Imirt Game Developer Survey Results

Last month, we carried out our yearly Imirt Survey. In the below graphs, you can see the findings, summarising what people felt worked well with Imirt this year as well as areas the community would like us to focus on over the next year.

Initiatives

Of our big initiatives last year, the highest rated were our tickets and scholarships to GDC. This was the culmination of a lot of work done by the Board, particularly John O’Kane and Brenda Romero who secured the tickets and Owen Harris who lead the funding from ID2015. Some survey respondents suggested that we should also focus on other events closer to home, like GDC Europe and Develop Brighton.

The next highest rated initiative was the company directory on the Imirt.ie website. Our goal with the website was to provide a showcase for game development in Ireland, especially for the international audience. The company directory is at the centre of this. It was put together by Chris Gregan with the help of everyone in the community.

Another successful initiative was Colm Larkin's webinar series, Imirt Inspire. Due to Colm and Brenda Romero's hard work, we managed to attract some world class developers to speak to our community. The webinar series being broadcast online meant that it is easy for everyone in community to take part.

Networking & Mentoring

The organising of networking events and the mentoring of Irish game developers came up as areas where there could be some improvement. Respondents' comments in the suggestions section provide ideas for the Board on how to develop networking and mentoring activities. One suggestion was to create regular online roundtable discussions around particular topics chaired by people with experience of the topic.

With regard to networking events, there was a feeling that the events were focused too much around Dublin and Galway. As well as hosting more events in places like Limerick and the midlands, it was suggested that Imirt could help members of the community organise events by promoting them and mentoring the organisers.

Funding

Funding is the area that survey respondents want to see Imirt focus on the most. However, there is not a lot of consensus about where to focus efforts to try attract funding from. This is a positive because we can see a lot of options out there. Many of us also realise that not one source will suit all in the community. Questions include whether focus should be on arts and creative funding like Film and Animation, or on more traditional tech startup avenues such as Enterprise Ireland and other government bodies.

We would like to say a big thank you to everyone for sending on your feedback by filling in the survey. In particular, those who took the time to fill out the suggestions section. Everyone on the Board has read through the comments and ideas, and the submissions will be very useful in the development of next year's initiatives.