R.I. gaming-industry dream alive

A NEW GAME: Jacob Brennan created his real-time, multiplayer cooperative role-playing game “Casual Quest” in two weeks with little more than a hobbyist’s knowledge of game design and self-taught programming skills. Brennan counts himself among the small group of independent video game developers in Rhode Island. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
A NEW GAME: Jacob Brennan created his real-time, multiplayer cooperative role-playing game “Casual Quest” in two weeks with little more than a hobbyist’s knowledge of game design and self-taught programming skills. Brennan counts himself among the small group of independent video game developers in Rhode Island. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

(Editor’s note: This is the first story in a two-part series looking at the impact of the 38 Studios LLC bankruptcy on the local gaming industry and the company’s employees.)

Until Rhode Island lured Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios LLC video game company from Massachusetts in 2011, aspiring game designers, artists and programmers in the country’s smallest state had little choice but to relocate to the West Coast to seek employment with a big-name studio or make the hourlong commute to one of the startups in Boston.

“When 38 Studios joined the mix, it was incredibly exciting for everyone,” said David “DJ” Johnson, assistant professor in the New England Institute of Technology video game design program. “Wherever there’s a large studio, within a couple of years there are more studios. We wanted to make that possible. We wanted to facilitate the expansion of the craft in Providence.”

Johnson was among the earliest members of the Rhode Island chapter of the International Game Developers Association. Founded in 2011 by Geraldo Perez, the Ocean State group looked to advance the games industry in the state and create a social-gathering place where 38 Studios employees who relocated to Providence from out of state could meet with other gaming enthusiasts – and recruit people like Perez to work for the company.

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Three years later, the IGDA has outlived, though not unscathed, the 38 Studios bankruptcy, which left Rhode Island taxpayers on the hook for almost $90 million. As the 38 Studios developers who had hoped to make Providence their home scattered to find work elsewhere, the monthly meetups that had once filled AS220’s gallery dropped from more than 75 members to fewer than 20, and for a span of several months, the meetings ended altogether.

Perez launched his own mobile-games company, King Bee Digital Games, but he ultimately left the industry for a more-secure job as an IT engineer at Providence Equity Partners LLC.

“It was heartbreaking,” said Johnson. “Anyone who met someone from 38 Studios realized they were meeting an incredibly smart, outgoing, creative professional and someone who loved games as much as they did or more even. It was a sudden vacuum to lose all that.”

Johnson says a lingering stigma from the national media attention and ongoing investigations into the state’s approval of the loan guarantee for the company makes it difficult for him to envision another large game developer relocating to Providence anytime soon.

“None of us believe that another company would [relocate to the city], nor do we believe the citizens of Rhode Island would be able to have the stomach for that,” he said. “The game industry really took a black eye, so every game company is [perceived as] some kind of flim-flam artist. … I’m reserved about mentioning that I’m in the game-development industry because it will lead to a conversation about 38 Studios.”

Despite the fallout, Johnson does expect to see a “serious game company” emerge from within the state in the next year.

Kevin Murphy, Eric Hall and Aaron James have set out to build that company in downtown Providence. Their joint business venture, Nexperience, bills itself as a cutting-edge, game-development company focused on designing virtual-reality experiences for the Oculus Rift headset.

Hall studied the evolution of the Oculus technology – and the market potential for a company in the virtual-reality arena – for two years before bringing his business idea to Murphy, a fellow Rhode Island attorney and one of the co-founders of Hatch

Entrepreneurial Center in Providence. James, a serial entrepreneur who came together with Murphy and Hall to launch the venture a few months ago, said Nexperience plans to piggyback on the momentum that Facebook’s recent $2 billion acquisition of Oculus will drive for virtual-reality development.

“I want Nexperience to succeed in every possible way that 38 Studios might have failed,” said Murphy. “We want Providence to be considered a gaming center, a mecca for gamers and programmers.”

Nexperience already has secured two investors to provide an undisclosed amount of seed capital.

For most independent Rhode Island game developers, attracting “investors” occurs on a much smaller scale and rarely means more than wooing a few dozen Kickstarter contributors.

Less ambitious than the co-founders at Nexperience but no less passionate, Jacob Brennan of Providence created the original version of his real-time, multiplayer cooperative role-playing game in two weeks with little more than a hobbyist’s knowledge of game design and self-taught programming skills. The game-play of “Casual Quest” encourages players to work together to defeat enemies and overcome obstacles, with a focus on humanity and diversity that Brennan believes many industry-acclaimed video game titles lack.

“Always my focus is, how can I get people to enjoy playing with each other and to have positive experiences with each other?” said Brennan. “This game is me stepping out and seeing if I can make it as a game developer.”

The Indiegogo campaign Brennan launched to fund his work on a new version of “Casual Quest,” which will run as a browser app rather than a Java game, fell $800 short of his $4,000 goal, but the small band of loyal “Casual Quest” players who did contribute raised enough to pay for Brennan’s living expenses and hire an artist and sound designer to update the game’s audio effects and add supplementary art.

“Casual Quest” will be free to play when it launches, but if it is successful Brennan intends to build a second, more-sophisticated game that will charge players a subscription fee.

Brennan has made establishing relationships with other aspiring developers one of his immediate goals. It’s for that reason that he has joined the monthly IGDA meetings, which Johnson has taken over along with fellow NEIT instructor Jordan Dubreuil and NEIT student Joe Christianson since Perez left the industry.

On June 9, IGDA hosted a game-developers’ pitch-off, during which three contestants delivered 120-second pitches to the group of their early-stage game concepts. Rich Pires, an independent developer from Providence who’s already produced a handful of experimental and indie games, won the pitch-off and 120 volunteer hours from IGDA members who will contribute their time and skill toward developing Pires’ proposed game.

The collective “game jam,” which Johnson said has inspired positive energy in the group – is the latest push by the organization to keep the dream of an Ocean State gaming industry alive. Most of the IGDA’s current membership comprises students or alumni from NEIT, Brown University, the Rhode Island School of Design and other local schools, who see few job prospects in the game industry in Rhode Island.

“If you’re going to work for a company, you’re going to drive a long way or have to move,” said Johnson. “We’ve had quite a few students following their friends from 38 Studios and heading out to Seattle. We’ve had some students end up in Los Angeles. … They’re going to where the jobs are.”

Despite a dearth of local game-industry jobs, NEIT’s video game program, which expanded in 2011 with 38 Studios’ arrival to include game design, is still going strong. Steven Kitchin, a spokesman for NEIT, said the close of 38 Studios didn’t have the negative impact on the program that might have been expected. He says enrollment has continued to grow, though he was unable to provide the numbers.

“Rhode Islanders who want to develop the game industry here know that it’s a good place,” said Johnson. “We have a very rich arts community and a very rich technology community. It’s scrappy, and I think you’ve got to be scrappy if you’re going to be in the games industry.” •

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