At present gaming is a booming market generating multi-billion Euro turnover. The global market in 2006 was estimated by Price Waterhouse Coopers: as €25 billions. The gaming industry is a highly innovative one and lately gaming has experienced a strong shift towards various kinds of online gaming, including single & multiplayer gaming. Game platforms (PCs, home consoles, nomad consoles, mobiles) are now all network-ready, and actors in the video game value chains are more and more taking advantage of this. As a result of this the new category of games – online games  – has emerged. Online games are not necessarily multiplayer games, sometimes the platform is the browser or the flash player and the distribution is online.

Online games & online distribution are the future of the interactive entertainment industry. They also present a number of exciting opportunities for telcos – new business models, new markets, new revenue streams and new growth. They move the gaming industry into a more functionally rich online environment – an e-business environment – from which the majority of the revenue stream will come. But moving to this new model presents a number of challenges to the games developers, the players, and the service providers who ultimately will need to support this new environment.

What are the main objectives of this Project?

• Identification of key telecom technologies that can support innovative game services

• Identification of emerging technologies that can contribute to the enhancement of the gaming experience

• Identification how the telecommunication and some related emerging technologies can be used to enrich the game experience and turned into novel game services

• Outlining the value proposition for the Telcos and game developers/providers

• Identifying the service delivery architecture/platform (or alternative service delivery architectures/platforms)

• Finally, to provide example(s) and showcase gaming enabled by Telcos

In summary, the aim is to

• identify enablers possessed by TelCos and thus validate that they are well positioned to support the improvement and new level of gaming experience, and

• identify how Telcos can capitalize on the technologies possessed and realize the advantage.