In the creative circular economy, games are designed with a long-term vision of durability, reuse, and recycling that will give birth to new products by other creators and keep products circulating in the economy whilst generating revenue for the first developer. In its initial stage, the design can build on the reusing and recycling culture or a social feature, for example, that the local, regional, or global market can identify with because it will, in turn, inspire other creative people to develop new products. Thus, in the creative circular economy, production builds and regenerates the creative process. This is what happened with PC game DreadOut. DreadOut inspired an Indonesian filmmaker and, in return, DreadOut game developers receive royalties for the use of their intellectual property as well as publicity for their game. It was possible because the studio had a vision and its story is inspired by something unique: Indonesian culture and society, to which the audience can relate because of its universal dimension. The film has a local market and, by being distributed on Netflix, it reaches out to the global market, further creating publicity for the game.
This video is an integral part of ERIA’s Research Project Report on Rethinking the Growth of Creative Economy in Indonesia: The Music and Gaming Sub-sectors. The report analyses the economic lives of independent musicians and game developers and the strategies they develop to seize opportunities brought about by the digital economy. This report highlights that applying circular thinking to a creative economy would bring strategic growth benefits: a creative circular economy recognizes the value of creativity. This report is supported by the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) and the Government of Australia through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
