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Show MyWeberMedia.com | December 7, 2018 | 17 “THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY HAS A REAL PRESENCE IN UTAH — A PRESENCE NOT DETERRED BY TRIPLE-A PUBLISHERS OR AN OFTEN VOLATILE CULTURE.” developing a top-of-the-line, next-generation golf game. Cook quickly received an offer he couldn’t refuse to buy his company from another publisher called Sierra. Rebranding shortly thereafter, Sierra Sports bought the rights to what would soon be known as “PGA Championship Golf.” “At the time they bought me and in subsequent years, they were the No. 1 publisher in the world on PC,” Cook said of Sierra. “It turns out, though, you wanted to be the No. 1 publisher on consoles. They were out of position, and they were hemorrhaging money.” This unabated loss of funds ultimately led Sierra to offer Cook an opportunity to buy back his company for, according to Cook, pennies on the dollar. Cook put the decision to a vote, and his employees unanimously agreed to continue working with him. Cook soon entered business dealings with EA to pair his product — a next-gen, best-in-the-market golf simulator — with the legendary Tiger Woods license, which EA already owned. Cook maintained a publisher-contractor relationship with EA for several years afterward. He finally sold the rights to his company to EA in 2006, moving the studio to Salt Lake City. The move to Salt Lake was precipitated by an economic climate where Utah was a considerably cheaper place to operate. “Our average cost per employee was around $11,000 per month, fully loaded: salary, benefits, etc.,” Cook said. “But in Redwood Shores, at headquarters, it was double that.” According to Cook, as a cost-saving measure, EA issued a company directive: the California-based headquarters would remain relatively small, and development would be distributed to low-cost cities around the world. “Salt Lake City was one of those places that identified as a good talent base at moderate cost,” Cook said. Montreal was similarly identified as an ideal location for game development because, according to Cook, Canada offered extremely beneficial tax incentives. Cook tried working to establish similar incentives for his company, but Utah doesn’t offer any tax incentives specific to the video game industry, according to the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development. Cook said Utah certainly tried to help where they could, but financial difficulties aren’t the only reason game companies have trouble thriving in Utah and elsewhere. The long-distance relation- ship between publishers and satellite offices creates an environment of disposability. “(EA) never really saw my studio as an independent place that could stand 100 percent on its own legs and always had the ‘talented and smart’ people in California,” Cook said. “A lot of people fully respected the talent and abilities that Utah had to offer, but not everyone did. Eventually, if things don’t align, it’s more expendable than making choices in California.” More than 40 other Utah-based developers are currently registered through the ESA. None of these companies are triple-A developers, however; they’re all small, independent developers — developers struggling to be heard amidst the roar of triple-A engines. Brent Fox is one of those independent developers. He’s an art director/partner of Wahoo Studios/Ninjabee. After his first post-graduate employer experienced significant financial turbulence, Fox and a few of his colleagues left to start their own studio and team up with Wahoo around 2002. “At that time, you couldn’t do independent stuff. There was no such thing,” Fox said. “Games were sold through retail stores, so as a small developer, you couldn’t even get Wal-Mart to talk to you. It was either big publishers or nothing. Then, all of a sudden, people started saying ‘Hey, you can start selling games through the internet,’ and we went, ‘Really?’” Fox’s team was approached by Microsoft before the release of the Xbox 360. According to Fox, Microsoft told them they were going to increase focus on selling digital games through an on-console marketplace. “Outpost Kaloki X,” the game made by Fox’s team, was one of the first six titles launched on the Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) through the 360. For several years, Fox and his team alternated between working on independent projects and working for big publishers like Microsoft. “We’d do about 50 percent our own independent stuff and 50 percent work-forhire for large publishers,” Fox said. Eventually, Fox said Wahoo went through a period where they didn’t have a lot of work and shut down their offices. Since then, he and eight others have been doing contract work without an office. “We have a big contract with Microsoft right now,” Fox said. “We now have a distributed model where we all work remotely, and in lots of ways, there are cool advantages to that.” Fox said most modern independent Please see GAME DEVELOPMENT, 18 |