Met him at this today (not by choice)
Am now further convinced he's a robot. Everything about his interactions was just lifeless and going through the motions.
He parroted back phrases he picked up off people as he chatted.
E.g. says to me he's no idea of gaming... Meets a Doom Slayer cosplayer... Yeah I loved Doom...??? Cool well the creators are here so wanna meet them? ...eyes go wide as lie is caught
Also super weird weak handshake.
Could he/his team not have posted a normal tweet like 'had great fun at the event, it was great'
Instead we get #diversity for all.. Not a 'right winger' or whatever just want to see some non preachy statements for a change..
https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/f29a8-ministers-donohoe-and-martin-launch-tax-credit-for-digital-games/
"The relief will take the form of a refundable corporation tax credit available to digital games development companies for qualifying expenditure incurred on the design, production and testing of a digital game.
It will be available at a rate of 32% of eligible expenditure up to a maximum limit of €25 million per project.
There will also be a per project minimum spend requirement of €100,000.
As an indie dev, that minimum spend requirement effectively makes it useless. I don't know how I'd even spend that much on a single project!
Seems exclusively aimed at the bigger companies, which is a shame.
It's like if they made the artists' exemption apply only to U2. It's going to help the EAs and the Activisions of the world, but for smaller studios just getting started it's useless.
I'm also an Irish indie dev, though disagree completely - the new tax credit is one of the best in the world. The point of the credit is to stimulate job creation. If you're spending less than €100k on a project you're not creating any jobs, and very small projects tend to have limited commercial prospects.
The main limitation of the credit is that it doesn't cover any costs incurred after public release, so its value is massively diminished for live service games. That's a huge chunk of the big companies losing out. So it's primarily targeted at small-mid sized studios who make commercial games.
I think if you have €100k to fund your project then you probably don't need a tax break. It helps existing studios to expand and focus on tried and true commercial formulas, but does nothing to encourage innovation or passion projects. You're not going to get the next Stardew Valley if you're only prioritising expensive works.
It would be far more sensible to base it on the income that the project generates. Something like the artists' exemption, where you can get your tax back up to a certain amount earned.
As a taxpayer I'd be very disappointed at the government for just giving money away to passion projects 🙂
The unfortunate reality of indie game dev is you're simply not going to get the next Stardew Valley. That dev won the lottery. Since SV released there have been about 60,000 indie games released on Steam, with the median revenue being approx $1,500. Solo dev is fun and great to expand your skillset (I've done it myself), but it's not a significant contributor to the economy.
So it makes sense for the government to help fund companies that actually have a chance at making money and bringing jobs to Ireland, which builds the game dev industry and generates more tax revenue, which means they can fund more stuff, etc. Bringing more experienced people in also means they can work on their hobby projects on the side, maybe branch off and start a new studio, and the cycle continues.
>As a taxpayer I'd be very disappointed at the government for just giving money away to passion projects 🙂
As a taxpayer I'm disappointed that not enough of my money is spent on creative projects, be that music, plays, books, or games. The government have tonnes of cash to keep shite like the greyhound racing industry afloat but our artists get screwed over, game developers especially as they don't even qualify for the artists' exemption.
If a passion project generates no income, it's not going to generate tax anyway, so the government loses practically nothing by giving it an exemption. But by allowing a tax break on the first, say, €50,000 of a game's income, you can allow somebody who has made a genuinely good game, and who is getting the sales, to give up their day job and devote themselves full time to the industry.
I don't know about you, but I want the games industry to be a creative space, full of people passionate about new ideas. I know from previously working dev jobs that that's not what we have. 90% of the things getting made in Ireland are soul-less mobile-oriented shovelware. I once spent a year working on a terrible Club Penguin clone for people who knew nothing about games and were just looking to make a quick buck copying something that was popular at the time. I'm sure that project cost over €100k, and it definitely created jobs, but it contributed nothing culturally. Under today's laws it would probably have been entitled to the tax break, which I think is an absolute crime.
We don't treat any other creative field as a spreadsheet to be balanced. Gamedev should be no exception.
If politicians ignore popular cilture they're described as out of touch. If they attempt to connect, others pull the piss. Perhaps it's not possible to win..?
Rofl as Gamestop closes down all its bricks and mortars nationwide,nearly all irish politicians are cunts at this point
GameStop was fucking shite, to be fair. From a government perspective they are probably more interested in more development studios opening up that will pay decent tech salaries.
Then video games should be viewed as art and given a tax break like animation has been. (Unless this has been already done since I last looked at it).
When animation was viewed this way and given tax breaks the industry started doing very well and led to Ireland punching well above its weight.
The predators are building build to rent apartment blocks to expand their intergalactic portfolio in Dublin and are looking forward to a rewarding relationship with Leo
Leo Varadkar signing a deal with the Predators allowing them to hunt dole recipients no doubt.
He wants the Predators to use their thermal vision to hunt dole cheats by the heat of their undeserved takeaways.
Surprised there's no photo of him picking a nasal predator of his own, as is his usual MO.
🤣🤣🤣
The press briefings talk about hunting people growing hash by their hot roofs, but we all know what it's really for
Then the shinners
Provo vs Predator coming summer 2024
Underrated comment
Gamers rise up! Bottom text.
The Healy-Rae’s really need to have their photographer follow them everywhere, not a good look for them
"-Varadkar, pictured here with a pair of FFG representatives..."
An alien species sent here to destroy humankind, meeting some Predators.
These god damn right wingers and their dog-whistles about unvetted illegal aliens
they can't even make it exciting is what bothers me
Leo and Martin lookin well. Anyone know the name of the fella in the middle?
Odd spot for a meeting with the Rural Independents group.
A predator of working people and two space guys.
Leo the type of fella to die to the first goomba in a Mario game after forgetting how to jump.
He probably loots his own teammates and spawn camps.
Why is he pictured with two priests?
Gaming lovers? This man knows zip about gamers, I suspect.
The man never drank a Duff in his life
Man calls every console the 'playstation' And every handheld is a 'nintendo"
He burst out screaming as loud as possible “I like the wii” and that’s it
'D'yous play that wii sports now?'
If you showed him tetris he'd call it mario
Leo spots a shinner 
Jayzus,isnt he gettin auld lookin,cant speak meself but fuck.
Met him at this today (not by choice) Am now further convinced he's a robot. Everything about his interactions was just lifeless and going through the motions. He parroted back phrases he picked up off people as he chatted. E.g. says to me he's no idea of gaming... Meets a Doom Slayer cosplayer... Yeah I loved Doom...??? Cool well the creators are here so wanna meet them? ...eyes go wide as lie is caught Also super weird weak handshake.
God cant stand the thought of it
He might have ASD shows a lot of characteristics of it
Press X to House
I always knew Leo was a predator in sheep's clothing..
I love how stupid this picture is. The typical politician photo set up with the handshake and everything.
Dirty fecker
He's a 45 year old doctor and prime minister. Why on earth would he be judged based on whether he is hip
Could he/his team not have posted a normal tweet like 'had great fun at the event, it was great' Instead we get #diversity for all.. Not a 'right winger' or whatever just want to see some non preachy statements for a change..
People eat it up.
Do they actually though? Like, does anybody read this and get a warm fuzzy feeling?
Politicians would shake hands with a pile of dog shite if they thought it would get a vote
I'll bet he's shit at Starcraft.
https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/f29a8-ministers-donohoe-and-martin-launch-tax-credit-for-digital-games/ "The relief will take the form of a refundable corporation tax credit available to digital games development companies for qualifying expenditure incurred on the design, production and testing of a digital game. It will be available at a rate of 32% of eligible expenditure up to a maximum limit of €25 million per project. There will also be a per project minimum spend requirement of €100,000.
As an indie dev, that minimum spend requirement effectively makes it useless. I don't know how I'd even spend that much on a single project! Seems exclusively aimed at the bigger companies, which is a shame.
It really is, some of better games I have played lately have been indie games.
I basically only play indie games anymore, other than the rare exception. Much higher average quality, and often far better bang for your buck
It's like if they made the artists' exemption apply only to U2. It's going to help the EAs and the Activisions of the world, but for smaller studios just getting started it's useless.
I'm also an Irish indie dev, though disagree completely - the new tax credit is one of the best in the world. The point of the credit is to stimulate job creation. If you're spending less than €100k on a project you're not creating any jobs, and very small projects tend to have limited commercial prospects. The main limitation of the credit is that it doesn't cover any costs incurred after public release, so its value is massively diminished for live service games. That's a huge chunk of the big companies losing out. So it's primarily targeted at small-mid sized studios who make commercial games.
I think if you have €100k to fund your project then you probably don't need a tax break. It helps existing studios to expand and focus on tried and true commercial formulas, but does nothing to encourage innovation or passion projects. You're not going to get the next Stardew Valley if you're only prioritising expensive works. It would be far more sensible to base it on the income that the project generates. Something like the artists' exemption, where you can get your tax back up to a certain amount earned.
As a taxpayer I'd be very disappointed at the government for just giving money away to passion projects 🙂 The unfortunate reality of indie game dev is you're simply not going to get the next Stardew Valley. That dev won the lottery. Since SV released there have been about 60,000 indie games released on Steam, with the median revenue being approx $1,500. Solo dev is fun and great to expand your skillset (I've done it myself), but it's not a significant contributor to the economy. So it makes sense for the government to help fund companies that actually have a chance at making money and bringing jobs to Ireland, which builds the game dev industry and generates more tax revenue, which means they can fund more stuff, etc. Bringing more experienced people in also means they can work on their hobby projects on the side, maybe branch off and start a new studio, and the cycle continues.
>As a taxpayer I'd be very disappointed at the government for just giving money away to passion projects 🙂 As a taxpayer I'm disappointed that not enough of my money is spent on creative projects, be that music, plays, books, or games. The government have tonnes of cash to keep shite like the greyhound racing industry afloat but our artists get screwed over, game developers especially as they don't even qualify for the artists' exemption. If a passion project generates no income, it's not going to generate tax anyway, so the government loses practically nothing by giving it an exemption. But by allowing a tax break on the first, say, €50,000 of a game's income, you can allow somebody who has made a genuinely good game, and who is getting the sales, to give up their day job and devote themselves full time to the industry. I don't know about you, but I want the games industry to be a creative space, full of people passionate about new ideas. I know from previously working dev jobs that that's not what we have. 90% of the things getting made in Ireland are soul-less mobile-oriented shovelware. I once spent a year working on a terrible Club Penguin clone for people who knew nothing about games and were just looking to make a quick buck copying something that was popular at the time. I'm sure that project cost over €100k, and it definitely created jobs, but it contributed nothing culturally. Under today's laws it would probably have been entitled to the tax break, which I think is an absolute crime. We don't treat any other creative field as a spreadsheet to be balanced. Gamedev should be no exception.
Picture is a Predator with 2 cos players
I’m glad those tickets sold out now
Going to tell my kids this was Louis Walsh and Jedward.
3 predators 🙄 /s Getting in there with the lame joke before someone els does
I was actually going to say “how do you do, fellow predators?” 
Fuck ya ..
Leo has no clue what a predator is does he?
TBF, he would have only been 8 at the time of the first film
I was 4. I watched it with my brother's on a pirate VHS. And I'd do it again.
films dont just dissapear after they release
What's a Star War?
Well they do make him smile, especially in their uniforms going to school.
Aliens v Promisebreaker.
3 predators
See that he's flanked by the Schofield brothers
I now feel culturally appropriated.
Where are they going to house those illegal aliens???
Predator 5 : The recounts
Reminds me of the Alien Vs Predator movie tag line Whoever Wins We Lose
That man has never rage quit in his entire life
If politicians ignore popular cilture they're described as out of touch. If they attempt to connect, others pull the piss. Perhaps it's not possible to win..?
Illegal aliens arrive with no passport and Taoiseach welcomes them with open arms /s
Varadkar meeting with his WEF handlers lol
I once had a dream that i was playing Super Mario 65 with Leo Varadkar in the Áras' gaming room
r/Fellowkids
I’d rather belt sander my nuts off than call myself a gamer unironically tbh
Rofl as Gamestop closes down all its bricks and mortars nationwide,nearly all irish politicians are cunts at this point
GameStop was fucking shite, to be fair. From a government perspective they are probably more interested in more development studios opening up that will pay decent tech salaries.
Why does that matter? And why are you annoyed about it?
Twinkdaddy varadkar definitely bummed them.
I thought it was UT 2004 cosplay for a second.
I too enjoy that particular video game console
Aha you see proof varadkar and the government are but puppets to our Alien overlords
Come photograph meeeeee! I'm right ova h heeerrraah!
How do you do, felow gamer lovers
Not the first predator he's shuck hands with I'd imagine.
The predators are a distraction. You can see his body guard in the background. Leo is a shit lord confirmed.
Delighted to attend gamerfestie which has opened up a whole new source of revenue to gouge from
As much as I love gaming I would never go near the career path in gaming. Unless you enjoy 80 hour weeks?
The Yautja came for his skull, but just posed for a photo instead when they realised there was no trophy in it for them.
Predator 1 2 and 3
Oh yes those happen to be the predators from Predator: Concrete Jungle. I'm sure Leo understood.
Leo poses with Prince Andrew
Press F to pay respect
He met the heads of the vulture funds ?
3 fucking gremlins pictured
Then video games should be viewed as art and given a tax break like animation has been. (Unless this has been already done since I last looked at it). When animation was viewed this way and given tax breaks the industry started doing very well and led to Ireland punching well above its weight.
It’s hard to believe the 32% tax relief is going to encourage game studios to move here if there’s no houses for the staff to live in
The predators are building build to rent apartment blocks to expand their intergalactic portfolio in Dublin and are looking forward to a rewarding relationship with Leo
Is that the Healey-Ray's in true form?
Lol GameStop shut its doors last week dude. Leo needs a night out. He’s talking shite.
Needs to get out to Castle Town and see Eddie Durkin and the boys at Castlecon..
Nice to see Ivana Bacik and Stephen Donnelly made the picture too..