Poor communication is holding back industry - Simons

The inability of publishers and platform holders to communicate with companies outside of the games industry is holding back the entire market, according to GameCity organiser Iain Simons.

Speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz, Simons has revealed his frustration at publishers and platform holders that fail to grasp new concepts — unlike their counterparts in the development community and the public sector.

In an interview discussing the GameCity event, which is set to take place in Nottingham this October, Simons said: "Our frustration, to a certain extent, has been working with the platform holders.

"The public sector has really gotten behind this, and a lot of developers have to such a large degree that we were hoping that platform holders would be more upfront in their collaboration too," he continued.

"If the games industry wants to be taken seriously by the rest of the world, and culture in general, it needs to be able to step up and work with external people - with the rest of the cultural industries, and think about how itâs going to present itself."

Discussing the thinking behind the five day event he's currently organising, Simons said: "The intention of GameCity is to spread games, talk about games and the experience of games across an entire city, to as many different places as we possibly can - cafîs, pubs, libraries, universities, shops - to allow people to stumble across them in their everyday lives and create a real festival atmosphere."

But, according to Simons, videogaming wonât be taken seriously until the industry as a whole can learn better ways to communicate with other entertainment and cultural industries.

"I canât see how games are going to participate in any kind of meaningful culture — we keep banging on that games are as big as film or music, but the way in which film and music PR is handled is completely different to this really sanitised PR that we have over games," he said.

The full interview with Simons, and more details on the screenings, seminars, workshops, musical events, games and activities planned for GameCity, will be published on GamesIndustry.biz next week.