Degree aims for games capital

A COLLEGE lecturer is hoping to end Donegal’s employment blackspot status by making it the video games capital of Ireland.

The county has suffered in recent weeks with the closure of the Hospira and Clubman factories and the loss of more than 600 jobs.

Thomas Dowling, head of the computer department at Letterkenny Institute of Technology (LIT), has set up a course in computer games development to bring a new type of employment to the area.

“We’d like to foster the notion that some of the graduates will have the skills to set up their own businesses rather than simply having the notion that we’ll sit back and wait for multinationals to provide all of the jobs,” he said.

The industry is estimated to be worth €85 billion more than the movie industry, and is expected to grow with the introduction of Sony’s Playstation3 and the Microsoft’s X-Box 360.

Mr Dowling said there was no reason Donegal could not become a successful location for games companies and added that the cost of setting up such a company was pretty low.

“You don’t need a huge manufacturing plant, you don’t need huge amount of research and development. All you need is a creative mind, a PC with the right software and away you go.”

The four-year LIT degree course begins this month, will cater for up to 36 students, and be run in conjunction with local game company, Torc Interactive.

Students will learn computer programming, game design and 3D modelling, as well as working on projects in co-operation with video game companies.

Mr Dowling said that there were attractive salaries but it was a challenging job.

“It’s something that changes rapidly and you need to spend a lot of time staying up to date with the latest technologies. You can’t just be nine to five, plodding your way through the day because of the turnaround time for new video games.”

He developed the course with the help of Dundee’s Abertay University, whose stream of computer games graduates have made Scotland one of the strongest centres for games development in the world.

“Essentially what they were saying is ‘Look, we are almost a replica of the Republic of Ireland in terms of population distribution and we have a relatively small college by UK standards. If we can do it, and we can act as a hub, there’s no reason why Letterkenny can’t do the same thing.”

There are about 30 Irish-owned video games companies and 10 foreign-owned companies in the country. The course is the latest in a series of initiatives by third level institutions after a Forfas report in 2001 which criticised the lack of training available.

Carlow IT set up its computer games course last year, while the University of Limerick is running a new course this year.

There are still some vacant places in the LIT course and students who are interested can apply via the CAO website.