The Evolving European Video Game Software Ecosystem - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 216

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR EUROPE

This fi nal section sums up the observations and conclusions of this chapter
and aims to distil some implications for the industry, its policymakers and
researchers. We will also briefl y try to assess the impact our research might
have had on European policy-making.
Firstly, the growth dynamics of the video game industry are quite excep-
tional. In recent years this growth has been fuelled essentially by the growth
of software—the games themselves rather than equipment sales. In particu-
lar, online and wireless video games are already the fastest-growing seg-
ments and are expected to increase their importance in the years to come.
Increased consumer awareness, growing Internet broadband penetration in
households and increased content development for online-specifi c games
sustained by new technology exploitation are expected to be among the
elements that will allow the revenue from the online and wireless gaming
market to continue to grow. Born digital, it seems like, video games, as
opposed to some other media and entertainment industries, are not suf er-
ing a decline due to the rise of the Internet, at least not so far.
However, though more and more studies are trying to estimate the size
and growth of the game industry, the lack of oi cial data clearly constitutes
a constraint to the appraisal of its potential and to the understanding of
its dynamics (sees Box 11.2). Current statistical systems (as aggregated by

Box 11.2 Not Caught by Oi cial Classifi cations

The OECD defi nes the media and content industries (MCI) broadly as: “The
production (goods and services) of a candidate industry must primarily be
intended to inform, educate and/or entertain humans through mass commu-
nication media. These industries are engaged in the production, publishing
and/or the distribution of content (information, cultural and entertainment
products), where content corresponds to an organised message intended for
human beings” (2009, 117). It includes the following segments: publishing of
books, periodicals and other publishing activities, motion picture, video and
television program activities, sound recording and music publishing activi-
ties, programming and broadcasting activities, and other information ser-
vice activities (news agency activities, other information service activities)
(OECD 2007).
The video game industry is not classifi ed under media, although it fi ts
the OECD MCI defi nition, and has many activities in common with, for
instance, television and fi lm production. Instead, the video game industry is
in ISIC rev4 (as well as in the U.S. NAICS 2002) categorized under software
and computer programming.
Sources: Leurdijk et al. (2012); De Prato et al. (2010).