Angie McKeown asked this in the NI Game Dev Network:
From your experiences in Northern Ireland making games, what do you think is holding the local game industry back?
Is there something we do well?
Is there something you struggle with?
I wrote:
Collaboration is “helping someone” not being paid for work. So I intend to open a game lab this year (if the contracting business works out) and offer free space to people in game dev and related subjects if they perform corporate social responsibility – take on placements, help polish each others games, spend lunchtimes learning and teaching. A lot of stuff that you guys do anyway but get no direct benefit from it.
Hard to argue there’s not enough artists out there when we probably have *just enough* but lose a lot and nowhere enough programmers and lose a lot too. I’d love to work with some artists but I’ve not got the capital to do it.
I’m not remotely interested in pulling together AA teams. I want a thriving group of indies that iterates quickly and is prepared to put the time in to POLISH each others games. Building large teams just means you become utterly dependent on making big hits. That’s a major fail.