Student Enterprise @ Purple Door

Background

Distinction Games was created by Orcun Adsoy, along with five other students studying Computer Games Technology. The initial intention was to start up a business after finishing a masters course at the University of Portsmouth. However, the opportunity presented itself with the Enterprise unit in the second year, and also, having heard about the benefits of the Portsmouth Centre for Enterprise.  Distinction Games was made fully active during the industry year when Orcun and his team took a year out of their course to work full time in an office provided by the Portsmouth Centre for Enterprise. In addition to developing games, Distinction Games has also taken on contracted work by the University of Portsmouth and external games developers.

Distinction Games also offers mentoring to Portsmouth Games Tech students. The mentoring scheme has two sides to it, the first is the cell groups who are current Enterprise students in their second years. Distinction Games chooses the most motivated students at the end of their first years and puts them into groups to work on a single game throughout their Enterprise unit in their second year. The other side to the mentoring scheme is opening up the Distinction Games office to work experience students for their gap year. This gives students a years games development experience which most jobs in the games industry now demand.

Short Term Plan

Distinction Games has two primary goals to be accomplished prior to the end of the teams third year in university.  The first is to generate enough capital to be able to run as a self sustaining registered company after the end of the third year of university. The second is to build up a network of contacts within the university to further both Distinction Games as a whole and the University of Portsmouth's Computer Games Technology course.

Portsmouth Centre for Enterprise

Orcun believes that without the benefits offered by the Portsmouth Centre for Enterprise, the early creation of Distinction Games would not have been possible. Distinction Games as a whole was benefited by being given an office large enough to have the entire team work within. Orcun as the head of Distinction Games was continously benefited by the advice and guidance of the Portsmouth Centre for Enterprise staff through one on one mentoring.The mentoring scheme offered by Distinction Games for current Computer Games Tech students is also only available due to the Portsmouth Centre for Enterprise allowing our plans to be carried out in a unit they run.

Future Plans

Distinction Games intends to push its plans forward by tying in with the University of Portsmouth as its base of operations and working with the Computer Games Technology department to help improve the future of games developers.