Print
Email
Print Edition Stories
Sandie Allen
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
New England's video game cluster chipping away at challenges
By Rodney H. Brown
MHT's Galen Moore: Nerds and geeks flock to Boston conventions
MHT's Galen Moore: MBTA expands bus tracking feeds
Online video firms target small video publishing companies
If the growth of a video game industry cluster in New England were viewed as a video game itself, then the “boss battle” would still be some levels off. To get to that level, the industry here has to slog through several smallers battles, call them mini-bosses — poor climate, limited governmental support, a disjointed community. The bright spot is that New England video game businesses are equipped with a blazing sword, energized by a strong, growing educational system that is turning out game-focused graduates at a rate and level behind only the West Coast, game experts say.
The recent attention on the game industry sector in the region may be driven by the presence of such commonly known names as 38 Studios LLC’s founder and former Red Sox ace Curt Schilling, but it has been growing for at least 20 years. Back in the days when most computer games were eight-bit blocks of color that shot down space invaders, Infocom was making interactive text-based computer adventure games that were huge hits. The company, founded in 1979 by four students from MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science, started hiring as its first game, Zork, started to sell, according to one of the first hires, Michael Dornbrook, who is now COO of Harmonix Music Systems Inc. By 1982, Infocom was in an office in Cambridge and hiring game creators, such as the well-known Steve Meretzky. That year, one of the first educational games companies was founded, Spinnaker Software, also in Cambridge.
“Back in the early ’80s, between Infocom and Spinnaker, Boston was second to San Francisco in terms of metro areas in terms of employment and revenue from video games and computer games,” Dornbrook said. “We’ve ebbed and flowed over the years. I think we are on the climb again.”
That long history may be part of another mini-boss in the odyssey toward a thriving industry cluster — established tradition, according to Scott Macmillan, founder of Macguffin Games.
“We are still breaking down a lot of the barriers and a lot of the silos around the industry,” he said, noting that even the big studios spending millions to develop games are struggling with making connections. “Triple-A developers are not coming out and meeting the VCs, and that is a legacy.”
Those venture capital firms traditionally have been reluctant to invest in game studios, mainly because their income model has been similar to that of a movie studio — investing big resources in hope of having an entertainment product that is a hit. One of the few local companies to take on real VC funding did so in part because its revenue model was different. Westwood game company Turbine Inc. made its name with massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), which saw revenue not only from sales of the game but from monthly subscription fees to play alongside thousands or even millions of other players. That brought VC investors in, including Polaris Venture Partners and Highland Capital Partners, to the tune of about $96 million.
Turbine’s backers got their investment exit when the company was acquired earlier this year by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for a reported $160 million. But Turbine is the exception, not the rule, and Macmillan thinks that a different funding model may be needed for game companies, particularly smaller startups.
“If we could get a small Mass Challenge for games stuff, that would be a great step,” Macmillan said, but he does not anticipate seeing local investors getting into the games startup arena. “My guess is, we are going to need somebody to show up with a new fund.”
There is value to boosting the games sector to a cluster stage — wherein there are enough companies in a geographic region to support services industries with a primary focus on the sector, such as game-focused placement agencies or headhunters. According to a survey released by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council last fall, the video game business in Massachusetts pulls in approximately $2 billion in annual revenue. It employs about 1,200 people in the Bay State, which is a small subset of the overall software industry with its 47,000 workers — itself a part of the total 178,000 information technology workers — according to 2008 figures from the Donahue Institute at the University of Massachusetts.
For an industry that is more than 20 years old, that number of 1,200 games employees is still amazingly small. In comparison, by 1985, companies such as Cambridge-based Lotus Development Corp. had more than 1,000 employees on their own. So what has kept the games industry slogging through the lower levels?
According to Elicia Basoli, digital media manager at one of the few support businesses in the region with a game-focused arm, the PR firm 360 Public Relations, one of the problems could be the disjointed nature of the industry’s trade groups. While the software industry in the region has had a dedicated industry group since 1986 when the Massachusetts Software Council was formed, the game sector has just recently started to get some form of organized community, and even then often as an adjunct to an existing organization. For example, MassTLC — the entity formerly known as the Software Council — has a games interest group, as does the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge, on which Basoli serves. She does think that they are all moving the discussion in the right direction, however.
“I’ve been on the New England Games SIG (of the MIT Enterprise Forum) for two years now and just over that time period we have come leaps and bounds in making further connections between the companies that are already here and other companies,” she said.
Bringing companies together is one bright spot in the dark levels of the game cluster growth, and the weapon of education is another, according to Dornbrook. In 2008, Worcester Polytechnic Institute graduated the first students from its four-year Interactive Media and Game Development degree program. And WPI is just one of a growing roster of colleges with game-related degrees. In the Bay State, Northeastern University, Boston University and Bristol Community College, to name a few, offer gaming degree or certificate programs. And outside Massachusetts are Champlain College in Burlington, Vt.; New England Institute of Technology in Warwick, R.I.; and New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord, N.H.
“Some of these educational programs have been building a greater base of folks who are fairly well trained and young and energetic and entrepreneurial,” Dornbrook said.
$2B According to a survey released by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council last fall, the video game business in Massachusetts pulls in approximately $2 billion in annual revenue.
1,200 The video game business employs about 1,200 people in the Bay State, which is a small subset of the overall software industry with its 47,000 workers — itself a part of the total 178,000 information technology workers — according to 2008 figures from the Donahue Institute at UMass.
Comments
If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below.
RSS Feeds
