OK, Computers
When it comes to the Northwest's creative and digital sector, most of the recent attention has focused on the BBC's move to mediacity:uk at Salford Quays. Understandably so, given that the ambitious project is set to place the region at the heart of the country's television, radio and film production industries.
But a few miles down the river Mersey, a different kind of creative industry has been earning the Northwest an international reputation over the past decade: computer games.
From large multinationals like Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, which employs around 500 people at its Liverpool headquarters, to a whole swathe of smaller, home grown independent games developers, England's Northwest boasts one of the largest gaming industries in the UK.
The regional industry is focused largely on Merseyside, where games development generates around £300m annually, directly employs more than 1,000 people and has a supply chain which supports another 3,000 freelance jobs. Indeed, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has described Liverpool as "one of the world's most important cities for computer games" and the city accounts for around three-quarters of the games workforce in the region.
The sector's roots date back to the birth of the home computer in the early 1980s, but it wasn't until the early 1990s that innovative developers like Psygnosis put the region on the national map. So much so that Sony snapped up the company, based at Wavertree Technology Park, in 1995.
One of the founders of Pysgnosis, Ian Hetherington, went on to found another successful computer games developer, Evolution Studios, alongside fellow Northwest gaming entrepreneur, Martin Kenwright. Together the two of them built up Runcorn-based Evolution into one of the country's most successful computer gaming companies, before selling it to Sony for £16m in September 2007.
Other major games companies in the Northwest include THQ, which bought Warrington-based Juice Games in 2006, and Activision, which bought another Liverpool developer, Bizarre Creations, in September 2007. Over in Cheshire, Knutsford-based TT Games (formerly Travellers' Tales) is a leading publisher of interactive entertainment for young gamers and their families. The company employs more than 100 people, with major titles including games under the LEGO Star Wars, Chronicles of Narnia and Transformers brands.
Sony is undoubtedly one of the games industry's major supporters in the region. Michael Denny, vice-president of Sony Worldwide Studios and head of its Liverpool operations, said in a Financial Times interview last year that the company was committed to supporting the games sector in the Northwest and was looking to cooperate more closely with local universities and colleges to help tailor their games-related courses.
Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) is already one of only a few universities to offer graduate and post-graduate level degrees in computer games technology. LJMU is also a partner in the International Centre for Digital Content (ICDC), which is involved in developing solutions for interactive TV, mobile phone and wireless users, for markets as diverse as tourism, health and e-learning, as well as games.
The ICDC is based at Liverpool Digital, an on-going development on Wavertree Technology Park to establish a centre of excellence for digital industries in the Northwest. The entire development will take until 2013 to reach its full potential, creating up to 7,000 additional jobs.
With the mediacity:uk development just 50 miles away, Sony's Denny firmly believes that the fast merging worlds of computer games, telecommunications and interactive TV, offer exciting new potential for Merseyside's games developers. "mediacity:uk is absolutely an opportunity…Liverpool has a chance to show that those in its creative community can talk to each other and show that we are better placed than others to deliver in this cross-platform world," says Denny.
Given Merseyside's track record in the games industry so far, few would argue with him.
