Fulbright

Fulbright Report on the Irish Games Industry

The Fulbright Report on the Irish games industry examines why Ireland, despite producing a large number of game-development graduates and possessing an engaged developer community, struggles to retain talent and grow its own intellectual property.

• Ireland produces many game-development graduates and has an engaged developer community, yet struggles to retain talent and grow its own intellectual property, risking its role as a mere supplier of talent to foreign studios.
• A survey of more than 600 professional programmers found 95 percent regarded C++ proficiency as essential, yet retention-based funding has pushed programmes toward easier tools such as Unity, Lua, and Java.
• Developers are trapped on a "treadmill" of contract work, with limited investment in original IP and a scarcity of junior and mid-level positions driving brain drain.