games and ireland

Atari and Ireland

by Jamie McCormick

The country has a longer history in the video games industry than most believe, and this feature highlights one of the country’s biggest success stories. It does not take place in Dublin, but in 1970's rural Tipperary. The Irish computer and video games industry has always been an interesting one as anyone trying to make a career in it will be able to tell you. With very little content produced on our shores, it has not stopped the country making an impact in a broad range of other areas. While the obvious successes of Havok and Demonware in the middleware space highlight Irish entrepreneurial spirit and talents, we've also had a brief stint as a Playstation content producer with Norwegian company Funcom developing Speed Freaks during their time in Dublin's Sandyford Industrial Estate during the 1990's. We also have our fair share of quality assurance with a number of companies doing games localisation for the European market and many Xbox 360 disks "Made in Ireland". More recently, customer support for online games like World of Warcraft have located in Ireland.