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Serious Games Market Analysis By GaLA




GaLA, the Games and Learning Alliance Network of Excellence for Serious Games funded by the European Union in FP7 – IST ICT, Technology Enhanced Learning (please find also GaLA Kick-Off: Newly Created Network of Excellence in Serious Games), has posted some preliminary findings of a market study that draws a  picture of 250 companies that are producing and selling Serious Games, mainly from EU and US.

Leveraging on prior GaLa studies, they have divided the Serious Games Market into 6 main segments: Education, Corporate, Healthcare, Military/Government, NGOs/Games for Good and Advergames. 

The highlights for the preliminary results that still demand further research to become robust are as follows: 

Market Segments

. Almost half of the examined companies produce Serious Games for  Education and one fourth (1/4) offer products and services only to customers such as schools and universities.

. An important number of companies working for the Corporate, Healthcare and Games for Good segments have decided to dedicate entirely to the production of Serious Games. Companies which core business addresses Corporate, Healthcare or Games for Good segments tend to specialize in the production of Serious Games.

Business Model

. Companies working for the Education, Corporate, Healthcare and Military/Gov segments tend to develop their own games, whilst Games for Good are generally sponsored by an organizationAn important amount of Advergames seems to utilize the work-for-hire business model to address  customers’ requests for particular advertisement or communication campaign.

Market Segments Attractiveness

. Developers and publishers of Serious Games for the Education and Advertising segments seem to prefer to work exclusively for those segments. 

About GaLA

GaLA has started on October 11th 2010 and gathers the cutting-the-edge European Research & Development organizations on Serious Games, involving 31 partners from 14 countries. Partnership includes universities, research centers, and developer and education industries.

GaLA motivation stems from the acknowledgment of the potentiality of Serious Games for education and training and the need to address the challenges of the main stakeholders of the Serious Games European landscape.

GaLA aims to shape the scientific community and build a European Virtual Research Centre aimed at gathering, integrating, harmonizing and coordinating research on Serious Games and disseminating knowledge, best practices and tools as a reference point at an international level.

The other key focuses of the project are the support to deployment in the actual educational and training settings; the fostering of innovation and knowledge transfer through research-business dialogue; and the development high-quality didactics on Serious Games by promoting and supporting courses at Master and PhD level.

The GaLA Consortium

The consortium covers a wide range of topical knowledge on research and development in Serious Games. It is a multidisciplinary consortium of 31 partners, coming from 14 countries all over the EU: Italy, Germany, Austria, Finland, UK, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Portugal, France, Romania and Ireland.

It comprises representing both universities, research centers, SMEs and large Enterprises, thus representing a mix of the interests and skills involved in the Serious Games development and deployment chain, allowing an effective synergy between research, education and business.