Edinburgh has made a loss in the past, admits Deering

Former SCEE president Chris Deering has revealed that the Edinburgh Interactive Festival has made a financial loss in previous years - but said the event now seems to be on an "even course".

"We try to make enough money to cover our costs and that's it. Probably the cumulative so-called profit is probably still a bit negative," he told GamesIndustry.biz.

"We have quite an extensive amount of production costs et cetera. Last year we kind of broke even, thankfully... It seems to be on an even course financially."

Deering reiterated that the aim of EIF has never been to make a profit - stating that any money made this year will go back into the festival itself. "Essentially if there is a positive, it gets reinvested next year for whatever we can do to improve the experience," he confirmed.

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival has been held (under a variety of names) for five consecutive years now, making it the longest annually running games conference in Europe.

As confirmed earlier this week, EIF 2007 will take place between August 12 - 14. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot is set to give a keynote speech, and other highlights of the event will include closer looks at Second Life and EVE Online.

"We try to find things that are just peering up over the horizon, that look like they may be trends or at least fascinating new developments. We try to bring some perspective to that and just celebrate it," Deering said.

"One of the things that people in the games industry seem to agree on, even though they're fierce competitors, is that they love the uncertainty of it - they love the thrill of adventure of it. They're always excited when they see technology and entertainment being merged in some creative new way.

"This is simply a celebration of creativity in an atmosphere where creativity is in the air," the former SCEE boss continued.

"It's not a business conference, it's not a development conference; it's really looking at interactivity in general... Interactive features are becoming part of the experience in an awful lot of ways, so the games industry is becoming more relevant in a broader context than ever before."