Studio profile
As a new game studio with a veteran line-up at its helm, Digit is ready to indulge its love of dark medieval fantasy
Newcomers Digit Game Studios has already started indulging its love of medieval fantasy, with Kings of the Realm.
For the past few years Ireland has gradually earned an enviable reputation for being a technological powerhouse, with companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook choosing to base their European operations there. But it’s not just software giants that are booming – game development in Ireland is also big business, as relatively new company Digit Game Studios can attest.
Based in Dublin, Digit itself is not just any old start-up game company. It was cofounded by Martin Frain, David McGovern, Richard Barnwell and Fergus Duggan, all of who have extensive experience in the industry. Between them they’ve developed for and launched RuneScape, Tomb Raider, Mirror’s Edge, Battlefield Heroes, Bejeweled and many more. So why walk away from a cushy job to start all over again as a relative nobody? “It’s always great to be able to take your own path and create a game of your own,” says Martin. “We’ve known each other for a while and our skills complement one another. And it’s fun to build something from scratch.” Digit’s first release is Kings of the Realm, an ambitious fantasy strategy title full of knights, archers, castles and, well, realms. It’s currently in open beta. Using Digit’s own “seamlessly crossplatform” technology, Kings is designed from the ground up to be playable on any device – iPad, Android tablet, a web browser, Facebook app and so on – so no matter where you are, you can pick up and carry on playing.