Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Gov. Patrick: Video gaming to be a Mass. focus

By Galen Moore

Video games will be a priority for Mass. Governor Deval Patrick as he continues his West Coast tour, the governor said today — not playing them, but promoting the Bay State’s strong video game development cluster. 

“We have some greater depth (in the gaming sector) than I even realized until about a week ago in Massachusetts,” Patrick said. He spoke with reporters by phone after leaving Microsoft Corp.’s Redmond, Wash., campus — his first stop on a four-day tour of West Coast high-tech companies.

The governor reported a “very encouraging” meeting this afternoon with Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) employees, in which Ozzie suggested Massachusetts needs to reinvent its high-tech image.

“The famous Route 128 tech highway — people are thinking of that image as being in the past,” said Greg Bialecki, state undersecretary for business development, who accompanied Patrick on the trip. “How do we talk about a new conversation about what we are doing today?”

Bialecki said that conversation should include video entertainment, gaming, mobile communications, cloud computing and health care IT.

The regional gaming cluster already includes companies such as Turbine Inc., 2K Boston, Blue Fang Games LLC, Harmonix Music Systems Inc., Demiurge Studios, Tencent Holdings Limited, 38 Studios LLC, Mad Doc Software and Crate Entertainment.

Patrick set a low bar for the trip, saying he will consider it a success if he establishes a channel of communication with West Coast tech execs, aimed at retaining and adding Bay State jobs.

Patrick said West Coast tech execs tell him Silicon valley has a greater “spirit of collaboration,” and “also the ability to start and fail and start again.” To keep entrepreneurs from heading west, Massachusetts will have to emulate that culture. “We are going to have to call those issues out and we’re going to have to work in the public sector to change that tone.”

Further meetings include wind turbine maker Vestas Americas A/S, electric car maker Tesla Motors, drug maker Genentech Inc., Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems, Facebook, Google Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., and video game developer Electronic Arts.