Ireland planning to double its game industry jobs

by Alexander Sliwinski on Oct 12th 2011 1:10PM

Ireland is planning to double its game industry employment numbers by 2014, targeting 4,500 jobs from the current estimate of 2,000. The country, which has been dealing with a financial crisis, and acting as a corporate tax haven as the same time, is looking to back sustained growth in digital creative industries.

Develop lays out the six initiatives the country has to grow in the sector. "As a pioneering sector within the wider digital economy, the games sector is dynamic, innovative and exciting," said Richard Bruton, the minister for jobs, enterprise and innovation. "What is apparent is that Ireland already has a number of strengths on which we can build success for the future and that will differentiate its offering internationally."

Ireland is already off to a good start, with the recent opening of BioWare Ireland (pictured), a 200-employee customer service center expected to double in size.

Source: Develop

Tags: bioware-ireland, Business, ea, electronic-arts, Ireland, tax, taxes

Reader Comments (16)

@Theneverendingsoda

Don't worry, us Irish have a sense of humour... We're not always drunk though... Only when we're awake! Sláinte!

Well shit, looks like I'm taking a ferry to Ireland.

@Danteeeee
I know, right?
Get to develop games and all the Guinness I can drink? Srsly, man... Sign me UP! :D

The development of a customer service center is nothing to be proud of--it's basic stuff that isn't exactly going to be 'building a games industry' in Ireland.

What they need are actual developers with the know-how and the business plan to get investment funding from the government as opposed to publishers, and they can then go about getting the industry they're hoping for with grass-roots methods rather than soliciting other countries for investment. The current worry is that their industry will be solely involved in smalltime social and mobile gaming, the two arenas you can get access to with relatively minor investment.

@nimzy

Yeah, it's not like we have a history of good gaming companies here is it? I mean who has ever heard of "Havok"?

@nimzy The article calling it a customer service center is a bit misleading. It's actually Bioware's entire SWTOR server farm for Europe. Ireland is massively upgrading its data backbone just to handle all the traffic it's going to bring in.

@stiqlol

I see you understand sarcasm ;-)

Come to Ireland, videogame developers; our industry jobs are dublin!

@(Unverified)
Galway would like a word with you (Zenimax, Bioware)

Need to read better--at first glance I assumed this was about Victor Ireland and his GaijinWorks company increasing in size. "They sure aren't doing much with 2000 employees," I thought.

The one ray of hope in a cavern full of debt. Nice try Mr.Taoiseach but I don't think 4,500 extra jobs is going to make much of a dent in unemployment rates. Here we go here we go here we go! Emigrate to Australia! HERE WE GO!