Ireland (just like in the UK, Canada and France). Last, but not least, games are made by people! Education and training are the key to successful video game productions, so let's create stronger and more regular links between game makers in academia and our studios.
Contact
Keith O'Conor
Keith is CTO of Romero Games in Galway and a graphics & engine programmer at heart. Prior to moving home last year he was a 3D Technical Lead at Ubisoft Montreal, working on titles such as Watch_Dogs, Far Cry 5, Far Cry Primal, and Far Cry 4. Before that he was a graphics programmer on the Prototype series at Radical Entertainment in Vancouver. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Trinity College Dublin.
He has had game development articles published in various places such as Game Developer Magazine, Gamasutra, and GameDev.net, as well as graphics research papers at leading conferences such as Siggraph, Eurographics, and I3D. He also enjoys talking about game development to anyone who will listen, giving talks at Trinity College Dublin, University of Limerick, State of Play, Galway Games Gathering, and internally at Ubisoft and Radical.
Most of the time though, he prefers to just code.
What I hope to achieve
There has been a surge of success and growth in the Irish game development scene in recent years, and with that comes valuable experience. I believe the best future for the Irish games industry lies in capitalizing on this experience to bolster upcoming talent, and the best way to do that is to establish a formal mentorship program for Imirt members. As an Imirt board member, I hope to spearhead this initiative.
This would involve investigating similar mentorship programs in other countries and industries, gathering feedback from potential mentors and mentees, developing guidelines for various mentoring streams (programmers, artists, designers & production), matching individuals for mentoring, and guiding the process to ensure everyone involved gets something valuable out of it.
Beyond this, I want to continue encouraging practical gamedev skill development in the Irish community in whatever way possible.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/keithoconor
Website: http://www.fragmentbuffer.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithoc
Email: keith.oconor@gmail.com
Elaine Reynolds
Elaine has worked in the games industry for ten years. She runs a mobile games studio in Dublin called Simteractive, who recently released Eden Isle: Resort Paradise. Elaine was a founder of Imirt and is the games advisor for TechIreland. She started out as a gameplay programmer at Traveller’s Tales where she worked on The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and then moved into the role of game designer at Lionhead Studios, where she worked on The Fable Franchise and Milo & Kate. She has a Masters in Computer Games Technology, a degree in Psychology and is a BAFTA member.
What I would hope to achieve
In general, I want to positively promote Irish-made games and the Irish games industry. I’m proud to be Irish and whenever I talk to people outside of Ireland about our games scene I am proud to tell everyone of all the great people, work and community here. I would like to do that in a more official capacity as an Imirt board member. In addition, there are three specific things I hope to achieve:
1. I want to expand and improve Imirt membership options by providing more benefits to Imirt members and developing a corporate membership programme so that companies can join in addition to individual members.
2. I want to create a game careers information package for students, schools and parents. This would include information on the different careers in games along with career profiles featuring a diverse range of people. I think we have a responsibility to provide information on careers in the games industry and to promote diversity.
3. I want to help continue the efforts to lobby government about financial supports for game development. Having recently attended GamesCom and seen all the supports available in other countries, I think we need to continue this work.
Twitter: @elaine_reynolds
Email: elaine@simteractive.com
Company Website: www.simteractive.com
Game Website: www.EdenIsleGame.com
LinkedIn
Brenda Romero
Brenda Romero is a BAFTA award-winning game designer, artist and Fulbright scholar who entered the video game industry in 1981. As a designer, she has worked on 47 games and contributed to many seminal titles, including the Wizardry and Jagged Alliance series and titles in the Ghost Recon, Dungeons & Dragons and Def Jam franchises. Away from the machine, her analog series of six games, The Mechanic is the Message, has drawn national and international acclaim, particularly Train and Siochán Leat (often called "The Irish Game") which is presently housed in the National Museum of Play. Most recently, she received the 2017 Development Legend award at the Develop: Brighton. In 2015, she won the coveted Ambassador’s Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards. In 2014, she received a Fulbright award to study Ireland’s game industry, academic and government policies. In 2013, she was named one of the top 10 game developers by Gamasutra.com and Develop magazine listed her among the 25 people who changed games in 2013. Romero co-owns Romero Games based in Galway and is Program Director at the University of Limerick MSc in Game Design & Development.
What I would hope to achieve
What I hope to achieve: It's been an exciting few years since Imirt was first conceived on the floor of GDC. We were hopeful that we, as a group, could make a difference in the Irish game industry on a local level. Two years on, I have these goals:
1. To take our goals to the national level, meeting with politicians to directly discuss the competition we, as a country, face from other countries in terms of tax breaks, R&D supports and funding. If we want to keep talent at home, we have to equal or better these supports.
2. To expand Imirt to be more inclusive and supportive of educators and students.
3. To continue to advocate on behalf of those for whom technology is not easily accessible, but for whom technology could be a way up and out as it was for both me and my husband.
Twitter: @br
Email: brenda@romero.com
Company Website: www.romerogames.ie