About us

The Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival (EIEF) celebrates the best of the interactive entertainment industry and creates an environment where the development and publishing community can celebrate the latest creative milestones and look to future innovations. It is managed by a committee drawn from all areas of the industry including publishers, developers and the two industry trade bodies: The Independent Games Developers Association (TIGA) - www.tiga.org and the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) - www.elspa.com.

EIEF06 provides an international forum that brings people from across the industry together into one space. People that have the power and vision to change and develop the industry for the better. Featuring guests and speakers from the TV, film, music and telecoms industries, EIEF06  invites you to work together to shape the future of the interactive entertainment industry.

Some key info on the computer and video games market:

• Interactive entertainment is the fastest growing sector of its kind worldwide. Games software sales alone have risen to a record- breaking £1.35 billion in 2005 (Source: Screen Digest)
   
• The UK computer and video games industry already exceeds cinema box office takings as well as spending on the rental of video-cassettes and DVDs. In fact, the UK interactive software market in 2002 was more than double the size of the British video rental market and 1.4 times more than cinema box office spending - which itself is enjoying record breaking growth (Source: Screen Digest)
   
• The estimated total value of the UK computer and video games industry is in excess of £2 billion. It continues to be the largest market in Europe and the third largest market in the world, after the US and Japan (Source: Screen Digest)

• Enough software has been sold in the UK for every person to own five games (Source: Screen Digest)

• There have been enough consoles sold in the the UK for there to be one in every household (approx. 24.88 installed bases excluding older consoles like Dreamcast and SNES) (Source: Screen Digest)

• The video games industry employs over 22,000 people - in development, distribution, retail, printing and other support areas - making it by far the largest software employment field in Europe (Source: Screen Digest) 
   
• There are over 15 million active gamers in UK aged 15-34 (Source: ELSPA)