Group items tagged

Editorial by Timothy Loew, executive director of Mass DiGi, encouraging Massachusetts to tap the state's game workforce potential and avoid mistakes of Rhode Island in financing 38 Studios

Discloses some striking findings from Mass DiGi's survey of Massachusetts game companies last summer, specifically that employment in the industry increased 78% over a three year period and that "nearly forty percent" of survey respondents indicated an intention to increase employment.

Consideration of how Massachusetts will attract video game companies in light of the PAX East announcement and 38 Studios high profile departure to Rhode Island in 2010

"Beacon Hill Chat is a program with interesting people talking about the interesting things going on in Central Massachusetts. Senator Chandler's guest is Timothy Loew, the Executive Director of Massachusetts Digital Games Institute (Mass DiGi)on the Becker College campus."

Links to press release, summary results and press coverage of Mass DiGi's survey of Massachusetts game companies documenting exceptional industry growth

Press release from Rep. James McGovern on MassDiGi funding announcement.

Quotes Becker's Timothy Loew saying there are 24 schools offering video game design courses

"The swift migration of gamers such as Ingegneri from costly consoles to smartphones and tablets, where games are often free or 99 cents, is causing a tectonic shift in the video game industry that has hit a burgeoning sector of the Massachusetts economy especially hard. Two Massachusetts game makers abruptly closed in October, sales of console-based games are plummeting, and game makers are struggling to resize games designed for large screens so they will perform as well on a smaller window. "

"As the third annual video gaming PAX East expo wrapped up its final day at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center yesterday, the president of its producer, Penny Arcade, said the event "has taken over the city like never before."

Abstract: "The video game industry is a billion dollar industry with an ever-growing fan base. Massachusetts, along with other states, has begun to take an interest in further developing this dynamic industry. A problem facing many policy makers and economic developers is accurately defining the video game industry, determining the types of workers that form of human capital within its workforce and where these businesses are located. This study helps to solve this problem by converting video game credits, found in all video games, into Standard Occupational Codes to identify the types of workers who comprise the industry and by conducting spatial analysis using Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS). It also uses the Occupational Information Network to evaluate what forms of human capital comprises the video game industry. The results show the video game workforce comprises both creative workers such as artists and musicians, but also computer programmers, engineers, and business management and marketing professionals. This workforce tends to be concentrated not only in larger U.S. metropolitan areas but also in regions with a significant high-technology workforce, college towns, and government laboratories. Also, as this diverse workforce contains a wide variety of skills and abilities, a common theme is being able to work together as a team to develop a product. This study is part of a growing body of research and initiatives to identify and to locate new, creative industries within metropolitan regions. This research will contribute to future research using occupational analysis to identify new and growing industries."

Considers the gaming industry in Boston through the example of Harmonix, fallen on difficult times after its Guitar Hero success. Tim Loew is quoted as saying Massachusetts doesn't realize potential it has on its hands with game development.

2nd entry mentions Massachusetts Digital Games Institute's funding for game development college students to attend PAX East (Penny Arcade Expo)

An emerging game company in the Western MA area focusing on social games

"Center of Excellence for Games," game marketing and game development for Hasbro moved to Rhode Island with unfortunate results for some Massachusetts employees.

mentions "agreements with seven private video game and interactive media developers.'

Scheduled for MIT Stratton Student Center 84 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02139 Saturday, September 14, 2013 from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM (EDT) Contributions accepted via Kickstarter

10 year old's environmental game made with Kodu earns her a place at 2012 White House Science Fair

Interview with Monty Sharma, managing director of MassDiGi

"Kellian Adams worked at SCVNGR Inc. for three years in the museum department before striking out on her own in January 2012 to found Green Door Labs Inc. in Cambridge to create location-based educational games. So it's no wonder that her first collaboration was with one of the country's foremost museums - the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York."

"One Shrewsbury company is bringing online, tech. and video game-related jobs to the area. Elevation Exhibits & Events, an exhibit design and event-planning firm, announced a new client, Rooster Teeth. The newly added user is one of the fastest-growing online communities in the comic book, video, film and gaming industry."