This year’s edition of the Festival of Games will take place on 28-29 April in Utrecht, The Netherlands. The gaming trade show sees a major uptake in interest from abroad: More than 60% of this year’s Festival of Games participants are international visitors. Ranging from Jordan to Korea and from Russia to Canada these participants turn the Festival of Games into the major business platform for the European games industry. During the Festival of Games, Deloitte will present a research report with market data on the Dutch games industry that substantiates these advantages. In addition, Newzoo presents the first results of the 2011 National Gamers Surveys. Key insights on consumer gaming behavior in Western as well as Emerging markets: number of gamers, consumer spend, type of games played and a comparison between the Western and Emerging markets such as Russia, Mexico and Brazil. With this, the Festival of Games wants to offer an exclusive and unique view on the games industry and its consumers.

The opening keynote of the Festival of Games Conference will be given by Al Lowe, the creator of Leisure Suit Larry, the adventure game that opened a new genre in the game industry during the 80s. Lowe will be joined by delegates from the international games industry like Activision, LucasArts, Eidos, Endemol,Unity Technologies and many others. Newzoo’s National Gamers Surveys have provided market data for several years now. From the raw 2011 data it already has become clear that the average time spent on games in western markets has grown 50 to 100 percent depending on country. This growth is clearly fuelled by the expansion of mobile devices and social networks as game platforms and the large scale adaptation of the free-to-play business model of online gaming.

According to Reinout te Brake, CEO of MMO Traffic, the research results show that MMO / social gaming will achieve exponential growth in the coming years. “This is driven to a large extent by a move towards ‘free to play’, the participation of new groups of gamers, and mobile gaming. We expect that especially the latter will provide a great boost to the market in 2012.” Te Brake is pleased with the growth in the international character of the Festival of Games: “With this show The Netherlands underline their role and ambition in the worldwide market for online gaming and beyond.” The participation at the Expo & Career Fair is free, you can sign up here.