In this week’s Our Take, a football player scores a very different role in a popular game, job search meets word search on LinkedIn, Irish gamers are becoming game developers, and an indie home-brew game outplays the big guns.
GAME GIANT SCORES WINNER
After breaking records across the football world, Erling Haaland is putting his attacking skills to new use as a character in the popular Clash of Clans mobile game. It’s the first time a character based on a real person has been added to the game, which has been downloaded over two billion times.
The Manchester City striker, a huge fan of the game, will be portrayed as the ‘Barbarian King’ with fans able to access the star player for the month of May. The ‘partnership’ was launched with a fun, short movie, giving off massive Space Jam vibes.
While this is apparently the first of many football-focused innovations from Clash of the Clans, it looks like they’ve hit the back of the net with this one.
IRISH GAMERS GO CAREER MODE
Consumers love ’em, but for brands, games can be a real challenge. In the past two years Netflix has offered gaming to subscribers, but reports suggest that less than 1% of subscribers engage with the new stream of entertainment.
You might think some brands would take this is a warning – enter LinkedIn who this week announced they are bringing gaming to their platform. Three word-based puzzle games – Pinpoint, Queens and Crossclimb – are now available for job searchers to while away the time while searching for their next career move.
The games are meant to be mentally stimulating and, like Wordle, are only accessible once a day. And of course, you can track your success and compare your success to that of other players. It’s an interesting way to build a network, but we’re sceptical that a word search high score will help you make that step up the career ladder.
JOB SEARCH MEETS WORD-SEARCH
New research has suggested that a large majority of gamers are being influenced by their hobby to pursue careers in game design and development at third level.
84% of gamers who took the survey, conducted by GamerFest, were open to the idea of turning their love of gaming into a career. 90% say there should be more government investment in the Irish gaming industry and that the big game companies should be offered tax relief measures to operate in this country.
For all their interest in the sector, a full one third of those surveyed were unaware that Ireland is already host to a number of major gaming companies such as Riot Games and Electronic Arts.
There’s no question that gaming offers a serious career pathway for the next generation and Ireland looks well placed to capitalise on that.
WAR, FAMINE, PLAGUE, SUCCESS
While Irish gamers look at entering the gaming industry via third level, a solo developer by the name of Greg Styczeń has created a global top seller, accumulating millions of wish lists on game-streaming platform Steam.
His game, Manor Lords, is a city-building simulation and strategy game set in the 14th century that offers players a realistic medieval experience. One of its key defining features is how it focuses on the intricacies of medieval governance with every decision crucial to success.
Still in ‘early access’, it already has over 158,000 concurrent in-game players, which surpasses many major titles like Helldivers 2 and Fallout 4.
The success of Manor Lords shows that home-brew indie gaming has arrived, with many more sure to follow in Styczeńs footsteps.