Seattle earns high score in gamer job opportunities -- Career Center Blog

February 9, 2012

Seattle earns high score in gamer job opportunities

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By Randy Woods
NWjobs

Bungie. PopCap. Valve. Big Fish. Double Down.

No, these are not nicknames for mob informants. They are all companies that could represent lucrative job opportunities for many video game developers, engineers, designers and animators looking for work in Seattle's booming interactive media market.

Over the last decade, Seattle, home of Nintendo North America and Microsoft's Xbox, has established itself as one of the world's premier hot spots for console-based video games and interactive content development, rivaled only by the Bay Area in terms of the number of startups and the concentration of talent. In recent years, the local market has also proven to be remarkably resilient.

The Great Recession took much of the steam out of the console market in 2011, reducing overall sales from $18.6 billion in 2010 to just $17 billion. However, new companies that focus on so-called "casual games" that are downloadable as apps on mobile devices are growing so fast, they can hardly find enough staff to meet the demand. And Seattle, once again, may be the hottest market in the country for these mobile games.

Last week, at its 5th annual Power of Play conference, the Washington Interactive Network (WIN), in conjunction with enterpriseSeattle, released the preliminary results of its upcoming Economic Impact Study and Cluster Analysis for the region's interactive media industry (the full report is due in April). Despite the struggling economy, the report stated, the number of gaming companies in the Puget Sound area has grown 133 percent in the last five years, from 150 companies in 2007 to 350 today. Also, between 2007 and 2010, revenues for the local industry have risen from $4.1 billion to $9.7 billion -- a 25 percent annual growth rate.

More importantly, this success has led to job creation at a rate of between 4 and 4.5 percent in the last five years, said WIN executive director Kristina Hudson, whose organization tracked employment figures "company-by-company." Today, the estimated number of interactive media positions in the region is between 16,500 and 17,500, the WIN study reported.

As competition for trained developers heats up, here is a quick look at local gaming companies that have some of the highest numbers of job openings:

Amazon -- Vigorous sales of the Kindle have made Amazon not only the No. 2 manufacturer in the electronic tablet market but also one of the rising stars in the development of mobile social media games. A recent search of Seattle-area openings for "game developer" at Amazon recently found nearly 50 programming, designing and engineering positions available.

Big Fish Games -- Known for producing and releasing at least one new casual game per day, Big Fish lives up to its name, with more than 20 positions open for software design engineers in the e-commerce and cloud gaming space. There are also another 20 or so jobs listed for positions such as IT, content management, finance, human resources and localization.

Bungie -- The creators of Halo gaming franchise have about 40 positions on their site for artists, administration, IT, design, engineering, production and testing.

Double Down Interactive -- This Seattle-based provider of the popular Double Down Casino game on Facebook was recently purchased by International Game Technology for $500 million and currently has seven developer positions listed on its site.

PopCap Games -- This casual gaming giant, which was sold to Electronic Arts last July for $1.3 billion, has at least 13 new positions in Seattle for engineers, programmers, analysts, art directors and designers.

Valve -- Known mostly for making shoot-'em-up video games like Half Life and Left 4 Dead, this company has branched out to develop a broad spectrum of entertainment products, including software development, online platforms and video production. As a result, the roughly 20 positions listed on its site are some of the most eclectic in the industry, including openings for an economist, a film editor, a psychologist and a statistician, along with the usual software engineering jobs.

Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.