ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the wider academic and industry implications of developments in the digital games industry. It considers the status of the digital games industry as a cultural and creative industry and discusses the implications of networking at three levels: technologically, organisationally and for individual workers. The culture industry concept was coined to highlight the industrialisation, standardisation and commodification of culture. Regional, state and private investment programmes are increasingly paying attention to the potential employment and revenue rewards of digital games as content, but are also aware of the investment risks. The use of the cultural and creative industries concept in European policy documents is to some extent an attempt to mediate between the critical concept of the culture industry and the policy concept of the creative industries. The chapter also presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book.
