Love the Player, Love the Game

This winter, as the recession meets the Christmas shopping season head-on in a fight to the death, the digital industry looks to prove itself impervious to market forces (and probably a stake through the heart as well). Seemingly the only consumer market to actually improve sales over the past 18 months, new media in Scotland is looking to emphasize just how much of a goldmine they’re sitting on, thanks to companies like Rockstar North (makers of the Grand Theft Auto series), Realtime Worlds, and digital powerhouses like Scotland’s universities.

Faced with competition from Canada and Ireland, which offer tax breaks and subsidies for new media companies, organizations like TIGA are lobbying Westminster to get the same benefits for Scottish companies. Dundee alone hosts 10% of the UK’s digital revenue, but to truly be competitive on the world stage, they need government help to get off the ground. “This highly successful and growing economic sector has great potential,” said Richard Wilson, TIGA CEO, at a recent Scotland in Focus event at the Scottish Parliament. “Yet it faces serious challenges: skills shortages, a brain drain of talented staff to development businesses overseas, and a competitive environment ... which puts Scottish developers in particular and the UK games industry in general at a serious competitive disadvantage.”

Last month’s NeoN conference also highlighted the many struggling companies trying to pump out digital content, as well as what big boys in UK media are doing to meet the new demand for online content. Speakers like Bud Luckey of Pixar and Alice Taylor of Channel 4 outlined the shift in how the public consumes media and online content, as well as the kind of people who produce it.

“One of the aims of the festival is help those seeking to undertake a career in the digital arts gain a better understanding of the industry and to help them advance,” says Donna Fordyce, project manager. Many traditional media outlets are seeing a sharp decline in readership and viewership, and many in the North see Scotland as taking advantage of the opportunity. Investing in new media requires not only the well-trained workforce being churned out of Scotland’s universities, but also a redefinition of Scotland’s image abroad. This image is lent credence by visiting events like the Video Games Live concert, conducted by gaming composer Tommy Tallarico, in Dundee last month.

The next decade (can we call them the Teens yet?) should see radical changes in the local industry as the demand for video games, online content and digital media only gets more urgent. Whether Scotland becomes the powerhouse the experts hope it will may rely as much on perception as government recognition.