Political gamesmanship is common at the Statehouse, but on Wednesday, legislators played games of a different kind. That afternoon, a group of local video game developers set up their iPads and gaming consoles in Room 11, and invited lawmakers to stop by and play.
It took some convincing — more than one onlooker muttered comments along the lines of “I don’t play these things but my kids and grandkids do” — but eventually some of them got in the game.
Montpelier Mayor John Hollar took a turn at Swamp Talk, a word game developed by Montpelier-based programmer Chris Hancock. Sen. Anthony Pollina (P/D-Washington) learned the finer points of Overflow from Zach Bohn of Birnam Wood Studios. And Montpelier voice-over artist Jackie Weyrauch convinced Treasurer Beth Pearce to try Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, a console game Weyrauch worked on with Insomniac Games.
Organizers of the pop-up Statehouse arcade included members of the Vermont Video Game Developers’ Association, along with students and faculty from Champlain College and representatives from the Central Vermont Economic Development Corporation. They hoped to raise the profile of the local gaming scene and convince lawmakers to support it.
The $52 billion-a-year industry presents a big economic opportunity for Vermont, these advocates claimed in a press conference in the Cedar Creek Room earlier in the day. Pollina kicked off that gathering. He told reporters that the video game industry provides “clean jobs” that appeal to young workers. He wants the state to do more to attract those workers here.
“The way we market our ski areas is the way we should be marketing our digital economy,” Pollina said.
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$75k is fine, but Rhode Island didn’t end up so well trying to help finance large game studios. Part of that was its own errors and political machinations (the governor basically killed a video game company to make a point about his opposition to the original decision to extend financing), but part of it is that the video game industry is volatile and any investment is inherently risky.