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May 2008 |
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10/05/07 - 15,000 working in gaming industry in the Seattle area |
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By DAN RICHMAN
P-I REPORTER
Electronic gaming is big business in Seattle.
Games played on specialized consoles, PCs, handheld devices and even cell phones involve more than 150 Seattle-area companies, providing more than 15,000 local jobs and likely to produce $4.9 billion in revenue this year, says a study previewed Friday.
"If you are a games programmer or a multimedia artist in Seattle, you are in a very, very nice position," said Chris Mefford, founder and president of Seattle's Community Attributes, which produced the study.
"The games labor market is extremely competitive, with great salaries, and employers are doing everything they can to attract talent -- it's a cut-throat competitive environment to attract labor."
Seattle-based game developers are pulling down an average annual salary of $77,700, compared with $73,000 nationally, according to the study, which is slated for release in full form within two weeks. Jobs in the gaming arena have increased at about 33 percent per year since 2004.
The study's highlights were released at a luncheon sponsored by enterpriseSeattle, a public-private economic development partnership that provides businesses with demographic and statistical information. That partnership commissioned the study.
Seeming to underscore the study's findings, one of the six panelists who spoke during an hourlong presentation said her company will soon be scaling up.
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, which bought Kirkland's Monolith Productions in October 2004, is starting a new production unit, senior Vice President Samantha Ryan said.
"We will have a lot of hiring over the next few years as Warner moves into the space as a full-line publisher," Ryan said.
Casual games are the fastest-growing segment of the gaming industry, Mefford said. Those games, including variants on solitaire and Scrabble, are simpler, quicker to play, and more conventional than the shooting and fantasy games favored by harder-core players.
"Those companies specializing in casual games are reporting revenue growth ranging from 100 percent to 300 percent per year," he said. "The industry was nothing a few years ago and is growing at hyperspeed right now."
In Seattle, PopCap Games, Big Fish Games and Sandlot Games focus on casual games, while RealNetworks Inc. and Microsoft Corp. produce both casual and more serious games, Mefford said. But barriers to entry in the casual-game arena are low, allowing new companies to enter the industry with ease.
Video gaming is so big in Seattle that Mayor Greg Nickels proclaimed Oct. 5 "Video Game Industry Day." The proclamation also acknowledged the World Cyber Games 2007 Grand Final, taking place this week at Qwest Field.
In 2006, U.S. consumers spent $9.1 billion on video games, said panel member Jeff Pobst, chief executive of Bellevue game-maker Hidden Path Entertainment LLC, citing a Price Waterhouse study. In five years, that figure will grow by 35 percent, to $12.5 billion.
Worldwide, video-game sales were $30 billion in 2006, with 50 percent growth predicted by 2011, Pobst said.
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