SCOTLAND'S leading computer games companies are targeting a burgeoning #10bn global market as they set up stall in Atlanta, Georgia today for E3, the world's premier multimedia show.
Scottish Enterprise is again supporting a 12-company mission, following success last year in winning a record #20m of business at the show for Scotland.
The Scottish Games Alliance has helped Scotland emerge as a hotbed of games development activity, working with major clients such as Sony and Nintendo. Six of the companies will exhibit at the ''Developed in Scotland'' suite, complete with individual games demonstration booths to attract international publishers.
The industry employs more than 300 people and has racked up earnings of #1m a month for the past year. It expects to reach more than #4m a month by the end of 2000 and to boost employment to more than 1000 people.
Lesley Keen, chairwoman of the Glasgow-based Inner Workings which has an Alternative Investment Market listing, said: ''E3 is an absolutely critical event for us. Our appointment book for the show reads like a register of the great and good.''
Chris van der Kuyl, chief executive of Dunfermline-based VIS Interactive, said VIS would be showing off the new PC version of its HEDZ game (on CD-Rom) and its Earthworm Jim 3-D game which is already in Sony PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and PC.
Van der Kuyl said:''E3 is the world-wide focal point of the interactive entertainment industry.''
The other four companies in the suite are I-Design, Red Lemon Studios, Visual Sciences and Voxar, while other companies attending are Digital Animations, Crocodile Clips, Silicon Fish, Liquid Image and Reality X.
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