Many may not know that New Orleans has become a destination site for the video gaming industry. Earlier this month game development studio Possibility Space will set up shop in New Orleans to build large-scale video games. They are the newest addition to Louisiana’s growing video gaming bunch, which includes the Microsoft Xbox Game Studio, inXile, and High Voltage Software. I spoke with Michael Hecht, President and CEO of GNO Inc., and Melissa Boone of Xbox Research and Design, about the potential this has for the Crescent City.
Why did Xbox come to New Orleans’ “game camp?”
Boone: New Orleans immediately came up in our conversations. We really wanted to go to a place that we knew that we could get diverse perspectives, and people from all different walks of life. New Orleans now has that, but also, the artistic culture is just so vibrant here. You can just feel it kind of pouring out of the city… it's just such an ideal place to come for creativity and for innovation. So we really wanted to come here to leverage that and to work with the diversity of the city.
Hecht: When you actually look at the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, our market is number three in America for the number of women per capita in tech jobs, and number five for African-Americans per capita in tech jobs. We're not just talking the talk, we're actually walking the walk of having a diverse and inclusive workforce in our tech and media industries.
Where do the campers go after the camp is done? Do they continue to play a role in interacting with you guys?
Boone: The way that game camp works is we bring them in, we put them in a team with other folks who have different kinds of skill sets, and they work together to make games over the course of several months. They're also mentored by game creators from Xbox Game Studios to shepherd them through the process of making games and give them lots of tips about developing their careers… the thing that I love the most about this is that the campers are working remotely from Louisiana, and they're doing these jobs right here in the area that they love. The campers see they have the confidence to actually make those connections, apply for these creative jobs they never thought about before.
Just how big is the video game industry?
Boone: There's 3 billion gamers on the planet. There's so many different ways to game and because of that, we need to reach beyond the west coast so we can get a lot of those stories, get those identities, those cultures reflected in games.
Hecht: I think it's really interesting that you could take a place like New Orleans, which is so rooted in history and at the same time it is one of the most innovative places in the country. That duality is a strong selling point for the city and all of these high-tech manufacturing and software companies.
