With Christmas around the corner, many conscientious parents are wrangling over whether to succumb to pressure to buy that PlayStation. If the success of a course on Dame Street is anything to go by, then career conscious parents will not think twice about immersing their children in Doom, Civilisation and FIFA World Cup soccer.
The global computer games industry is now estimated to be worth $22 billion, (£14.8 billion) and there is an insatiable demand for good games developers. However, there are only four official learning centres in the world, based in Japan, America, Scotland and now, Dublin. Hosted by Senior College Ballyfermot, Ludo - taken from the Latin word for game - is in its third year, and offers post-Leaving Certificate students a certificate in computer game and multimedia software development.
Originally established to cater for people who were not academically oriented, but who were interested in a career in computers, the course has delivered a number of skilled technicians into games development careers in Britain and Ireland. Last year's four top graduates started on salaries of about £18,000, and with several years' workplace experience this can rise to £30,000-£45,000. Several British agencies have visited Ireland specifically to check out the games development talent on Dame Street. To date, four Ludo graduates have joined CodeMasters, the leading European games developer which does work for Sony, Nintendo and Sega games consoles, and one graduate last year went to Cendant Software in Ireland.
Not surprisingly the course is heavily over-subscribed, 80 people apply every year for just 20 places. The main prerequisite for acceptance on the course is a will to learn, according to course co-ordinator, Mr Emmet Kilbride,
"All I ask is that candidates have an interest in computer games and are prepared to work very hard," he said. "The best pupil we took on last year could barely turn on a computer on his first day, now he has an excellent job in Funcom [a Dublin-based PlayStation games developer]."
The group is typically comprised of people with an interest in games programming, sound and 3-D graphics. Each student will learn skills in each of these areas, including visual BASIC and C++ programming. Mr Kilbride says the Centre for Creative and Emerging Technologies - where the Ludo course is based - constantly gets requests from industry players for graduates with these skills.
"They simply can't get the people to do the kind of quality 3D work being done here," he says. "And because we work to a group format, with students interacting in all areas of game design they can communicate and express ideas very well with each other which is most important from a 3D point of view."
The course must adapt quickly each year, owing to the rapidly changing nature of the games industry. For example, story-boarding for classic animation has switched its focus to games production. It is essential the latest software is in constant use, including high-end graphics packages like 3-D Studio Max, version 2.5.
Recently Ludo received a major boost when IBM donated over £250,000 of equipment to the course. Networked together, the class can operate in groups or as a unit. The ultimate goal is to produce a games demonstration at the end of the year featuring elements of every student's work. According to Mr Kilbride, this appeals particularly to potential employers because it is an immediately visible illustration of the candidate's talent, and depicts how they fit into a team structure.
As increasing numbers of companies make their games source code available to enthusiasts for development within a monitored structure, it seems obvious that Ludo will be developing games for Sony's PlayStation or soon, Sega's PC-based Dreamcast.
However, despite having Net Yaroze - Sony's PlayStation developer's kit - installed in the classroom, Mr Kilbride says it lies idle because they haven't been able to find a Yaroze programmer for more than a year. He believes this highlights the dearth of games specialists, and any that do exist are gainfully employed in the industry.
"I'm just waiting for the games industry to launch in Ireland. The talent and government support is here, we just need a company that's going to take a risk and say `let's do it'."
