Video Gaming Expo Highlights Utah's Dense Market

Aggro. Pwnage. MMORPG. For some those words are meaningless gibberish. For others, like the thousands who attended Salt Lake's GEEX Gaming and Electronics Expo last month, those terms are the language of business.

The decision to base the event in Utah was a practical one. A report released in March of last year showed that Salt Lake City had the highest percentage of households in the nation that own at least one gaming console. GEEX was "a no-brainer," said Marie Bowcut, director of events and community relations for MediaOne, the expo's major sponsor. "Once we saw that report, the question really wasn't why would we host a gaming expo, it was, 'Why wouldn't we?"'

"Having this right in my backyard, I had to come," said attendee Christopher Kahl. Christopher is a Salt Lake native that participated in one of the gaming tournaments during the expo. He owns XTracPads, a provider of high end professional gaming mouse pads and accessories. "It was rough the first year," he said, "but now I sell enough to support my lifestyle and compete in things like GEEX."

After enduring hard times at the start of the decade, Utah's game industry has re-emerged as a national presence. The world’s largest video game publisher, EA, acquired Headgate Studios, makers of the Tiger Woods series of golf games, in late 2006. Incognito, known for their "Twisted Metal" series, have spun off new studio branch called Eat Sleep Play to complete their current work with Sony. Disney, after buying Avalanche Software in May of 2005, created a sister company called Fall Line Studio.

The relationship with Disney Interactive Studios, Inc. has gone so well that the Governor’s Office of Economic Development Board approved a $5.25 million tax rebate if the company can add more than 500 Utah jobs in the next decade. In doing so, the state is looking to continue bringing white collar positions to their communities. The average salary hovers around $75,000 a year - nearly twice the Salt lake County median average of $32,828.

One of those employers at GEEX was Silverlode Interactive, a small independent game studio of 26 people in the Orem area. They were displaying Saga, the world's first Massively Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy game (or MMORTS). Unable to get traditional game funding because of the pioneering nature of the project they turned to Utah's film industry. Its an area that the firm's President, Jason Faller, knew well – his resume includes credits on films like Pride and Prejudice. "The movie guys here had the vision to say 'yes, we see this as the next step' and were willing to fund the project," Slava Zatuchny, Marketing Director at Silverlode, said. "This game could have only been made in Utah."