Abertay to be scientific lead in €3.8m study into European video games clusters
Video games industry clusters across six European regions are at the centre of a new €3.8m study which seeks to identify the secret ingredients for economic success outside of capital cities.
Abertay University is participating in the Gaming Clusters Across Multiple European Regions (GAME-ER) research project, which will focus on video games industries to have emerged and thrived outside of major European cities.
With significant potential to inform the Levelling-Up agenda and similar drives for economic growth in other countries, the Horizon Europe-funded study will initially focus on Dundee in Scotland, Lyon and Bordeaux in France, Turin in Italy, Fundão in Portugal and Brno in the Czech Republic. Running over 36 Months, GAME-ER aims to understand what each city’s cluster has in common, gathering research and data to develop a toolkit for the video games sector that will support industry growth.
The project will also investigate the impact of the pandemic and remote working on gaming clusters, and how the sector’s skillsets and workforce can benefit other industries.
Abertay University is lead scientific partner on the project and will receive funding through the UK Government Guarantee Fund, working with several European partners, including Charles University, Inova+, the University of Turin, and the Czech and Croatian game developer associations, among others.
The success of Dundee’s gaming cluster, from its origins to the current day, will be assessed, including analysis of how the city has grown to have one of the highest concentrations of games developers per head of population anywhere in the world. On top of being the birthplace of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, Dundee is also the home of the console and handheld editions of Minecraft, the best-selling game of all time.
Extracted from Abertay University website - read more here