This year’s Edinburgh Interactive Festival, which takes place on Monday 13 and Tuesday 14 August, will put an increased focus on the cultural impact and relevance of games. It will also bring together many of the industry’s key decision makers in games publishing, hardware and development alongside emerging games talent, professionals from parallel creative industries and media – making it what organisers claim to be the world’s only true cultural games event.

Now in its fifth year, the Edinburgh Interactive Festival is newly positioned to reflect video gaming’s rise in popularity and influence, helping the festival celebrate the best of video gaming around the world. Some of the most influential names in entertainment will use the backdrop of the world famous Edinburgh Festival to examine the cultural issues of games and gaming.

The conference is staged at the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, starting with a keynote address delivered by Yves Guillemot, CEO of French games company Ubisoft. This year also sees new partnerships for Edinburgh Interactive with Dare to be Digital and the inaugural academics’ conference, the Digital Interactive Symposium, which takes place at Edinburgh University on Wednesday 15 August. EIF also hosts the annual Edge Award in association with Future Publishing.

Founding president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and former head of Sony Europe's consumer electronics division Chris Deering, Chairman of Edinburgh Interactive Festival, comments: “This year we have much to be excited about. We welcome Ubisoft President and Founder Yves Guillemot; Simon Nelson joins us from the BBC; we have a keynote from the Sony Computer Entertainment, a look at technology for Second Life with Linden Labs’ Jim Purbrick, and actor Steven Berkoff will join us to discuss how to capture performance within a game. We are also delighted to join up together with Edge magazine, Dare to be Digital and the new academic conference, the Digital Interactive Symposium.

“The festival is now firmly established as one of the most important events in the interactive entertainment industry’s calendar.”

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival not only features new branding and positioning, but to bring games closer to TV and film festivals the content committee this year has appointed festival specialist agency Arthur Leone PR, whose job it will be to bring the Interactive Festival closer to "the fabric of the fringe and the festival".

For more information, visit edinburghinteractivefestival.com.