Monster Madness: Ireland’s First Commercial Mobile Game?

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When clearing out some old files, I came across this newspaper page. Remember when you were looking for a new ringtone for your Nokia – Mobile Sheriff was one of the many mobile content providers in this area. In 2002, we were given a prototype Nokia 3410 to work on. This was one of the first Java J2ME gaming phones – this was the beginning of the mobile app industry. Unlike the sophisticated mobile developers portals now, we only had a bare bones API and in the great developer tradition “you have to figure out the rest yourself”. One day I will write about the fun we had trying to get the game on the phone – a degree in electronic engineering was required. We also became masters at writing Java in a non OO style – not an easy thing to do but necessary owing to memory restrictions..

After 4 months of blood, sweat and a lot of tears, we finished the game in late 2002. It was all of 37k in size. The game involved destroying the monster Kethlu and his minions, protecting your base and capturing key pieces Even with the memory restrictions, Monster Madness featured:

– huge enemy bosses with 16 levels

– small attack monsters, with varied attack patterns

– 3 different weapon systems: laser beams, atomic fire and sonic shockwaves

The game was published by Trust 5 in February 2003. It was localised into French and distributed by more than 20 mobile publishers. As far as we know, it is Ireland’s first commercial mobile game. Who knows, it may see life again on the iPhone.

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Mobile App Development Services

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Need a custom mobile app quickly. Fierce Fun now offers a complete mobile app development service covering consultancy, UI and UX design, cross platform development, testing, QA and publishing. Our cross platform technology allows us to publish your rich media apps on both mobile (Android, iPhone, iPad, Kindle Fire) and desktop (Windows and Mac OS) platforms. If you need advice on native apps or mobile Web publishing, contact us today and we can outline the various options of getting your products on mobile.

Computer Games – Digital Marketing Ireland

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So you need a game quickly for your next digital marketing campaign. At Fierce Fun, we have large library of pre-built games that can quickly be configured for your online or mobile campaign. These games are cross platform and can be published on either mobile (iPhone, Android) or online/social platforms. Our game library includes action, adventure, arcade, card, casino, music, puzzle, racing, sports, strategy and word games.

Tax Incentives to attract Game Development Companies to Ireland

taxThis issue has come back into focus again as the UK government is now granting tax breaks to computer game development companies. Qualifying companies can get up to 25% relief on their development costs. Others countries such as France and Canada has also successfully introduced tax incentives for video game development companies.

Why are they doing this and what is the implications for the Irish games industry?

Currently the global games industry is worth over $80 billion. It is now the largest entertainment industry sector. As computer games are essentially software products, they can be developed in any country in the world. Forward looking governments realise the significance of this industry and are doing everything they can to attract game development talent and investment.

Ireland should be doing the same. We have a small (but growing) number of indigenous game start-ups and some high profile multinational game support companies. The IDA has done well to attract these multinationals to locate in Ireland but in general, they are here for the same reasons as most other multinationals. They are not here for game development talent – most don’t do game development in Ireland.

Typically countries offer a 25 to 40% tax incentive to game developers. To compete, Ireland should offer a flat 50% tax relief rate against qualifying development costs and only for the creation of original IP (intellectual property). With these stipulations, this tax break would ensure that only high value jobs are created. Within a very short period, we will get international game development companies locating their R&D teams here. Like the music business, the games industry is a hits driven industry. 1 in 5 games breaks even, 1 in 10 makes a profit. The top 10% makes the majority of the significant profits. So for a country to have a successful games development industry, you need a critical mass of developers. We don’t have the numbers yet in Ireland.

An attractive focused tax incentive would be a good start. As the UK has recently introduced their games tax incentive, Ireland should introduce one in the next budget. It is a competitive global marketplace for games development talent, we need to act quickly.

Games as a Service

cloudcomputingThe new buzz word in video games. Games as a service (GAAS) represents a new approach toward game development. With the heaving influence of mobile and social platforms, game developers are now seeking to provide a playing service to their users, rather than a single purchase or download.

Game players now want new content and features on a ongoing, sometimes weekly (or even daily basis). This means that traditional developers must fundamentally restructure their teams to work in this on-going manner.

Thankfully at Fierce Fun, we are setting up a GAAS developer from scratch. Our teams and systems are oriented towards combining design and use analytics in one workflow process. More to come on this later.

Online Games for Digital Advertising

gameads-300x196I am still surprised when I have to convince people how useful games are as advertising tools. For the last 2 decades in the US, games have been successfully used by companies such as McDonalds, Coca Cola and Ford to promote their brands and products. With the massive growth of casual games (social and mobile), more or less everyone is now a gamer.

So why are games effective advertising tools? Like hot toffee, they are sticky. Sticky content is the holy grail of online content – keeping users engaged for much longer than traditional text or image content. Better still, games are interactive so it is much easier to impart lasting brand messages. For any Irish digital advertiser, I would recommend consider using a game in your next digital marketing campaign. They are cost effective as you can re-use digital assets from other elements of your campaign. Also Ireland is a nation of video game players so you will have a receptive audience.

Contact us to find out how online games can boost your digital marketing campaigns

Game Development and Testing Internship

If you are a games nut and particularly like mobile games, we want to hear from you. We have a requirement for a game development and a testing intern who would like to gain experience in a casual games development studio. So what do you need, basic programming and/or Web development skills? Any modern languages will be fine. No coding experience is required for the testing position. If you are interested, drop us a line using the contact form.

Note – these roles have been filled.

Free Online Games for your Website

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Calling all webmasters and digital marketers. We have a selection of free games for your website. Embed our Web games onto your web-page or link directly to us. Games are sticky content and a great way to keep visitors on your site for longer and increase your retention rates. Engage your online audience with our free Web and html games. Contact us for more information