Crisis or no crisis, the computer games industry is thriving in the Netherlands. The number of people involved in the design and development of computer games has increased tenfold over the last seven years. The Dutch have become especially strong in free online games and in games played on mobile phones.

"I think the Dutch are in a very strong position in mobile-phone and internet games. Actually, we’re already market leader, global market leader for games that you play via the internet. We’re a lot smaller in games played for instance on Xboxes or on PlayStations."

Seth van der Meer chairs the Dutch computer games interest group (NLGD) and, despite the economic crisis, is confident about the future. His optimism is partially the result of developments which took place at the Festival of Games, held this week in Utrecht. Over 150 companies and 1500 professionals from the European computer games sector attended the forum.

Inventive
The Dutch are celebrated within the games world for their development culture. They have a good understanding of the market thanks to quick and comprehensive internet. On the other hand, they are denied much financial leeway, but this just serves to increase their inventiveness. Small budgets mean they tend to develop games which suit the internet and mobile phones. Mr van der Meer expects these to be areas where profits are to be made in the coming years:

"It’s one of the areas of the future. One of the good things with a mobile phone is that you always have it with you. The new phones, like the iPhone, are really powerful machines and you can play very interesting, very good games on these small devices. And they are very cheap. For only a couple of dollars, you can play a really good game. There are already some very good Dutch developers making iPhone games. I think that is a very good area for them to focus on, because that is the future."

Game behaviour
Peter Warman from the Newzoo game portal agrees, but stresses it is also important for the games industry to collect information about consumers. Last year, Newzoo started to do research into gamers’ behaviour.

"When we started our company there was a lack of complete consumer data: Who plays which type of game, for how long and what do they spend their money on? So we launched the national gamer survey in the Netherlands last year."

The information gleaned has given the game developers an edge. In August, similar research will be done abroad, with Newzoo mapping how gamers behave in countries including Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States.
 

photo: prep4md@flickr