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."
"This is our largest show ever and it's gone great," Robert Khoo said. "We are really having an impact on the gaming scene here. I can't imagine PAX East anywhere else. The sheer volume of independent developers here in Boston is incredible."
Meanwhile, next week brings a three-day game challenge at Microsoft's offices in Cambridge, presented by year-old Massachusetts Digital Games Institute, a consortium of Bay State colleges that are training tomorrow's gaming workers.
"Gaming is having its moment here," said Tim Loew, MassDiGI's executive director, whose group has been bolstered by a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce and $350,000 from PAX East. "Very few states have the entrepreneurial spirit we have."
And it isn't just gaming companies growing here. Jamaica Plain-based Brass Monkey, creator of a virtual console platform that runs via smartphone, is actively hiring indie game makers to create games, said CEO Chris Allen.
Other Bay State studios are also adding employees. Hitpoint, the state's largest independent game developer, will hire 40 workers, doubling its size by the end of the year, according to president Paul Hake.
The Hatfield-based studio has signed a major publishing deal with an industry giant to create mobile phone games, Hake said.
Large Boston game developers are also hiring even as layoffs have hit major studios and publishers elsewhere. Westwood-based Turbine, about to release a new expansion to its "Dungeon & Dragons" online game, has 50 current job openings, according to Adam Mersky, director of digital communications.
"People are coming to Massachusetts from California to look for gaming jobs," adds Turbine employee Eric Mills.
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