Dr. Aphra Kerr is senior Lecturer and researcher in social studies of technology and media. She also teaches courses on games and play, and culture and everyday life. She has extensive research experience on the production, use and regulation of digital media, especially digital games, SNS (social networking sites) and animation, as well as the changing nature of broadcasting in the digital age. Her current research projects include ‘Cultural Production in the Digital Age’ (NSF funded network) and she is currently writing ‘Global games and transnational work’ (book under contract). For the past ten years she has been involved in running gamedevelopers.ie, a community voluntary website for the games industry in Ireland.

1. Coding Play/Crafting Code
in the City
Dr. Aphra Kerr
Sociology,
NUI Maynooth

3. Discursive Struggles.
 Entertainment software – ESA in US
 Interactive software – ISFE in Europe
 Videogames/Digital Games/Computer games
 Creative and Cultural industry
 Independent or indie

4. Game Development
 ‘game development is a creative collaborative
process involving numerous disciplines rooted in a
particular culture producing creative, artistic and
culturally important works. Software is a part of this
process, and part of the thing created, but it is not
the sum of its parts. This is the video game industry’
 O’Donnell, C. 2012 ‘This is not a software industry’ pg 18

5. Trends in Game production
1. Games as a service – MMOGs, peer to peer, esports
2. Data driven game design & metrics
3. Platformisation/Casualisation of games – apps,
mobile, ipad
4. Alternative routes to market – STEAM, Facebook
5. Productivity of players
6. Intense state competition for mobile game
companies, tax credits, visas & worker mobility

6. Triple A – Tech & Programming

7. Independents & Player created
content

8. What is an independent producer?
 “[…] the notion of independence needs to be
interrogated somewhat if it is to have any purchase.
…… the "indy" tag may not signify much more than
"wannabe". … In other words, the power of already
established publishers may in fact be strengthened by
the creation of an industrial diaspora of hopeful
independents. …” Dovey and Kennedy, p. 141 (2006)
(nothing) intrinsically emancipatory in the
practices of production employed or put
forward by independent game designers.
(Ruffino, P. 2013)

9. Alternative ideas about Indie?’
Jonathan Blow, author of Braid,
“...part of it is trying not to be professional.
A lot of people come into indie games
trying to be like a big company. What those game
companies do is create highly polished things that
serve as large as an audience as possible. …
The creation of this highly glossy commercial
product is the opposite of making something
personal.”
Indie Game: The Movie, 1:32 –2:06 (2012)

10. New practices, old structures?
Cultural individualisation?’
(McRobbie, 2001)
‘insitutionalised
individualisation’ of cultural
labourBanks (2007)
Venture Labour and the
individualisation of risk (Neff, G. ,
2012)
Highly gendered..

11. Programming as craft?
 Cyberfeminists identified programming
as craft activity connected to weaving
– Plant, S. , Wajcman, J.
 equitable access to tools & knowledge
 DIY game making as craft. Women only
games workshops Toronto since 2011 –
addressing wider absence of women in
games industry (Westecott, E. 2012)
+ Jenson, J., Harvey, A., Shepherd, T.,
Whitson, J.

12. Locating the games industry

13. Gamedevmap - content

14. Kerr and Cawley, 2009

15. 2009 - Occupational categories
games
management
104
producers
60
Concept artists
animators
creative
design
Level designers
programming
72
Network, tools,
graphics
QA & support
895
198
59
26
42
Community support
Quality Assurance
Localisation
Marketing
Admin

16. Location
Fig. 1 - Number of Games companies by county
50
47
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
5
4
3
3
3
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

17. 2012 Games industry in Ireland
Jamie McCormick
Fig 4. Number of companies operating in the
Irish Games Industry
83
90
75
80
70
60
50
40
30
21
20
10
0
2009
Feb-12
Oct-12

18. FDI V Indigenous Jobs 2012
647
2697
Indigenous Jobs
International Jobs

19. Job Growth 02-12
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
# Jobs
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012

20. Types of Indies in Ireland
Type
L1
Newbies
Graduates, competition and jam
teams
L2
Transfers
From other industries and university
projects
L3
Spin-outs
From FDI closures
Experience

21. Bowen & Deuze– 2009
‘‘how indie is it?’’
1) Financially – from publisher, investor
(public or private), platform, markets
2) Creatively – from publisher, investor, platform,
Players

22. State strategies
Action plans, Incubators, seed
funding

23. The Games Sector in Ireland: Ac
Action Plan for Growth (2011) Forfas
 ‘pioneering’, ‘dynamic’, ‘innovative’
 ‘talented highly skilled people with the ability to work
across cultures’
 The need for an ‘anticipatory, agile and responsive
approach’

24. 1: NDRC and Launchpad (accelerator)
– equity and pr0totyping

25. 2: New Frontiers (EI + IoT) –
business development

26. Private Strategies
Trade association, publicity &
events, RnD & tax breaks,
incubators and skills

27. 3. Games Ireland
Membership
Games Ireland membership is drawn from companies at all levels of Ireland’s active
and diverse video games industry. There are alternative types of membership a
vailable allowing different levels of participation in Games Ireland‘s board
and policy meetings, public and networking events and the setting of
Games Ireland objectives.

28. Games Ireland & Games ‘Gigs’

29. 4. Promotion

30. 5. ‘GameSpace’ – game specific
incubator

31. GameSpace

32. From Independence to Play &
Craft
Practice, play and learning
Virtual networking & community

33. 6. DubLudo
 June 2013 ‘Hey there guys. I
want to let you know about
something I am very
passionate about - Play. I
love playing and playing
games. I love our little dev
scene here in Ireland and it’s
wonderful to see it grow each
year, every event I go to I am
wowed by a new team or an
idea. But something has been
missing from our
smorgasbord of gatherings
and meetings and that has
been play.’

34. Moves to Facebook..

dubLUDO is an event for anyone that makes games that wants to make their games better.
Bring your game
Get feedback
Give feedback
FAQ:
Q: What is this weird thing?
A: We are still figuring that out.
Q: Can I come?
A: Yes
Q: Can I show my game?
A: You have to show your game.
Q: But my game is not very good.
A: That is not a question.
Q: Do you have ( technology x, item y )?
A: Probably not, you should bring it.

35. And to Twitter

36. 7. GameCraft

37. Chief Organisers

38. Strategies & Tactics
Public/State
Private
Indy /newbies
Jobs
Technology
Playing
F2F Networking Team building
Tinkering
Seed capital
entrepreneurship
Creating
Equity
publicity
Virtual Networking
Office space
skills
Co-operating
Innovation
grants
RnD grants
Jams, meet ups
mentoring
tax
launchpads
visas
Hothouses
Gamespace

39. Tactics for survival
 Events, meet ups and jams as a bullwark against
creative and educational individualisation
 Virtual networking & socialisation V individualised
work
 Passion versus alienation

40. Your Indy Worker
 Passionate
 Graduates, young (ish), mostly male, white.
 Self or mix of funding - contracts, investment, social
welfare, teaching
 Working long Hours & Flexible
 Self-promoting
 Self-training/Learning by doing
‘a very complicated
version of (creative)
freedom’
Hesmondhalgh & Baker 2010

41. What is success?
 Investment?
 An exit?
 A release?
 Survival?
 A hit?

42. 2012 & 2013 releases

43. Getting a Green light on STEAM?
Play, connect, create and more..

44. In sum…
 Software is much more than code and games are more
than software – more cultural industry than software?
 Still a gendered industry and a workforce that lacks
diversity
 Clustering, seed capital, tax credits and business plans as
strategies for accelerating startups
 Jams, meet ups and networking as tactics for dealing with
precarity, risk and continuous learning.

45. Thank you
Aphra.kerr@nuim.ie
@Aphrak