Yeah, well I''m in Sydney... there is one company I know of... but I''ve never seen or played any of their games.

I could go to Queensland (state above NSW) and try for Auran (Dark Reign) or south to Victoria and try Beam software... but apart from that.... I''m a bit stuck... don''t complain.

(oh, and I was doing work experience, and when we went to one of the clients, I looked at the directory for companies in the building and I saw "Hasbro Interactive". To tell the truth, it was the same sort of feeling you might get if a crazy man pointed a gun at you... that''s just from all the crap they are given here... even though I hardly read it. But I don''t think they develop here)

Trying is the first step towards failure.

quote: Gaiiden wrote,
I'm sorry, I just have to get ticked off at the fact that no game company has thought to locate an office anywhere on the East Coast. To my knowledge, the farthest East a major game company has gotten is Chicago! Bah!! Oh, and please correct me if I'm wrong - please

I had to chime in here, with further information! Since Gaiiden mentions Chicago, I assume he was talking about the US east coast. I'm in Raleigh, NC. Pretty much on the east coast of the US, maybe 125 miles inward and certainly an east coast state.

There are *numerous* game companies here (in Raleigh, Cary, Chapel Hill, Morrisville, NC). And the list is growing! Here's the list that pops into my head right away:

Epic Games (ever hear of Unreal? the team moved here some months ago)
Red Storm
Sinister Games
Timeline Computer Entertainment
Southpeak Interactive
Shrapnel Games
LipSinc (who make tools for lip syncing in games)
Numerical Design Limited (who make the NetImmerse game engine)
GameProducer.com (game industry B2B company)
at least one startup game studio (I was told it exists by a friend at Sinister games---the startup is in the same building as Sinister, but he didn't tell me the name)

and

Applied Research Associates, Inc.

That's 5, perhaps 6 game studios, 1 game publisher, 1 game B2B service company, 3 game tools companies (one of which is also a studio), and one internally-funded game studio hopeful. 11 (maybe more) game industry companies all within a 25 mile radius----in an east coast state.

OK, the last one is a stretch. Its my company, and we're not a game company. But we are investing money in game and game technology development, and I am tasked with growing a game studio for our Raleigh office. We are in the early stages of storyboarding our first game, which will be at least partially funded internally.

I'm pretty excited myself, that the east coast (in particular, my area) is becoming a booming game development community!

Graham Rhodes
Senior Scientist
Applied Research Associates, Inc.

Edited by - grhodes_at_work on January 3, 2001 6:11:35 PM

Congintoy - Boston area
Stainless Steel Studion - Boston area

Uptill recenly Looking Glass was in cambridge,

And lets not forget legendary INFOCOM I beleive started in the Boston / Cambridges area.

We (NE developers) have meetings in Boston called Postmortem at the Sam Adams Brew House in the Lenox Hotel the 2nd Tues or Wed of every month and its usually quite full.

Hey Anon - what''s this about a get together with the NE developers? Would they let me in if I drove up?

==============================
"Need more eeenput..."
- #5, "Short Circuit"
Blade Edge Software
==============================

Thought I''d add Legend Entertainment to this list (since I happen to work there)... we''re located in Chantilly, VA, about 30 mins from D.C.

to grhodes_at_work:

I never knew that there were that many companies here in North Carolina.( I live in Kinston, North Carolina.... the crappiest town in the world, were''re just now getting dsl). I knew the Raliegh area was big in the technical world (so to speak), but geez. I never knew.

Well if thats the case..... have you heard the local rumor (a statewide rumor) that several large technological companies are supposed to be buying into this area.Supposedly including MS, INTEL, and a few others. Mainly because of the Global Transpark (although that project will never finish). Please be more than a rumor.

So, in other words...... I had made plans to go out west to get into a technical community (game dev) and you mean to tell me that this state, this toliet bowl of a state has that many game companies in it. I''m gonna go crazy. Me being stupid ( as I am most of the time) never even thought to check the locations of these companies. Oh well, learn something new everyday....

Now.... lets get Hunt out, fix a few stupid laws, get some decent DSL(in my area) and the world will be a better place.

Later all.
The Immortal Monkey

Regarding N.E. Postmortem gathering.

Yep,

There is one this Wed January 10th. They usually start 7ish at the Sam Adamas Brew house in the Lenox Hotel. Email me at duncan@roguegames.com and I''ll send you the specifics if you want. Hope to see you there.

To The Immortal Monkey (all quotes are Monkey''s):

quote:
I never knew.

Pretty impressive, eh? Patience, friend, and careful observation, research, and planning, brings many rewards.

quote:
Well if thats the case..... have you heard the local rumor...

Haven''t heard this specific rumor. But I do know for a fact that there is one other gaming industry company with an office in the area. I had forgotten about this before, but remembered it when you listed the big names. That company is nVidia (!), who have a small office here that I think works on drivers and demos.

I also neglected to mention that there is a school (2 miles from us) who teach 3D modeling with 3D Studio MAX, and various packages, see www.graymattertc.com.

quote:
I live in Kinston, North Carolina.... the crappiest town in the world, were''re just now getting dsl.

Heh heh. Yeah, I know Kinston. Don''t feel bad. My parents live in nowhere land between Smithfield and Four Oaks. They can''t even get cable TV. And as far as I can tell, the entire triangle area seems to be one of the last to get any new communications technology. DSL and Cable modem were available in Hampton, Virginia for over a year before either was available here, even in Raleigh.



Graham Rhodes
Senior Scientist
Applied Research Associates, Inc.

This stat is a few years old, but I''d bet its still accurate:

This part of North Carolina, Raliegh, Durham, Chapel Hill, (home to NC State University, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina(go Heels), respectively ) has per capita, the most Ph.D''s of anywhere in the world.

UNC has one of top Computer Graphics department of anywhere in the country. A project there on Collison Detection was recently featured on GamaSutra.com

The Atari/Nes generation is just getting thru college, so there''s loads of talent and intrest to be found here, and hopefully this growth of the games industry will continue.

ape, UNC Comp Sci 1999

Don''t know about the stat, but the part about UNC-Chapel Hill certainly is.

They do quite a lot work in large scale visualization, virtual reality, and haptic interfaces in addition to their diverse work in computational geometry and collision detection.




Graham Rhodes
Senior Scientist
Applied Research Associates, Inc.