Event details are now confirmed for the first meeting of North West new media companies interested in the University of Bolton's new computer games enterprise project.
On Tuesday 15 May, from 6.30pm, at Tiger, Tiger in Withy Grove, Manchester city centre, the Casual Games North West project hosts an introduction to the growing casual games market, presenting inspirational speakers.
Casual Games North West, led by the university, aims to make England's North West a centre for this computer games market with massive female appeal, set to be a £1 billion industry by next year.
Women are the biggest users of what is termed 'casual games' – games that are accessed from a website and played on a computer online. PopCap Games (www.popcap.com|), one of the biggest suppliers of casual games, says 76% of its customers are female*.
Casual games has been pinpointed as the fastest growing sector in the games market, according to the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). It has estimated the casual games market was worth $600 million in 2004 and will be worth $2 billion by 2008**.
Now the university's games team has created a range of fully-funded business support packages focussed on bringing the region's games, new media and web companies into the lucrative market.
Andrew Williams, Senior Lecturer at the University of Bolton, said:
'The initial research phase of this project has revealed that there is a great deal of interest in this part of the games market in the North West. We have had contacts from many established games companies that are already active in the market, as well as individual developers who have worked on their own to create games. We have also had a lot of interest from web development companies who hope to leverage their Flash expertise to enter the advergaming market'.
Added Phil Carlisle, Senior Lecturer at the university and independent games developer:
'This is an ideal time for anyone considering entering games development because of the opportunities generated by new platforms and new methods of delivering content. This project will enable companies from all over the North West region to learn about and target these new markets.'
The project is partially funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Creative Industries Development Service (CIDS) and the North West Development Agency (NWDA). The project is supported by Game Alliance, the trade body for supporting the North West games industry.
Anyone wanting to attend the launch of Casual Games North West or learn more about business support packages should contact Project Manager Rebecca Albrow. Telephone 01204 903332 or email r.a.albrow@bolton.ac.uk|.
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Note to Editors
*November 2006 edition of Develop magazine.
**IGDA Casual Games White Paper 2006
www.igda.org/casual/IGDA_CasualGames_Whitepaper_2006.pdf|