1. In 2006, I co-founded a company in New Orleans with the folks who were behind Louisiana’s tax credits for the game industry (the largest US project of this sort, aside from Rhode Island’s wacky 38 Studios experience). It was a very different time, in terms of industry opportunities, but it was quite useful for the area. I left that company at the point we raised VC funds (after a year), and I do think the tax credits probably helped with the raise.

2. Philadelphia Game Lab is a non-profit dedicated to opportunities in small team game development, which represents game types and distribution models that while now perhaps the majority of industry opportunities, were not considered meaningful as Louisiana’s breaks were being planned. Hence, their concepts of “wins” were very different from what would be applicable to us.

3. At capacity, we will host a dozen teams of game developers in our location at 2212 Walnut. Of the eight that we have invited so far, five either came to Philadelphia from other states because of opportunities (especially around university expertise) and cost savings (including lifestyle) here, or will be coming here for that and specifically to the Philadelphia Game Lab. We are consistently asked by companies coming here whether there are tax breaks, and if it does nothing else, having any tax break will “check that box” so that I won’t have to simply say “Nope. But I can help you talk to the right people.”

4. I strongly believe that an important aspect of a tax break for game development here is that it should take as a given that most teams are of less than 24 people, and these folks can’t mess about with government relations. There should be a simple form that allows people to claim the tax credit, and it should be first-come, first-served.

5. I started my career in the film production industry (as everything from a grip to cameraman to having my own commercial production company), so I’m highly aware of the differences between the benefits to a city of film production versus game creation. Film production tax credits both help support a skilled creative technical class and highlight the city as a location, which is extremely important given the percentage of our revenue that comes from tourism. Hence, while the film tax credit ends up costing quite a lot, it does double duty. There is no way that the cost of tax credits for game production in Pennsylvania will approach that of film. There was a time, when major publishers and developers were opening large new AAA development shops that it was conceivable that it could have been that big (although I’d argue that that was never really a possibility for Philadelphia). -Currently, big developers are shutting down shops, including those in Montreal, which has been a center for development, and has excellent tax and educational benefits for game development. However, any subsidization of game development in this town has a much more direct impact upon facilitating keeping the smartest college grads here, as what will be hired are skilled recent graduates from Penn, Drexel and other local universities.

A potential issue in simply adding the game tax credits to the film program is that film productions are very transient, so that once they confirm a credit for production, it’s locked in for the term of the project here. In contrast, game development is not at all transient; creators work for years on either one project or many smaller titles, and stability is critically important; the concept of a “production pipeline,” or the ability to create ongoing quality work is a core value that a game developer provides to investors. While folks in film production here panic periodically as they see that the state may not renew the production tax credits for the following year, this lack of stability only affects local folks on the ground, not producers who are deciding where to shoot (they have no sunk costs and can just go elsewhere this time). In contrast, if someone sets up shop here for game production with the idea that the tax credit enables their business model, it would be a very bad thing for such a credit not to exist next year.

Last year, I wrote a white paper on the history and potential benefits of Tax Credits for the game industry, some of which is not relevant, but here are a few elements that may be of interest:

• There are no “whales” left in the game industry at this time. The focus is on outsourcing and smaller, nimble companies. The big wins achieved by some states over the past few years, including Louisiana, in driving relocation, simply aren’t there to be had at this point.

• There have been two major successes for Louisiana as a result of their initiative:

• –  Gameloft opened a 140-person studio

• –  Electronic Arts funded creation of a Quality Assurance Lab in coordination with LSU. It started with 200 employees, then went to 400 and is growing to 650. However, as these are students, the vast majority are are part-time, so it has a lot of benefit for LSU, but as LSU doesn’t have a strong engineering program, the benefits may not be long-lasting or effective for the local economy.

• The businesses pitched to move to Louisiana were done so with a presentation built entirely around the benefits of tax breaks. The tax breaks were significant and given the full and aggressive backing of Governor Jindal’s administration.

• Louisiana give tax credits to Game and Film entities each year. Most entities receive more credits than they have taxes due. Until 2011 there was an ad hoc marketplace for these credits, that paid 80-90% of their value, but last year the state began allowing them to be “cashed-in” at 100% of their value.

• There are a variety of attraction scenarios that could be effective in the current environment. One concept which seems to hold promise is a model employed by several Canadian provinces, in which salaries are subsidized by the state, at levels of between 30-50%. In an environment of small, technically skilled teams, the knock-on effect of subsidizing funded initiatives so that they are able to combine this benefit with the low costs of living in Philadelphia could be significant. Housing is another element that could be a successful draw for these smaller teams to move to Philadelphia, if we can find a way to add this to the package.

We are currently finalizing location and Tracks for the 2013 Grassroots Game Conference in Philadelphia.  Our premiere event, last year, was an unexpected success (especially given limited planning and no marketing, as it was conceived and executed in a single month with little budget) and we look forward to this year being significantly larger. Tracks tentatively planned for the week of October 14th are:

The Art of Games

Collision of Music and Games

Game Development in K12 Education

Design in Games/Games in Design

Serious Games and Gamification for Non-Profits

-as well as a coordinated Chiptune Festival on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

At this point, we are able to add other Tracks, as well as sessions within those currently planned. Each Track will have a dedicated partner organization collaborating on content and marketing of that day’s events. Please do get in touch with us if you have any suggestions or requests.

It’ll take a few months for everything to be fitted out, and to have everyone in place, but this is the space that will be home to the Philadelphia Game Lab. It’s at 2212 Walnut Street, in Center City Philadelphia, close to Drexel, Penn, UArts, regional rail, and just as importantly, the Sidecar Bar and Grill. There’ll be a gallery/retail space at the front of the building on the ground floor, and a total of close to 8,000 square feet of space hosting game development teams. Our model is $500 a month for invited teams of up to a dozen members (in dedicated space), and $200 per month for invited individuals working in games or game-related initiatives.

It was quite exciting for us that before even holding our first session, the best introduction to where we’re coming from and what we wanted to do with his conference came on a Pew blog. In the course of 19 sessions, and of our observations and feedback from experts across the spectrum of thought on game development, we were also able to further define the place we want the Philadelphia Game Lab to take in the greater ecosystem. -This will be the focus of an upcoming post.

We feel incredibly fortunate to have had so much support from the Corzo Center, Knight Foundation (sponsor of the Games and Gamification for Non-Profits Track), the Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy and cultureworks. From the local developer community, Tim Ambrogi of Final Form and Jake O’Brian of Philadelphia Unity Users Group and Flyclops collaborated with us on organizing sessions, and a number of others participated in sessions. Among other highlights, Dain Saint of Cipher Prime combined with Youngmoo Kim to provide a diptych of mesmerizing presentations, that ended up being both a stirring example of education as a product of play and a compelling dialog on that observation.  Another was Monday night’s panel on Games as Art, when we were joined by Alyce Myatt of the NEA, Georgina Goodlander from the Smithsonian’s current exhibit on games, the makers of Indie Game: The Movie, and Sarah Brin of GlitchLab LA, all of which was moderated, and significantly enriched, by Chris Grant. Sarah also provided a wonderful presentation giving us an overview of the state of games as art at the grassroots level across the world.

On Tuesday, we had some great folks coming into town to discuss use of games and gamification by non-profits, including Gabe Zichermann (who wrote the book, and runs the conferences, on gamification); Chris Lawrence of HiveNYC‘s unique and well-respected badge program; the brilliant and ASL-fluent Stephen Jacobs and our own Kevin Werbach, who ran a significant academic conference on gamification last year. An amazing thing about this session was that it was entirely free of hyperbole about the strengths or weaknesses of gamification. It was an extremely practical and insightful exploration of what gamification can do for good. After that session, David Gloss, a local expert in uses of gameplay and social elements was joined by Dianne Debicella from Fractured Atlas to go into depth on the specific impact and benefits of fundraising in a game or gamified environment. It turns out (based on hard numbers presented) that people who donate to social good from within a commercial system tend to be significantly more committed and valuable clients of that commercial system.

Outside of the events we held, we were lucky to be able to convince the makers of Indie Game: The Movie to hold a showing on Tuesday night in collaboration with the conference. And on Wednesday night, the Philly IGDA put on its annual display of locally developed games, showing a diversity of games, and a really great vibe of camaraderie.

One of the coolest things that happened in the week was when Tim Ambrogi pulled together a panel of three teams of successful indie developers in Philadelphia (moderated by Chris Grant), who articulately described vastly different approaches and business models for game development, all within the context of why Philadelphia is the best place for them.

We have to add a special mention of the great positive energy and thought brought to several sessions, as, varyingly, panelist, presenter, and audience, by the guys from Obscure Games in Pittsburgh.

I’d also like to thank Jerome Cathaud from newquest, who built the fantastic graphic identity for the conference (riffing off his design for the Philadelphia Game Lab) and NextFab for doing some great signage for us.

This has just been a bit of a stream of consciousness post, to get some thoughts up one day after the conference ended. I know that I’ve missed mentioning loads of great participants, and I hope to get to more posts over the next week. We have videos for almost all events, and we’ll post them and presentations as soon as we can get all of that organized.

It used to be that the first step into work in the game industry was as a QA tester, but in recent years, that critical first step has largely disappeared, as this category of work has been outsourced to Asian shops. In partnership with several developers, we are creating a Quality Assurance Lab that is intended to compete with shops in Asia. Developers have expressed a desire to have better, closer game QA, if it can be priced competitively.

We think we can do this, especially in the context of being a non-profit entity that isn’t seeking to derive profitability from this area. The wages will be fairly lousy, and the work will be intensely, mind-numbingly boring, and I’m told that it makes most people hate games. But, if you can survive it, you’ll get to work on some very cool projects with developers from around the country. The skills required are meticulous attention to detail, great descriptive ability and the ability to responsibly track and report issues. We think there will be a lot of applicants, and we’re just now beginning to create a list of interested folks. The requirements won’t be about background, but about what you can do.

We will be starting with an initial team of about six testers, and our first work will come from one of our mentoring developers, probably in May. There will be intensive training prior to this, and we believe, per our advisors in game development, that our numbers should be able to scale up quickly, assuming that we execute well enough. As it stands, most of the QA testing that still happens in the US is crowdsourced or part-time work that is secondary or for smaller titles. Our intent is to create processes and relationships that will build careers, and while we will certainly be working on smaller and (we hope) larger titles, this initiative is all about re-professionalizing this career path.

A priority for us is to integrate this project with the broader game development community in Philadelphia and nationally, and ensure that skills learned can bring participants to meaningful next steps in their careers.

 Contact us.

Messaging us will also bring you into the conversation next week deciding which of the negotiated spaces we’ll be moving into. We have several options, and want to be sure to have the feedback of community members. If people have no preference, we will be going for the massive space in Fishtown with 3-story-high ceilings, and we’ll rig the thing with bungee cables, because I’m personally shallow and impractical about space. Or we’ll do the 23k square feet in Northern Liberties that we’ll be living in as we fix it up for the next year. If you would care to set us straight, get in touch; Tom Miles, our boardmember who has to deal with me on real estate issues, will thank you, and we’ll get you a beer at the next Philly Game Scene Event.

Contact us.