http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/0624biz-mr-gam
ebiz0624.html
Mesa firm out to make impact
JJ Hensley
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 24, 2006 12:00 AM
It's poised to become a leader in the online video gaming industry, but
first Mesa's Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment has to get a product on the
market.
That's not easy.
Working on Stargate Worlds takes years of preparation and planning,
going back and forth with executives at MGM Studios, which distributed
the 1994 film Stargate, and the production company in charge of the
sci-fi TV series and spinoffs.
The delay time is typical for these types of games, but when Stargate
Worlds is released in about two years, the franchise's cult following
means millions of fans will be waiting to snatch it up and throw down a
monthly subscription fee to play online with gamers worldwide.
The buzz is building at Stargate Worlds' Web site,
www.stargateworlds.com, and at an online gaming site,
www.tentonhammer.com, that recently named Stargate Worlds as its most
anticipated, massively multiplayer online game, or MMO, in production.
All those expectations are great, but Gary Whiting, Cheyenne's chairman
of the board, has ambitious goals for the company: to operate up to 20
separate studios designing MMO and other games, making Cheyenne Mountain
among the top producers.
With 30 to 60 employees working on each project, meeting that vision
would make Cheyenne Mountain among the largest private employers in the
southeast Valley and help reverse the metro area's reputation as lacking
the kind of creative jobs that attract young professionals.
The company essentially started when Whiting stepped in to keep an
agreement with MGM from expiring. Whiting, whose background includes
other software-related endeavors, jumped at the chance to get involved
in the gaming industry.
"When they mentioned MGM and Stargate, I said, 'Absolutely,' and put in
a couple million out of my own pocket," Whiting said.
That was the easy part.
In cobbling together a video-game production company in an area known
for retirees and resorts, Whiting found himself looking outside the
Valley for executives with experience in the field. It's a process,
Whiting said, that's mirrored on the Arizona Diamondbacks' successful
run to the World Series five years ago, when the team brought in
successful veterans with a winning track record.
If that's the case, Joe Ybarra and Chris Klug are Cheyenne Mountain's
Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling.
Whiting recruited Ybarra, Cheyenne's vice president of product
development, away from Warner Bros., where he was a producer of the
Matrix online series, and Klug, Cheyenne's creative director, away from
his work as a graduate instructor at Carnegie-Mellon University in
Pittsburgh.
Their presence, particularly Ybarra's, who was a founding member of
Electronic Arts, gave Cheyenne Mountain some immediate cachet among game
producers and made the next task easier, Whiting said.
"That's why we hired Joe, for one. A lot of people come on board because
Joe's on board," Whiting said, adding that workers were also attracted
to the Stargate brand name and the stock package. But bringing employees
from the Golden State, and elsewhere, to the Valley of the Sun can still
be a struggle.
The problem, Ybarra and Klug said, wasn't the lack of education in the
area's technical workforce; it was a lack of experience. "The difference
between theory in the classroom and practical business is night and
day," Klug added.
Cheyenne has deals with Collins College in Tempe and the Art Institute
of Phoenix to help students develop some of those skills before they
enter the workforce, Ybarra said.
But Cheyenne will have to get the game on the market for those students
to have jobs.
Although the game is at least two years away, Whiting says he believes
the possibilities for success are limitless.
Whiting points Blizzard Entertainment, with more than 6 million
subscribers paying more than $12 a month to play the game World of
Warcraft, when asked about the sustainability of Cheyenne's business.
--
Star Trek 08:
No Shat, No Show.
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