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At game development studio 2K Boston, the name of the game is expansion, and the company is on a hiring tear that started last fall when it had 35 employees. When it ends its hiring spree in another
12 months, it plans for a head count of just under 100.
While Quincy-based 2K Boston is growing at an astounding rate, many of the game developers in the area also have open positions they are looking to fill, as the game sector experiences its own burst of growth in New England.
For 2K Boston specifically, the studio is looking to follow up on the massive success of its 2007 release, Bioshock — a dystopian alternate-reality game based on the writings of Ayn Rand that won awards from nearly every game-reviewing entity that year. Its latest project is being kept in stealth, which Ryan Oddey, office manager and recruiter at 2K Boston, would only describe as “the project of a lifetime.”
Now with a staff of about 68 people, Oddey says 2K Boston has nearly 30 positions left to fill.
“Essentially what this is going to do is allow us to handle the entire development of a project with the entire team in house,” Oddey said. When it began developing Bioshock, 2K Boston was an independent studio called Irrational Games that had a co-development arm in Australia. When Irrational was acquired by Take Two Interactive Software Inc. of New York in 2006, the parent company decided to take the studios down separate paths.
2K Boston has been concentrating on bringing in experienced game developers, and that usually has meant recruiting from outside New England, predominantly from the West Coast, said Oddey.
In Maynard, startup 38 Studios LLC does minimal recruiting. People flock to the old Digital Equipment Corp. building to get a job at the firm founded by former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling.
“It’s kind of like a zombie movie, where they surround the house and you have to bar the doors just to keep them out,” said president and CEO Brett Close, whose firm gets 30 résumés a day.
For Close, there was little need to go outside of New England for game-making talent, after the core executive team — many of whom had worked together in studios in San Diego or Austin — was brought on board by Schilling.
“We are very pleased with the staffing ability that we have in this area, with the local talent. We’ve met a lot of our needs with local talent and have not had to rely much at all on recruiting out of state,” Close said.
Tapping local universities
One major reason that 38 Studios has been able to find the people it needs is that the local colleges are producing people with not just a certificate and a narrow focus in their particular design or programming discipline, but a broader, more rounded education.
“There are top-notch skills here and what you might call top-tier knowledge workers, and I think it goes with the culture,” Close said.
Producing those well-rounded game developers is the mission for Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s four-year Interactive Media and Game Development program, according computer sciences professor Mark Claypool, who is co-director of the program with Dean O’Donnell. The program trains students as technical artists, sound designers or software engineers, but it also includes humanities and science courses.
The degree program graduated its first full cohort last spring but had graduated about 20 students in the five years since it started — students who had transferred majors once the program was launched. Of those 20, about 60 percent are now employed in the gaming industry, Claypool said, mostly in entry-level positions at local companies such as Turbine Inc., Blue Fang Games LLC and Harmonix Music Systems Inc., as well as Second Life creator Linden Labs Inc. of San Francisco and Pi Studios LLC of Houston.
Yet it isn’t a lock for graduates: The games industry has been competitive, Claypool said. “To get something in the game-related jobs specifically, it has been a challenge,” he said.
That competition is just going to grow, said Jason Schupbach, creative economy industry director for the state of Massachusetts.
“We see gaming as one of the growth sectors in the local overall IT community,” he said. “Absolutely, video gaming is at the table as one of the key growth industries in the state.”
Close agrees and says the local gaming industry remains an unheralded story. “I honestly believe that this area, right now, is underrated. Specifically in the game industry, I think there is a critical mass that is close to taking off.”
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