Game development as innovation driver
The European Games Developer Federation (EGDF) represents the interests of those creative studios in Europe that make computer games. Game development studios can be small enterprises of 10 people and under, typically making casual and mobile games, or 50 to 200 persons console and PC game developer studios for the current and next generations of consoles, working in a process that takes about two years per game.
The EGDF represents some 600 studios based in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, which together employ over 17,000 people. The European computer and video games industry, including distributors and students in game educations, encompasses over 100,000 jobs. None of them existed 25 years ago.
Games and interactive content are likewise of increasing cultural and technological importance in the integrated world of TV, Internet and telephone. The game industry has developed new business models, which could serve as blueprint for the Internet of the future in the fields like anti-piracy, micropayment etc. The link between business models and technology can be examined in the games-industry. Regardless of the eventual control over gateways and transmissions, there will be an increasing demand for interactive content production in itself. Games are also an important driver for hardware and network technologies. But from a SME viewpoint, the barriers to market entry are significantly high.
The value chain within the game industry has considerably changed over the recent years. Driven by new, disruptive business models and piracy proof server based solutions, online games from Europe have become surprisingly strong within the worlds game industry – originally dominated by non-European players. Today some of them reach out to the world with more than 40 million registered users. The basis for this development is a non-discrimatory internet, based on principles like net-neutrality. This strong growth and innovation can only be preserved when the core of the internet remains a free communication space. There is a risk for Europe, when distribution-bottlenecks from the “offline world” become leveraged into the “online space” by the misuse of regulatory measures beyond the control of independent judges. The EGDF therefore encourages the European Parliament to stand firm on its position to see the free internet as a chance and not as a danger for Europe.
This is text is based on one page summary of a presentation held in the European Innovation Summit 2009.
