Of course, there will be a personal bias to this entry since I was born and raised in the magnificent city of Chicago, but that doesn’t make my thoughts any less credible. Chicago has been a relatively low buzzed city when it comes to the gaming industry. Unlike San Diego or Austin, which seem to have new game companies or sub-divisions popping up on a monthly basis, Chicago has a very small core of game companies. Leading the pack is Midway Games (Mortal Kombat, NFL Blitz, Unreal Tournament), whose corporate headquarters are in Chicago. EA comes next with its EA Chicago Branch, and then comes Incredible Technologies (the creator of one of the most popular games in American bars, Golden Tee Golf). Of course, there are other companies based out of Chicago, but they are much smaller in scale and industry impact. These companies include Wideload Games (Stubbs the Zombie), Day 1 Studios (F.E.A.R., MechAssault), High-Voltage Software (NBA Inside Drive, Hunter), Raw Thrills (Big Buck Hunter Pro), and Play Mechanix (Big Buck Hunter).

Chicago has the recipe to become a big bang in the future of gaming. It has some amazing talent not only in the developers, but in its gaming community as well. The problem that the Chicago gaming industry has is exposure. There’s a reason why major gaming trade shows happen in places like California or Texas. So here’s three ways in which the Chicago gaming industry can be transformed into something big.

1. An MMO Hub – The missing link to the Chicago gaming industry is an MMORPG company that bases its game out of Chicago. MMO players are weird, weirder than other online gamers who frag away at games like Battlefield 2. If they immerse themselves into an MMO and end up loving it, they then want to immerse themselves into the company that made the MMO. They want to learn about the company, want to be a voice in its community, and even find a way to help out or participate in making the game better. Take BlizzCon, or SOE’s Fanfests for example. They not only publicize the parent company’s location, but they also bring fans to that location. If Chicago had an MMO powerhouse within its borders, the gaming market in this city will start to incline.
2. DePaul University’s CTI – This may be a shameless plug at the school I attend, but as of last year DePaul University was the only major accredited university in the nation to have an undergraduate program for Game Development. The program is part of DePaul’s School of Computer Science, Telecommunications and Information Systems (CTI) and covers a broad range of key development skills such as writing screenplays, programming, and storyboarding. Most other universities in the nation that have programs for game development offer them only at the graduate level. There is also a club called DeFRAG (Depaul’s Fundamental Research for Academic Gaming) which allows any student to participate in making, testing, and analyzing games as well as participating in game-related events such as GDC or inviting well-respected individuals from the industry to deliver speeches. Furthermore, DePaul also serves as one of the nation’s best business schools, with it’s Entrepreneur program ranked as one of the top three in the nation. What does this mean? It means that Chicago has immediate access to a slew of amazing talent headed towards the gaming industry. Whether it is in Game Development or Marketing, Chicago’s gaming industry can, in theory, self sustain itself with the bright and determined gamers that come out of DePaul’s programs. Furthermore, they offer those students the best incentive of all: it’s close to home.
3. Chicago Game Forum – Lastly, Chicago is in need of a Chicago Game Forum. No, not a forum you access online so you can post spam and troll hot-topic threads. Although there are plenty of summits and conferences, including Chicago-centric ones for the gaming industry, we need one that will be dedicated to developers and students. Let all the “this is what cool new stuff we’re coming out with” presentations be part of the E3 Expo. Let the analysis’s and future projections be part of GDC. What I’m proposing is a meeting with representatives from the Chicago-area gaming companies and students from the Chicagoland area who are willing to participate in sharing ideas to help improve gaming and pave the way for gaming in the future. An event like this once a year will allow the experts and the learners debate and throw ideas back and forth. Think of it as a large brainstorming committee. I’m not saying that each company should reveal industry secrets, but perhaps share ideas and listen to each other and to the players to help craft an industry that is on the dawn of a new era. Instead of developers doing things they think gamers will like, why not sit down with the gamers themselves to get a general direction of what the community wants, as well as to expose any flaws or failures in the current state of the industry. This will be a great way to help the Chicago gaming industry excel quicker than its counterparts, allow for students aspiring to get into the industry to get a feel of what it is like, and give rise to innovative ideas and critiques that will balance out the goods and the bads coming out of the games the local companies develop.

I’m more than willing to begin taking steps to turning those three points into reality. The question I should be asking is, is anyone else willing to do the same?