EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND--Much like the mob, the gaming industry is a tough gig to quit. Chris Deering retired as president of Sony Europe last year and promptly took on the role of chairman for the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival, which runs today and tomorrow in the Scottish capital. Deering oversaw the European launch of the original PlayStation and now enjoys executive and consulting positions with a number of videogame and interactive entertainment companies, including Codemasters.

　　The first day of the festival is geared toward the industry, with a number of seminars and panel sessions that cover the cultural issues surrounding today's gaming landscape. The consumer events will take place tomorrow, with 'game screenings' at the Lothian Road Odeon that include Guitar Hero II, Colin McRae: DIRT, and The Lord of the Rings Online. GameSpot UK spoke to Chris ahead of his opening speech to discuss what this year's festival has to offer its visitors.

　　GameSpot UK: As chair of the EIEF, what do you see as the key objectives for this year's event?

　　Chris Deering: Well, as always, the festival distinguishes itself from other events on the calendar by focussing on the sheer creativity within the industry. The festival will take a step back to absorb itself in the city of Edinburgh, to see how computer and video games fit in with the lifestyle of the end users. We're also looking at potential overlaps between games and other mediums, and we're looking to what can be drawn upon from outside the game industry, hopefully to make games more interesting.

　　As far as the programme, there's a deliberate attempt to have a diverse group of topics. There are one-to-many seminars and participative game screenings, to promote the sharing of ideas within this environment. There's also the social aspect of being in Edinburgh, and while we're not doing an exhibition like we have in the past, we are definitely beefing up the social aspects. Tonight we have the EDGE awards, the Guitar Hero Championships and some live B-Boy demonstrations. This lets people who are not normally involved in the games calendar, such as those from government agencies and the film area, to see the creative challenges involved in games.

　　So, the objectives for EIEF are the same as they've always been, but we want to bring it all up to date within the current climate of industry events, as well as continue to reach out to the simultaneous TV and film festivals here to cross-fertilise discussion.

　　GSUK: The EIEF runs alongside the main Edinburgh festival, which promotes the wider appreciation of many different art forms. Does EIEF follow the same mandate?

　　CD: Well, games are getting much more dynamic in the way that they ask their players to interact with them. Initially it was you trying to solve a puzzle or attain a high score. But with the arrival of online capabilities, there's a community taking place, and it can be argued that these are substitutes for real-life communities. And to me, there's evidence of experiences that might have multiple entry points. For example, although you might play most of a game on a standard console, part of the game might have a mobile phone aspect...

　　These kinds of capabilities are fun to think about, but as the number of gamers grows, people will want to be challenged with new ideas. That's what this kind of a conference invites. We have a variety of formats and sponsors supporting us. Mobile games have been involved for a number of years, but they are much more so this year, and we're giving a seminar at the Cineworld film festival. So I'd say Edinburgh is pretty much on-beam for what it was originally set up to do, while evolving with the new technologies that have come along to become more legitimised parts of the festival. We're now listed as one of the official festivals of the Edinburgh fringe.

　　GSUK: Let's talk a little bit about the development community. What would you say are the highlights of the EIEF lineup for the industry?

　　CD: We're set to focus a lot on the convergence with film and the use of games in positive and self-enhancing applications. We also want to draw the industry's attention to the interplay between interactivity and entertainment and the commercial opportunities that they offer. We want to take some of the accepted formulas within games and see how they can be applied in the medical field, and I can see the applications for more dynamic ATMs, GPS navigation systems, and maybe even more dynamic Web sites as we move toward "Internet 2."

　　GSUK: Indeed, there's a session on "games that heal," but we were also interested in the session about possible government funding for game developers.

　　CD: Well, that is a hypothesis. But there are people in the UK who believe that, given the large number of people employed in game development and the growth of games as a use of leisure time, that this should be discussed further. After all, if it's part of the government's self-declared mandate to subsidise the creation of linear film product, whether it be the Film Commission or the British Broadcasting Corporation, if you took the same logic and applied it to the new map, there's a gaping hole where this kind of funding would be appropriate for games. On the hypothesis that maybe the government might go in this direction, we're just having a bit of fun, we're saying 'What kind of interactive product should the government, if it so chose, be investing in?'.

　　The film industry has plans for investing in documentaries, entertainment pictures, and even TV programmes, without being pigeonholed with offering a moral lesson. So what we want to do is sprinkle some water in these little gardens, and as higher quality things get made, the industry will grow. It's not so much a debate as it is an interesting exploration of an idea to stimulate creative thinking.

　　GSUK: Moving on to the game screenings, is there any chance that there will be playable offerings for the public in coming years?

　　CD: Well, we're having a mobile game that we're running today and if we can get people to download the software, they will be able to compete with each other. We're also running an interactive session that will use keypads to vote and answer questions, and in the future, we would love to get more interactivity into the screenings, provided that the product being discussed would lend itself to many concurrent inputs, such as a football game. If we were to show a Pro Evolution game, for example, we could probably get 22 players on board, each controlling an individual player. When we come across something that will really take advantage of the audience participation, then we will definitely use it.

　　GSUK: You're obviously keen to integrate EIEF with the rest of the Edinburgh Festival. What other plans do you have for the coming years?

　　CD: Well, we're getting close to the general organisers, especially in the area of film, and I think that the focus this year is going further than ever. As games become more movielike, the games industry can benefit from having better sensitivity toward script and direction, especially in voice-over characters. Also, the movie industry can take away some of the psychology used in games and apply it to movie scripts. The whole purpose of the festival is to encourage creative thought and the collaborative creation of new art forms. Even if there's no 'eureka!' moment, the people that come here will be able to rub elbows and absorb some of the more esoteric and artistic elements of gamemaking. In most other conferences, such issues become subjugated in favour of quarterly profits and middleware. We want people to be able to step back and be grateful that they're in such a creative industry, and wallow in it for a while. Hopefully, they'll come up with some fresh thinking that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

　　GSUK: Thanks Chris, good luck with the festival.