Ed Morrison · More on the video gaming software cluster

August 30th, 2010

In my earlier post, I told the story of how NEO missed an opportunity in 2006 by not focusing early on the emerging video game cluster.

With the strength of Cleveland Institute of Art, there still may be time to act.

Here’s another article on the video gaming software cluster…this time it’s Wisconsin.

Video gaming software development growing in Wisconsin

and Massachusetts

Study highlights game industry’s growing economic impact

and Texas

Study: Game industry added $490 million boost in Texas

and Utah

Entertainment software industry boosts Utah’s economic growth, report says

See also…

  • How Video Games Are Strengthening the U.S. Economy
  • Game industry pumps nearly $5 billion into GDP
  • Gaming industry booms despite sagging economy

    • Here’s the report on video games in the 21st century. The 2010 report concludes that:

  • The US computer and video game software publishing industry directly employs more than 32,000 people in 34 states.
  • The total US employment, both direct and indirect that depends on game software now exceeds 120,000.
  • For the four-year period 2005 through 2009, direct employment in the US computer and video game software publishing industry grew at an annual rate of 8.65%.
  • The US computer and video game software industry’s value added to US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was $4.9 billion.
  • The real annual growth rate of the US computer and video game software industry was 10.6% for the period 2005-2009 and 16.7% for the period 2005-2008.
  • During the same periods, real growth for the US economy as a whole was 1.4% for 2005-09 and 2.8% for 2005-08.


    • Video Games in the 21st Century (2010)

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    2 Responses to “More on the video gaming software cluster”

    1. John Polk Says:
      August 30th, 2010 at 10:53 pm

      We took a couple small stabs at a gaming strategy a few years ago with the Civic Innovation Lab. It would certainly seem that such a strategy ought to push many NEO hot buttons: Clean, tech, creative, attractive to young professionals…and that there could be right configuration of brainpower and resources among CIA, CWRU, CSU and others to make something happen.

      It’s possible this represents one of the “opportunity costs” of an economic development institutional leadership which is obsessed with politics and pursuit of big public (and publicly-funded) projects. Where do the right people with the right ideas go to get started?…No one would approach GCP with an innovative idea; the organization is simply not interested, and real entrepreneurs avoid it like the plague, lest they get sucked into a black hole of self-serving intrigue.

      With the community’s development resources focused on convention centers and casinos, there’s no room to incubate real new industries. Maybe if one of our local real estate developers could figure out how to make some money from it…

    2. JS Says:
      August 31st, 2010 at 6:50 am

      Since Seth Priebatsch and his ilk look to be rediscovering captology and serious gaming, the answers seem a decade or more away.

      There are answers, however. You just have to avoids technologists’ penchant for reinventing the wheel to actually put the wheel to use.

      I’d suggest studying how political interest groups and gridlock were bridged with a version of Sim City based on Vancouver’s basin area.

      This problem was solved before. You really don’t get the “With the right game dynamics, you can persuade anyone to do anything” gist of the Game Layer vid, do you.