European Projects Home Page Bottom of Page Project Brochure

Cheshire Henbury

EuropeanProjects

Esprit Project 29592 - European Electronics Leisure Industry Working Group (OLGA)

 Objectives
This project helps the "European Electronics Leisure Industry" to remain competitive by assisting the industry to identify and solve common problems particularly those arising from the impending networked digital entertainment. The project will establish a "Working Group", which will set up a "European Trade Association" to look after the industry's interest and will identify major problems and will propose solutions.
 
Among the subjects to be investigated: Communications between suppliers of content, network infrastructure, interactive broadcasting and hardware. Enabling technologies in hardware, software, design tools and protocols. Education, training and business procedures.

Background:

At present, the electronic leisure industry is primarily based on video games whose sales alone are 13 billion $ annually. However the industry is on the verge of dramatic enlargement with the use of the Internet and embedded applications such as interactive TV, CDV and set top boxes. The European market for electronic leisure products will undoubtedly grow to match those of North America and the Asia/Pacific region.
European developers are numerous and small and provide about half of the global content available, but are lacking unfortunately on publishing and the provision of design tools.
The platforms are almost exclusively non-European. The European industry is fragmented and its competitive position is precarious, as the investment commitment is becoming too large for small enterprises. As a result many of Europe's successful businesses are being taken over by larger non-European competitors.

The United States is pioneering market development of leisure networks and is creating standards that European companies will have to follow. However, Europe has many centres of expertise and with support could compete with U.S initiatives. The European industry has to find ways of combining its resources to overcome the disadvantages of fragmentation and exploit the innovative strength of European firms.

Target groups:
 
The work and results of the project are aimed primarily at the "Electronic Leisure Industry" but it should attract interest from other parts of industry such as electronics manufacturers, software companies and publishing houses who could contribute ideas and concepts, marketing expertise and technology access. The project will help the European Commission to formulate policy in this area for framework V.
 Keywords
Multimedia;Games; Leisure
 Partners
Greetham Associates (B)
Ogalala (UK)
Cheshire Henbury (UK)
European Projects Home Page Top of Page Project Brochure

Copyright © 2001, Cheshire Henbury, Created by Paul T. Kidd, Revised November 2001
http://www.CheshireHenbury.com
Main Home Page | About | Overview | Index | Contact | Feedback | Terms & Conditions