And your mom said video games would never pay off.
Here’s an interesting request from Krissa at Idaho TechConnect:
Know of any video game developers in Boise (or Idaho)?
The new SBIR solicitations from Dept of Defense are out and there is a huge demand for those skills. Rick and I were trying to think of companies in Idaho that might be interested and came up blank.
Check out http://www.marcprensky.com - he’s not local, but has spoken here. He’s done a ton of training programs using video and other computer games. His site might give your brains a wee nudge.
Hey, that’s exactly the industry I’m in. I have a background making video games, but I now work in DoD modeling and simulation (it’s sort of a cross between GIS and video games).
DoD SBIRs are hard to get, I’ve got a couple proposals out there, and I’ve got one award I’m a teammate on (I am not the prime). I’m currently a lone-wolf consultant based out of Idaho, with a small number of very good customers. My goal is to get enough work to hire a full-time developer or two to work with me and turn some ideas into a commercial product.
However, when I talk about what I do to local people, their eyes kind of gloss over. Since it isn’t web oriented, and it isn’t social networking, it doesn’t seem to attract too much interest locally. I’ve been pretty disappointed in the local reaction to my desire to grow a high-tech business in this town.
I am very interested in working with anybody who wants to get into this industry though. There’s a lot of potential in this industry!
Kevin is exactly right…the most obvious emphasis in the valley (at least from our points of view) seems to be social networking.
I too am trying to build a high-tech (ActionScript-based) operation-yes, AS3 by any measure provides “high tech” capabilities, and it’s a bit like going to for a loooong walk in the desert.
Interestingly, Kevin and I are working on a small application right now.
Check out PlayXpert.com. This is an Idaho company based in Sandpoint that has built a gaming platform. Cool stuff and great development team. Charles Manning is the CEO.