Getting with the program; Local group hopes to stimulate NE Ohio video game, simulation industry to attract gurus

Daniel Carl thinks Northeast Ohio one day could score big points in the video game field.

The leader of the Northeast Ohio Game Initiative and at least a dozen other individuals are working to develop what they hope will be a vibrant video gaming and simulation industry in the region. A local group of game developers interested in the cause is growing, and area colleges are adding classes that could help build a bigger pipeline of game development talent in the region.

Plus, Michael DeAloia, the city of Cleveland's senior executive for technology and development, is trying to open an incubator for game development companies in the Playhouse Square District's Bulkley Building.

Mr. Carl admits there isn't much of an industry here now, but he said he believes the region produces enough programming talent to break into the business. Local developers could create entertainment-style video games, just as Flipline Studios in Cleveland does now, but they also could make money creating video simulations used for training purposes in fields such as defense, medicine and manufacturing.

"The gaming industry really is a viable business," Mr. Carl said.

The foundation upon which startup companies could be built is growing stronger, he said.

For one, more local developers are connecting and working together on independent game design projects via the Cleveland Game Development Meet Up Group.

The group has expanded to 60 members in its three years, and today it attracts between 10 and 20 developers to its monthly meetings, held in a private room upstairs in the Wine Bar in Ohio City, according to Scott Baker, one of the group's founders.

It was during one of the group's early meetings that Mr. Carl decided to form the Northeast Ohio Game Initiative, which in early 2006 received a $15,000 grant from the Civic Innovation Lab, a nonprofit economic development group financed by the Cleveland Foundation.

Mr. Carl's group used the money to build a web site, hold a game development contest and organize DeFrag, which consisted of two digital media conferences. The events attracted roughly 150 people to the Cleveland Institute of Art last December and another 250 to 300 to Lorain County Community College over two days in April, by Mr. Carl's estimates.

Talent base grows

At least three Northeast Ohio colleges also are training a rising number of students in video game design.

Virtual Worlds Lab, a partnership between Case Western Reserve University and CIA, is adding a game design course for mid-level students this year, and it might add a more technical course dealing with graphics and game physics next year, said lab director Marc Buchner.

The lab already offers a game programming course for freshmen and a more advanced game development project course for seniors, which involves programmers, artists, English students, musicians and students with other skills. Both courses attracted 40 to 50 students in their first two years, and an increasing number of them are looking at game programming as more than just a hobby, Dr. Buchner said.

"There are a good number of students coming through right now who are interested in being in the gaming profession," he said.

Lorain County Community College last year started its first game design course, which will be offered again in the fall. The school is planning more advanced courses that will start in January if enough students from the first two courses sign up.

Local institutions can produce great gaming talent, said Mr. Baker of the Meet Up Group. For instance, two graduates of CIA's T.I.M.E. Digital Arts Program now work for video game giant Electronic Arts Inc. of Redwood City, Calif., which makes titles such as the "Madden" football

series and "The Sims."

"We see there's a huge interest and a huge talent pool in Cleveland," Mr. Baker said. "Why not try to pool the talent and keep it here?"

From the ground up

Mr. DeAloia, Cleveland's self-anointed "tech czar," wants to develop a video gaming industry in the area, too - so much so that he plans to open 4,000 square feet in downtown's Bulkley Building for game-related startups if he can get one local game developer, which he declined to identify, to sign a deal to move into the space.

The proposed gaming incubator would consist of eight to 10 offices, and companies in it could develop entertainment-based games or video simulations. The city would open it to other startups if too few gaming companies rented space, Mr. DeAloia said.

The video gaming incubator Mr. DeAloia now is pursuing is a bit of a compromise. Mr. DeAloia originally wanted to create an incubator with an attached Dave & Buster's-style arcade in Cleveland, but a developer considering the project pulled out because it "wasn't the right timing," he said.

There have been other bumps in the process as well. Officials from Ohio's Third Frontier Project last year rejected a request from Mr. DeAloia, CIA, Case and others asking for $50 million to $60 million to create a Wright Mega Center for Gaming and Simulation, which would have included money for the arcade and the attached incubator. The Third Frontier is a 10-year, $1.6 billion program aimed at boosting Ohio's economy through investments in technology.

The incubator, Mr. DeAloia said, could help legitimize future requests for state and federal money to support a video gaming industry.

Opening the door

Dr. Buchner of the Virtual Worlds Lab said Northeast Ohio "could have the basis for a small industry" if it focuses on creating simulations used for training purposes.

For instance, Simbionix USA Corp. of Cleveland uses gaming technology to create simulations used to train medical professionals in minimally invasive surgery procedures. Other companies, such as networking tech giant Cisco Systems Inc., use training games, too.

The best way for Northeast Ohio to break into entertainment gaming is to focus at first on programming casual, downloadable games, according to Simon Carless, publisher of Game Developer Magazine. Such games are becoming more popular and are less expensive to make and distribute than games sold in stores.

"The barriers have come down a little bit," Mr. Carless said.

That's the strategy taken by Matt Neff and Tony Solary of Flipline IDS LLC, known as Flipline Studios, which earns most of its revenue through game design.

Flipline uploads some of its two dimensional games onto Kongregate.com, which gives advertising revenue to game makers depending on how often their games are played. It also makes revenue through ads on the sites it creates for its games and by licensing them to online game distributors.

The location of the company, which started in a basement before it was moved to a loft in Cleveland's Slavic Village, doesn't matter to

Flipline, said Mr. Solary, who started the company with Mr. Neff after they graduated from CIA in 2004.

"It can be done anywhere," Mr. Solary said. "Everything's handled through phone calls and e-mails."

Northeast Ohio would have a hard time attracting companies and developers from outside the region, Mr. Carless said. Big studios are reluctant to move from gaming hotbeds in California, Washington and Texas, and so are developers because those areas provide multiple job opportunities - a real benefit in the project-by-project world of game development.

A few studios have sprung up elsewhere, he said, citing a development studio called Frozen Code Base in Green Bay, Wis. Frozen Code works with video game publisher THQ to make games with licenses related to Pixar Animation Studios' movies and World Wrestling Entertainment.