Irish Developer Scene : Feature Article 2PaperDolls

Feature : Irish Developers Week

Featured Studio : 2Paper Dolls

Date 1st Dec 2011

During our week long feature on the Irish video game developers scene we have tended to focus a lot on the home grown Irish start-ups, but there is another kind of Irish studio. A studio that has migrated to Ireland from far away shores, clearly for the lovely weather! Perhaps not, but something drew this bunch of American entrepreneurs to our shores, maybe it’s the ease of doing business in Dublin, maybe it’s the wealth of Irish talent but we think it might just be our lovely warm welcoming nature.

2PaperDolls have only just set up home in Dublin in June of this year in fact, bringing with them a wealth of entrepreneurial and technological experience having built up and sold many impressive companies to industry big hitters like Microsoft, Avenade and Ascentium, to name a few.

The founding members of 2PaperDolls include Louis Ravenet, Steve McLelland, Jim Lears and Andrea Ravenet, whose last company they built together –called iCommunicate– later went on to be the platform for Microsoft’s CRM.

That’s the past so now to the future! With the studio firmly in place in Dublin, 2PaperDolls are turning their attention to their first upcoming game, “Mind Of Man,” a game that sounds incredibly advanced and is promising to “explore what makes someone an individual, capturing their digital “mindprint” and turning it into a virtual image that’s completely unique.”

Utilizing crowd sourcing, sentiment analysis and entertainment, they’re creating not only a highly entertaining game but also an intensely personal experience for the user.

Unlike other start up studios we have spoken to this week it might seem like 2PaperDolls have had somewhat of an easier time getting going considering that not only do they all know each other but they have all worked together before, too. Knowing your work mates is half the battle for a new studio so they are already at an advantage.

With the experience of starting and running a number of successful businesses already under their belts they have a clear advantage in that they know what pit falls to look out for. Experience is something you can’t put a price on but lack of experience certainly has its costs and the team will tell you that they do bear the scares of past mistakes.

The fact the whole team all have incredibly creative minds goes a long way to helping the whole process too, so it should be easy, right? Not quite, as even to these experienced entrepreneurs it has been hard work. Starts ups are an unpredictable beast. No matter what you plan for something will always pop up just to keep you guessing.

Harnessing the power emanating from all those creative brains is not always an easy task either and sometimes it’s a job in its own right just to stop the whole thing from imploding in on itself, but something tells me they have faced bigger tests in the past and overcome them so I fear not for the team.

2PaperDolls seem to be an unconventional bunch but have proven to be one of the most interesting studios we have ever met. The concepts are intriguing, and I for one can’t wait to see what they produce.

With the experience of starting and running a number of successful businesses already under their belts they have a clear advantage in that they know what pit falls to look out for. Experience is something you can’t put a price on but lack of experience certainly has its costs and the team will tell you that they do bear the scares of past mistakes.

The fact the whole team all have incredibly creative minds goes a long way to helping the whole process too, so it should be easy, right? Not quite, as even to these experienced entrepreneurs it has been hard work. Starts ups are an unpredictable beast. No matter what you plan for something will always pop up just to keep you guessing.

Harnessing the power emanating from all those creative brains is not always an easy task either and sometimes it’s a job in its own right just to stop the whole thing from imploding in on itself, but something tells me they have faced bigger tests in the past and overcome them so I fear not for the team.

2PaperDolls seem to be an unconventional bunch but have proven to be one of the most interesting studios we have ever met. The concepts are intriguing, and I for one can’t wait to see what they produce.

2PaperDolls have offered readers of Bone-idle an exciting exclusive chance to get early access to their game when it goes into beta testing later this year. All you need to do is to email them at info@2paperdolls.com and let them know you would like to be part of the Bone-idle related beta.

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