If there was one single message from this year’s premier European multimedia and CD-Rom show, Milia 95, in Cannes earlier this month it was that multimedia must begin to shift towards content and away from merely clever technology if it is to grow into the large and profitable industry pundits have been promising.
With games titles well in decline, developers and publishers alike were queuing up with a range of new “edutainment” products aimed at the schools and home markets. However, the question plaguing developers and publishers was whether education will remain a secondary area for titles designed primarily for the home.
Dorling Kindersley, a traditional book publisher that has embraced multimedia, showed the first CD-Rom titles under its own imprint. All have a strong educational bias. First Information Group unveiled the first titles under its FlagTower imprint. First Information plans to launch 60 titles this year including 48 in foreign language versions.
Philips Media also emphasised its commitment to education, claiming that it will have CD-i players in around 25 per cent of UK schools by the end of this year. There were interesting new titles from OmniMedia, HarperCollins and Voyager, too. All in all, it looks as if there will be no shortage of education titles for the new CD-Rom players going into UK schools.
Dorling Kindersley: World Reference Atlas; History of the World; Encyclopaedia of Nature; Encyclopaedia of Science; My First Incredible Amazing Dictionary; The Way Things Work.
HarperCollins: Romeo and Juliet; Electronic English Dictionary and Thesaurus. Available from bookshops.
First Information Group: The Great War; The Second World War; The War In The Pacific; The History of Medicine; The Space Race. Telephone: 071-393 3000 OmniMedia: Treasure Hunt; The Greatest Toy Shop on Earth. Telephone: 071-410 9191 Voyager: Circus; PAWS (Personal Animated Wagging System). Electronic Arts. Telephone: 0753 549442 Phillips Interactive Media, 188 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9LE.
