From Deseret News archives:
Utah video game industry reviving
Then again, so may Tiger Woods, Don Corleone or the precocious teenagers from "High School Musical." All of them, along with assorted other characters ranging from heroic bugs to brawling monsters, have played starring roles in video games developed by Utah-based studios.
"Right now is a good time to be in video games, whether you're a developer or an artist," said Jay Barnson, the founder of Salt Lake-based Rampant Games, an independent game development and distribution company.
Barnson has been developing games since 1994 and has already seen the video game industry in the state hit its mid-1990s high and its eventual low during a general tech industry crumbling post-2000. However, in the past couple of years, the industry has started to pick up again, with real action happening during the past few months.
Since late last year, in fact, video game companies as well as programing and artistic jobs have started to swell noticeably along the Wasatch Front.
Then there is the surprisingly strong contingent of independent game developers, which range from programmers like Barnson, who work on games in their own time, or larger studios without corporate connections. That is also a segment Barnson sees growing very quickly, especially as more opportunities for casual puzzle or arcade-style games become available on platforms such as Windows and XBox.
"They can release games that just need to be downloaded very easily," he said. "I predict that this will become very big for the independent developers in the coming years."
A big part of the reason for the industry's strength in Utah are the educational opportunities, especially at the University of Utah and Brigham Young University. John Carter, associate director of the School of Computing at the U., said that both schools have become known for producing high-quality programmers, especially for graphic design and animation.
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Nice story but I would have liked it to be a lot more specific. Like,...
Gamedude | Oct. 14, 2007 at 9:23 p.m.
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