Like other struggling states, Massachusetts is looking anywhere it can for jobs and cash– including the virtual world of video game technology with its mix of fantasy and rabid fans.
While Boston is home to top gaming companies like the developers of the hugely popular “Rock Band,” ”BioShock” and “The Lord of the Rings Online” it’s just fourth or fifth on the list of top video gaming clusters behind locations like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Austin.
Political leaders like Gov. Deval Patrick are hoping to move the state up in the ranks, by coaxing more companies to Massachusetts.
The lure is understandable. While other sectors of the economy are slashing jobs, video gaming companies are thriving as eager investors pump in millions to help develop the next generation of games.
If you’re thinking “Pong” or “Space Invaders,” think again.
Today’s games, especially the so-called massively multiplayer online games, can take a company years to create with development costs topping $100 million — an endeavor akin to the production of a major Hollywood movie.
One company with expertise in the labyrinthine online games is the 15-year-old Westwood, Mass.-based Turbine Inc.
During the past year the company has added almost 50 employees and raised $40 million in new venture capital after the success of “Lord of the Rings Online,” a massively multiplayer online game allowing players around the globe to enter into a fantastical world inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
Creating and maintaining the game’s online environment requires a small army of artists, computer programmers and support staff, according to company spokesman Adam Mersky, who said video game technology is a growing industry, and a fiercely competitive one.
“We see potential, but it is a tough business,” Mersky said.
The business can also be phenomenally lucrative if a company hits on just the right mix of technology, interactivity and playfulness.
In nearby Cambridge, Mass., Harmonix Music Systems struck gold when it invented a game that struck the right note by combining the hyperactivity of old-fashioned arcade games with the age-old pastime of would-be rockers: air guitar. The result — Guitar Hero and Rock Band — are two of the most popular video games of all time.
Building the company in the Boston/Cambridge area, home to MIT, Harvard and other colleges, ensures a deep well of talent, according to Harmonix co-founder and Chief Executive Alex Rigopulos. The Boston area had another big plus — a thriving music scene centered on local clubs and the Berklee College of Music.
“Massachusetts is a natural fit for video game technology,” Rigopulos said.
Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, an avid online gamer, is also getting into the game, creating one of the area’s newest companies — 38 Studios based in Maynard, Mass. The company has been open two years and employs 67 people, including Todd McFarlane, creator of the popular comic book franchise Spawn.
Brett Close, president and CEO of 38 Studios said the company is building its own massively multiplayer online game, code-named Copernicus.
Close said the rise of video games is due in part to their ability to take advantage of new mobile and Web technologies — technologies that demand expertise in software, design, animation, audio and music. Successful games can also be branched out into ring tones, toys and other forms of merchandising.
“You want to give the audience as many platforms of technology as possible to touch this world and interact in this world and be the hero in their fantasy fiction world,” Close said.
States are taking notice.
In Massachusetts, video gaming companies are a bright light in an otherwise gloomy economic landscape. The 60 to 65 companies here employ about 2,000, with up to 100 jobs open at any given time. To lure even more businesses, a bill coming up before lawmakers this session would extend existing moviemaking tax credits to video gaming companies.
All of which explains why Gov. Patrick, who confesses to being not much of a gamer, was on the West Coast last week pitching Massachusetts as an East Coast gaming mecca. The trip included a visit with executives from Redwood City, Calif.-based video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc.
“Publishers know we have this depth among the developers,” Patrick said.
Local colleges are jumping into the game.
Worcester Polytechnic was one of the first to offer an undergraduate major in interactive media and game development, according to Robert Lindeman, an assistant professor of computer science.
While the idea of a college degree in video games may seem odd to some, Lindeman points to the range of skills needed to develop a successful game.
“Any kid who goes to college is going to be sitting around playing video games,” Lindeman said. “The hard part is building them.”
At MIT, video gaming innovators reached halfway across the globe to form a partnership with the government of Singapore.
Philip Tan, U.S. executive director of the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab, said his lab is like any other research laboratory, but instead of papers, his students publish prototypes of video games.
The lab started in 2007 and has drawn students from MIT, Singapore and nearby colleges including the Massachusetts College of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Terrence Masson, director of game design for Northeastern University, which is starting dual video game majors this year, said technology developed through video games can be applied in other contexts — like creating “medical avatars” to help patients being discharged from hospitals.
Mike Cavaretta, who helps run the MIT Enterprise Forum-Interactive Entertainment Special Interest Group — a kind of trade organization for the gaming community, said gamers can trace their routes in Massachusetts back to a primitive Dungeons & Dragons game developed at MIT in the 1960s.
He also said video games are proving largely recession-proof.
“It’s a relatively inexpensive form of entertainment and in times like these people tend to spend more time at home,” he said.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More