TechNation200 Almanac 2015/16

TechNation200 Almanac 2015/16 | Dundee
Chris van der
Kuyl
Chair
4J Studios
Dundee is a city steeped in the history of
computer gaming, as the birthplace of global
giants like Grand Theft Auto and continuing
work on Minecraft. But the city also has
strengths in life sciences and data.
Dundee, Scotland’s sunniest city, is historically known for
its ‘three Js’ – jute, jam and journalism.
The past generation has seen a new and inwardly
driven force rebuild the post-industrial landscape of the city into
a technology powerhouse spanning disparate sectors.
Journalism lives on in the still-thriving publishing giant that is
DC Thomson, creator and publisher of classics like the Beano
and Dandy, as well as a catalogue of historically signifi cant and
modern publications across dozens of household brands.
The city’s Timex Factory shut down in 1993 after a series of
bitter strikes and NCR closed its main PCB production plant in
2009, leaving an R&D facility behind. The legacy left by these
technological giants resonates on today.
The Timex factory was, it turns out, also famous for the
Sinclair ZX-81 and ZX-Spectrum computers, many of which
wound up through various means in the hands of enterprising
young children in Dundee. Some of these Dundee children
eventually grow their passions into fl edgling businesses like
DMA Design and VIS.
The early and marked success of these companies with
titles like Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto, State of Emergency
and H.E.D.Z. created a sense of legitimacy around the video
games industry, and paved the way for the foundation of the
world’s fi rst degree in computer games technology at Abertay
University in the city.
Around 3,000 people work in technology, generating a
turnover of more than £200m, but sadly much of the rest of the
city does not fi nancially reap the rewards of this effort.
Many in Dundee’s STEM community are working hard
to ensure that children growing up within the city learn the
appropriate skills and will have the opportunity to work within
and grow these sectors.
The free nationwide champion of kids coding, Code Club,
saw its fi rst club in Scotland founded in Dundee, growing to
more than 90% of primary schools in Dundee now hosting
clubs for 9-11s, driven and guided by Dundee Science Centre.
TechCityinsider’s TechCities Ambassador for Dundee is Kenny Lowe
from Brightsolid and Dundee Meet-Up (www.brightsolid.com).
“We wanted to create a
business that focused on
quality over quantity. For
our first five years, we took
on very interesting, very technically challenging development
work with a variety of games publishers, then for the last
couple of years it was Microsoft pretty much exclusively for
Xbox 360. The reputation we built up then led Microsoft to
the team up in Sweden at Mojang, who’d created Minecraft.
They had a game that was doing really well on PC, tablets
and mobiles, so decided it was the right time to bring it to
games consoles. Microsoft recommended us, talking about
the reputation of Scottish developers and our understanding
of how consoles work. We struck a deal that was a revenue
share. We thought that if the game sold two million copies on
consoles it would be a runaway success. We have now sold
well over 20 million copies.”
Award-winning games studio 4J created Minecraft on Xbox 360 with
Mojang and Microsoft, and is now also working on all Playstation and
XboxOne versions. Dundee-based Van der Kuyl, one of the UK’s leading
games developers, chairs the Entrepreneurial Exchange representing
more than 400 Scottish entrepreneurs. @4JStudios
Piers Duplock
Producer
eeGeo
“We specialise in making
beautiful interactive 3D
maps. We came from
Realtime Worlds, a huge
and well-respected games
company based in Dundee,
which developed games like
APB and Crackdown. When
that sadly folded, we bought
the rights to Project MyWorld,
which Realtime Worlds
was developing. Now it has
fl ourished into our mobile mapping platform. The platform is self
sustainable and we are solely focused on that. We have to pick
our locations because not everywhere gives us the data we need,
like ground data, 3D buildings, topography and road networks.
We select our locations, fi nd our data then build from that. We
bring it all into our old games engine and we build our cities
based on that.”
eeGeo is on a mission to enable its customers to create intuitive and
engaging experiences, by delivering a new approach to mapping. It
offers free access to its software development kit. @eeGeo
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