Bill Thompson

The Georgia Film, Video & Music Office is looking to increase inbound and outbound international investment in Georgia’s little-recognized but increasingly profitable video game industry.

“The industry is growing worldwide and it’s not going to stop,” Bill Thompson, deputy commissioner of the office, told GlobalAtlanta.  Mr. Thompson said that the video game industry in the United States is projected to bring in $17 billion by the end of this year, but that it has remained “under the radar” for many businesspeople and state officials in Georgia.

Beijing-based online gaming company CDC Games International recently based its American branch, CDC Games USA, in Atlanta and released the test version of its first American online game.  

These announcements, coming months after the Georgia Department of Economic Development’s April hiring of Asante Bradford as the state’s first digital entertainment liaison, are the latest of many developments that officials said would help them promote the video game industry in Georgia.

Mr. Bradford, whose position is a testament to the video game industry’s importance to the state’s overall entertainment strategy, said that CDC Games’ presence in Atlanta boosts Georgia’s image in the international gaming scene.

“I think when you see a gaming company coming from China—which is their No. 1 gaming company—to set up shop in Georgia,…that’s not only just going to help us as far as us going out, but it puts a spotlight on Georgia,” Mr. Bradford told GlobalAtlanta.    

The international exposure provided by large companies like CDC Games has been good for the video game industry in Georgia, which has gradually garnered attention from state officials to match its long-unrecognized importance to the state’s economy.

Asante Bradford

“Our focus is going to be international.  We have 11 state offices worldwide, and I think that gives us an opportunity to push our image and show what we’re doing to all different parts of the world,” said Mr. Bradford, who visited Argentina a few weeks ago to meet with officials from two video game companies.

As an example of the state’s international reach, he added that Reykjavik, Iceland-based CCP hf. got its introduction to Atlanta-based White Wolf Publishing Inc. through Georgia’s commercial office in Germany.

CCP, the publisher of EVEonline, one of the top four massively multiplayer role-playing games in the world, merged with White Wolf last year, and CCP is planning to invest $30 million in a new game development soon, creating 100 more jobs in Atlanta.

By hiring Mr. Bradford and making a concerted effort to find and catalogue gaming companies doing business in Georgia, the Georgia department’s entertainment arm has played a slow-but-sure game of catch-up with an industry that has developed both quickly and quietly in Georgia.

“We’re still building a database and there’s hardly a week that goes by that we don’t meet somebody that we didn’t even know existed,” Mr. Thompson said.

Mr. Thompson, who said he wants to change the office’s name to something like “Digital Entertainment” to include video games, said that department’s original estimate of 50 to 60 video game companies in Georgia looks more accurate as it continues to survey the gaming landscape.

The quest for a gaming focus has lagged behind the state’s efforts in more traditional branches of the entertainment industry, but new laws and increased investment have readied the state to better tap into the gaming industry’s potential.

The 2005 Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act gave tax credits (up to 12 percent based on certain stipulations) to entertainment-based companies doing business in Georgia, and luckily, someone included the video game industry in the law, Mr. Thompson said.

Many local and international companies—including the largest gaming companies in Georgia—are now taking advantage of these financial incentives as well as the variety of other factors attracting gaming companies to Georgia.

The state’s colleges, for one, have a prominent place in the department’s plan for marketing Georgia as a gaming hub for the Southeast, said Mr. Bradford.

Gaming-focused educational programs at the Georgia Institute of Technology and both the Atlanta and Savannah campuses of Savannah College of Art and Design continue to turn out “at least a couple hundred” graduates per year ready to enter the gaming workforce, and classes are being taught at other institutions like Valdosta State University as well, Mr. Thompson said.

“The nature of the video game industry is that it’s going to grow really fast and it’s not going to be limited to a big metropolitan area,” Mr. Thompson said. “Even though there are advantages to being (in Atlanta), people are going to be working it where they are.”

Savannah is one of the places making strides in the video game industry independent of Atlanta. Without any promotional or monetary contributions from the Georgia department, SCAD entered an agreement with Electronic Arts Inc., one of the world’s largest game developers, that will provide opportunities for students in the university’s School of Film and Digital Media to assist and study under EA’s developers.

Mr. Thompson said that the state is “thrilled” at this partnership, which was recently expanded to a three-year deal.

The Georgia department’s entertainment office sponsors the Georgia Game Developers Association, which represents more than 2,000 Georgians employed in some kind of video game development. 

The two organizations and CCP will be the top sponsors for the Southern Interactive Entertainment and Game Expo (SIEGE) Oct. 5-7, which will attract to Atlanta gaming companies from all over the Southeast and feature many local speakers.