We have four three-month paid positions which we are looking to fill with three programmers and an assistant producer – details below. We may also take on a few unpaid placement for those less experienced or with other games skillsets who are just keen to gain the experience.

Games Programmers (must have graduated within the last two years)
We are looking for experienced games programmers, with the ability to self manage and a drive to contribute creatively as well as technically. The programmers will work in Ideonic HQ (Newcastle) as part of a small team. They will need to be able to utilise the expertise of others as well as being able to contribute back to the group.

Responsibilities will include:
• Designing and rapid prototyping gameplay components
• Cross-platform games development using C# and Unity3D (PC, Wii, iPhone)
• Coordinating with and reporting to the Production Assistant and the team at Ideonic

Required Skills:
• Experience working with Unity3D is ideal, alternatively programming skills in C# and experience working with games engines.
• The ability to learn new skills and technologies really quickly
• Strong knowledge of Object Orientated Games Programming
• Good ideas and ambition to push new boundaries

Bonus Skills:
• Experience working with kids or making games for kids

Assistant Producer (must have graduated within the last two years)
We require an assistant producer to manage day-to-day production and quality assurance on the project. They need to have the ability to manage themselves and organise a small team of programmers. They will work in Ideonic HQ (Newcastle) as part of a small team and need to have the drive to contribute to all areas of the project. They need to be able to harness the expertise and enthusiasm of others as well as being able to contribute back to the group.

Responsibilities will include:
• Day-to-day management of the project including scheduling and tracking
• Managing code and project documentation and reporting
• Assuring Quality on the project through testing and quality control procedures
• Coordinating with and reporting to the team at Ideonic

Required Skills:
• Experience managing a games development project
• Experience of quality control
• The ability to learn new skills and technologies really quickly
• Good technical understanding and the ability to coordinate with the programming team
• Good ideas and ambition to push new boundaries

Bonus Skills:
• Experience working with kids or making games for kids

Interested? Drop us an email to hr@ideonic.com and tell us why you. We look forward to hearing from you.

Tuesday 14 December 7:30 until 11pm.
Tyneside Cinema bar, Newcastle upon Tyne.

It’s a bit like a pub quiz but much more awesome. Come along, form a team and challenge each other at games like Super Mario, Street fighter II and Ms Pacman. There are prizes for the winning team, including tickets to see Tron Legacy in 3D.

Music will be proved by chiptune legend SYPHUS

A sci-fi TV series, Korridor explores issues of identity, belonging and surveillance. We took these themes and designed a multilayered transmedia experience, combining: web, mobile, gaming and the real world to create a engaging story where users can choose their level of involvement.

Korridor was selected as one of nine projects to be pitched live in front of 30 judges and a live audience at the Pixel Pitch event in September – part of the Power to the Pixel conference. This was a great experience to get in front of transmedia experts and gain real feedback on our ideas. The project was very well received and led to some great connections being made in the follow up meetings.

A number of broadcasters are now looking at the project and hopefully it won’t be long before Korridor appears across your screens.

The awards are a great opportunity for young companies to get their products out there and get their names knows; for more established companies it’s a chance to prove their worth and defend their position at the top.

The MEGAs are a real gem of an award (not just because Ideonic won one) but because they focus on innovation, they focus on picking out the products, campaigns or individuals who are really pushing new boundaries. As well as MirrorMe for best application or gadget, last year’s winners also included: ScrapperWiki for technology – a data store which allows developers to scrape, store, aggregate, and distribute unstructured public data in more useful, structured formats; onedotzero_adventures for creative – an interactive design piece at the BFI; and a number of other great projects across 11 categories.

So if you’re doing great work hurry up and get it submitted so we can see it and shout about it!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/megas

I decided to do the Great North Run as part of the Barnardo’s Team. They’re a great charity whose work is summed up well by their vision, something we also believe at Ideonic:

“We believe in the potential of every child and young person, no matter who they are, what they have done or what they have been through.” – Barnardo’s vision

Adam ran on behalf of Cancer Research UK, another great charity striving to beat cancer, something unfortunately that everyone is affected by in some way.

Even through the race is over it’s not too late to add your support:

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/JeremiahAlexander

http://www.runningsponsorme.org/adamgatenby

Two days later, our legs have not yet recovered and we’re already looking forward to next year. We’re considering costumes for next year and some of the guys over at Fluid Pixel and Kidology have also agreed to take part, perhaps we can even convince Cora to join in.

We’re not alone in the building, our long term business cohorts Fluid Pixel have made the move too and we are also now joined in the building by Sailor Girl, SSL Post, Veriphy and Century 17. We will be having a welcome bloc party at some point soon (just don’t tell Drummond Central who own the building)… more details coming soon!

In the meantime we’d like to catch-up with some of the people we already know in the Newcastle & Gateshead and get to know the rest. So if you are looking for games and interactive content developers, you have an interest in learning or social change, or you’d just like to find out more about what we do at Ideonic then please get in touch we’d like to meet you!

Get in touch: hello@ideonic.com

Book now for IMMERSION Forum & Showcase (May 24, London) with a 10% discount on attending this leading international event focused on monetisation, funding and distribution of games and immersive social media; the future of MMOs, games, social media, virtual worlds, serious games, augmented reality, virtual goods, micropayments & billing, geospatial apps and search, Facebook apps, iphone apps .. and much more!

Book now using promo code GEN10 to claim the 10% discount to attend the Forum for only £269.10*. www.immersion10.co.uk

…. and if you can’t make it to the Forum, then for only £29* come along to the Exclusive Networking Party in the evening in central London – open to all.. not just delegates .. It’s going to be the best Mixer Networking Party this Spring! Book through the above link.

You’ll be networking with key media and games industry figures .. many with budget .. many with funding opportunities .. many looking to hook up for projects … all with vision for the future. What’s not to like!

Awards: Got a great game? Then submit it for the IMMERSION Awards 2010. Submission deadline 17 May. Click through the link to book Forum, Party or to submit you game for the Awards.

Please share this with industry colleagues.

Confirmed speakers include:
• Peter Bazalgette, NewBaz
• Ian Livingstone, Square Enix
• Adam Singer, BSAC
• Peter Edward, Sony
• Matthew Jeffery, EA
• Mike Rawlinson, ELSPA
• Nic Mitham, KZero
• Toby Beresford, Nudge
• James Bamford, Bing
• Oisin Lunny, Sulake (Habbo)
• Tim Harrison, The Mobile Consultancy
• Ben Keen, Screen Digest
• Richard Bartle, Essex University
• Andy Taite, Pembridge Partners
• Gina Fegan, South East Media Network
• Kim Bayley, Entertainment Retailers Assoc
• Rob Edmonds, SRI
• Justin Bovington, Rivers Run Red
• Ron Edwards, Ambient Performance
• Dave Taylor, Imperial College
• Mike Dicks, Bleedin Edge
• David Burden, Daden Ltd
• Ian Hughes, Feeding Edge
• Jeremiah Alexander, Ideonic
• Michael Schumann, Second Interest
• Modwenna Rees-Mogg, Angel News

We worked really hard developing the MirrorMe application and took risks to push both technical and creative boundaries. This makes it even more rewarding we receive recognition from the digital community.

We launched in Q4 2009 and are excited to announce that MirrorMe has already won its first award! MirrorMe beat competition from across the World to win an outstanding achievement award in the lifestyle category of the 2009 Interactive Media Awards. It’s a great honour to get this award and hopefully the first of many!

http://www.interactivemediaawards.com/winners/certificate.asp?param=70503&cat=1

Education is broken and we need a gameplay mechanic to help us fix it. We’re looking for a games programmer – passionate about games and eager to make a difference – to join us at Ideonic HQ on our mission to change the world.

Salary: Dependent upon experience

(No agencies please)

Responsibilities will vary but will generally include:

• Cross-platform games development (web, desktop, console, mobile)
• Taking gaming principles and applying them to web and software development
• Designing and rapid prototyping new gameplay systems and ideas

Required Skills:

• The ability to learn new skills and technologies really quickly
• Strong knowledge of Object Orientated Games Programming
• Good ideas and ambition to push new boundaries
• Knowledge of Adobe Flash/Flex

Bonus Skills:

• Experience working with young people
• Knowledge of Web Development

We’re really open about applications, skills and passion are more important to us than years of experience, so send us a CV, covering letter, work examples and anything else you think demonstrates your suitability – hr@ideonic.com

I took such a long time to right this blog post but it’s taken me a while to follow up with the great contacts I met and also just absorb all the lessons I learned while on the Digital Mission. In both LA and San Francisco we met many of the major players: Lionsgate, Warner Bros, Sony, Facebook, Apple, to name a few. But we also met many of the smaller creative agencies and start-ups breaking new ground.

To recap, on the 11^th Oct I flew out to LA as part of a select group of 14 of UKs most exciting digital companies. The Digital Mission was organised ‘and might I add excellently’ by Chinwag and UK Trade and Investment (UKTI). The other members on the group were amazing and I learnt just as much from them as I did from the companies in the states; a great mix of digital agencies, animation, gaming studios, technology platforms and video producers.

Digital Mission LA & SF 09 Companies: agency2 – Amaze – Audioboo – etv media group – Great Fridays – Littleloud – MoviesThatRespond – NixonMcInnes – Orangepanda Digital Media – Plug-in Media – Twofour – Type3 – Videojuicer

Once in LA we got to met with the Major movie studios Lionsgate, Warner Bros, Sony each of whom has strong digital strategies planned for the year ahead. We also met with the many smaller (by comparison) creative companies, including G-net and Ant Farm both of whom have done some great work with Gaming Clients including many of the online marketing strategies and poster campaigns you have seen for AAA game titles such as Call of Duty.

In both LA and San Francisco receptions were held in our honour at the Consul General’s residence. In LA Dame Barbara Hay hosted an excellent reception with a great delegation of film, interactive and business experts from across LA – and also the most tasty miniature Yorkshire puddingsJ.

When we arrived in San Francisco late and were rushed off our feet, meeting with many of the top tech companies. We met with Facebook whose office’s, from the outside looks like a school but inside gave off an aurora of true creativity. NDAs were signed at the door, so I can’t say much about what was discussed but it focussed on the Facebook Platform, which was great for us and we are doing some interesting projects on Facebook at the moment and it looks like the platform will only being getting better.

We were also privileged to meet with Johnny Ive the lead designer at Apple – it is said that genius is often linked to modesty, and Johnny totally adhered to that rule. It was amazing gaining an insight into how Apple designs their products and including a focus on user observation over user testing.  We also met with the iPhone team and we’re given a crash course in getting the best out of our iPhone Apps.

We also had a great tour and meeting at IDEO, probably the world’s top design firm and also a company with a name very close to our own – we both love ideas. From the original computer mouse, to bicycles without breaks and the rules of brainstorming, IDEO was a place of great ideas and truly creative approaches. I’m currently reading ‘The Ten Faces of Innovation’ by Tom Kelley, a key member of the IDEO team.

The reception in San Francisco was hosted by Julian Evan. A lively event where I was fortunate to met some great people at the reception including Peter Moore of EA and Xochi Birch of Zuno and co-founder of Bebo. Julian also had a great collection of Welsh Beers, which made the end of the night less memorable than the start J

It was an awesome trip and I loved visiting both Cities and plan to venture back out there in the New Year.  A huge thank you goes out to the people who made this possible:  Sam, Emily, Juliet, Carlo, Sat Darshan, Dame Barbara, Jaclyn, Meagan, Arthine, Julian, everybody we visited and anybody I missed of the list. Thank you very much!

Chinwag’s Photos – http://www.flickr.com/photos/chinwagcom/4013972480/in/set-72157622449349491/

What Next? Well just over a week after being back I’m off again, this time to India (subject to my Visa getting issued in time) to take part in the UK Young Interactive Entrepreneur trade mission. Looking forward to meeting all the great business in the Games and Animation sector in India, expect an update soon.