This page is part of the CRIC web archive

Digital Games Industries:
Developments, Impact and Direction

Dynamics of Innovation in the Interactive Games Industry

Anthony Cawley
Dublin City University, Ireland
anthony.cawley2@mail.dcu.ie

Keywords: games, content, production, innovation, influences

This paper aims to examine the innovative dynamics of digital media content production. The paper conceptualises digital media as coming in a wide variety of forms - online and CD-ROM texts, audio and video content, and interactive games - and tries to address the influences that are shaping the development of this newly emergent industry and what shapes the content innovations that emerge from it.

The paper draws on work from social and communication studies, but is underpinned by a systems of innovation approach. Systems of innovation offers a holistic framework in which to analyse innovative performance within an industry. It examines how the interactions of various actors (governments, institutional set-up, venture capitalists, companies) blend together to form a system in which innovation can occur. It documents how these various actors, at various levels within a system, can act as brakes on or accelerators to content production.

The three main levels within a system are macro, meso, and micro. Macro level influences could be how government policies or decisions - such as deciding in which areas to concentrate funding for start-ups - could influence the ability of companies to develop games and bring them to market. At meso-level, venture capitalists show greater enthusiasm for funding hardware projects over content project, because hardware is viewed as a more tangible and secure investment than content. Venture Capitalists form an influential layer of the system of innovation, and can restricted the ability of games developers to fund for projects. (In Ireland, games companies tend to employ few people and concentrate on relatively small-scale projects.)

Micro-level influences could be decisions taken within the companies themselves - the genres of games to develop and the genres of games that were most likely to attract the attention of a publisher/distributor.

The systems of innovation approach would also examine the pool of (people) skills available to companies, and how well developed is the institutional set-up to support their work. (Irish games developers tend to cluster around Dublin, which has the most well developed infrastructure in the country.)

By conceptualising the games industry as a system of innovation, the paper will examine how the skills, knowledge and information necessary for development are transferred within the industry. It will argue that the games industry (and the wider area of content) is a distinct domain within the overall digital media industry, and cannot be examined (as much industrial and governmental research has) on the same terms as hardware or software industries. Content innovation and games production is marked by important qualitative differences to technological innovation. Research into the area must be sensitive to such differences to form a deeper understanding of the emergence of the games industry and the dynamics of innovation shaping the games produced within it.

The empirical aspects of the paper will be based on doctoral work I conducted in Dublin City University between 1999 and 2002. The study analysed key trends emerging digital content industry at macro, meso and micro-levels, and attempted to map and understand the unfolding strategies and trends with particular attention to the Irish context.

Return to Workshop Programme

Top

CRIC is now proud to be part of the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR)
Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition (CRIC), The University of Manchester,
Harold Hankins Building, Booth Street West, Manchester M13 9QH, England
Phone +44 (0)161 275 7365 Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 7361
Site maintained by: Ishty Hussain

Digital Games Industries: Developments, Impact and Direction

Dynamics of Innovation in the Interactive Games Industry

Digital Games Industries:
Developments, Impact and Direction