By Rodney Brown

How close to 100,000 people all focused on video games at one time do we need to get the state of Massachusetts to take the sector seriously?

That question developed after walking the halls and exhibit floor at the recent PAX East show at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, with 69,500 like-minded game enthusiasts. Let’s put that in perspective, shall we. At its peak attendance in 1997, back when it used to be in Boston, MacWorld brought in 55,000 people. The computer-design extravaganza SIGGRAPH and print and digital publishing show Seybold Seminars each drew about 20,000 at their respective peaks.

Even the global yearly conference for BIO, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, which represents the biotech field across the planet, drew less than 20,000 the last time it was in Boston, in 2007. PAX East, in comparison, became the largest game convention of any kind in the entire United States in just its second year.

Those 69,500 PAX East attendees drew into Boston massive game companies like 2K Games, Sony, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Rockstar Games, Microsoft and EA. In addition, smaller but well-known companies like Bioware, Bethesda, Red 5 Studios and Nexon joined local game companies Turbine, Harmonix, Demiurge and Fire Hose Games and dozens of others. Representing the exploding game development college programs were schools like Becker College, WPI, Boston University and even Sacred Heart University from Connecticut.

Local media like the Boston Globe finally caught on to the sector and to PAX East, and the most popular game-specific show on cable, G4TV’s XPlay, is devoting most of its time this week to PAX East, more coverage than it has given to the original PAX in Seattle or to the much older Game Developer’s Conference.

They were all there. Who wasn’t there? Any official from the state of Massachusetts.

Now, to be sure, the size of an industry like biotech dwarfs the videogame industry by a factor of about 10. The last – and so far only – report on the state of the videogame industry in Massachusetts, which came from the Mass Technology Leadership council, reported an industry generating $2 billion annually.  In comparison, the life sciences sector in 2006 generated more than $23 billion in Massachusetts, according to the state.

That disparity, however, doesn’t excuse the Massachusetts executive office’s lack of interest in what became, in just two years, perhaps the largest annual show in Boston. Perennial powerhouses Yankee Dental and AIM draw just under 60,000 combined. PAX East crushed that number just two years in to a five year commitment to Boston. So, while executives like Larry Hryb of Microsoft or Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games were wandering the halls between meeting rooms or prowling the show floor, where was anyone from the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development?

Sure, Sec. Greg Bialecki was touring Israel and Europe with Gov. Deval Patrick, focusing on – you guessed it – life sciences, but that doesn’t mean the state couldn’t have had a booth on the floor. After all, in 2007, the state pulled out all the stops to ensure they had floor space at BIO. And maybe someone like EOHED senior innovation policy advisor Eric Nakajima was actually prowling the halls of PAX East like he did at the MassTLC Pre-PAX party at Microsoft’s NERD center the night before the first day of the show. But I saw no indication of the state anywhere. Nobody moderating, running or even serving on any panels, nobody giving out swag at a booth, nothing.

Supporting the game industry here seems like such a no-brainer at this point. The industry in Massachusetts, even in its nascent state, has one of the best employee-to-revenue-generated ratios of any industry out there. It is one of the largest entertainment industries in the world, with single titles that eclipse single movie revenue numbers these days. Last September, Halo: Reach sold $200 million on its opening day. One day. Any movie would kill for that kind of opening. Add to that enormous economic potential the fact that two of the top 10 best schools for teaching game design in the entire country are here – Becker College and Worcester Polytechnic Institute – and you have the generating source for the things the industry needs to grow – trained minds.

Ignoring the largest festival in the country for that industry sector is simply akin to the governor’s office burying its head in the sand.