Game Development Industry Sets Up Shop In Seattle Microsoft, Boss Game Lay Foundation For New Products

Seattle-area companies made separate key moves last week for strategic advantage in the high-stakes game development industry.

Redmond-based Boss Game Studios, which is being bankrolled by Los Angeles-based Boss Film Studio founder Richard Edlund and local venture backer John McCaw Jr., announced plans to launch its first game product after 2-1/2 years of top-secret development.

And Microsoft Corp. announced Wednesday that it has taken an equity stake in Digital Anvil, a start-up company in Austin, Texas, founded by Chris Roberts, the creative force behind the Wing Commander game series and one of the industry’s best-selling developers.

Both Digital Anvil and Boss Game Studios have ties to the entertainment industry, signaling an ongoing evolution between film and video games.

“The two media are going to converge,” said Colin Gordon, vice president of product development for Boss Game Studios.

In the past, collaborations between film and video game developers have focused on bringing out games based on movies. The moves by Microsoft and Boss Game Studios signal a shift in strategy from making games based on movies to making games themselves more movie-like with film-quality special effects.

“Our model is to build a business that develops original content,” said Martin Rae, chief executive of Boss Game Studios. Because the company will own the content, it also can control spinoff possibilities of its characters, he said.

“We’ll own the franchise,” he said.

Boss’ sister company, Boss Film Studios, is owned by Edlund, a four-time Academy Award-winning special effects master known for his work on “Star Wars.” Boss’ first product launch, called “Spider,” features a realistic-looking “cybernetic spider.” The game player is a scientist whose “consciousness” is implanted in the spider after evil antagonists knock him out to steal his research. The goal for the player is to save his findings from evil ends and get his body back.

Digital Anvil’s strategy goes even further. The company plans to develop games that are involving enough to spin off as movies, said Adam Kahn, spokesman for Microsoft. The company’s first games will be in the “action-story and action strategy genres,” and will feature 3-D, cinematic effects.

Although Digital Anvil will remain based in Texas, the Seattle area is attracting more attention as a place to develop games. There are 30 to 40 small game development companies flourishing in the shadows of heavy-hitters Microsoft and Nintendo.

“It’s been building and building,” Gordon said. “Everybody is grabbing a slice of the media pie all at once.”