Worcester Business Journal

8 Worcester Business Journal | May 29, 2023 | wbjournal.com gy that go beyond passing the time with Call of Duty or playing Candy Crush on the subway. Amakawa works with augmented reality to enhance visitors' experiences at historical sites. He has worked with the U.S. National Park Service on the Abraham Lincoln Home in Illinois. He created an AR app allowing visitors to Springfield, Missouri, to see what hap- pened during the 1908 race riot, which led to the creation of the NAACP. He created an AR app to show what the Japa- nese-American internment camp looked like at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. In addition to bringing history to life, Amakawa said gaming technology, particularly AR and VR, are used to create training experiences for nursing students, improve online shopping experiences for retailers, and create box office sales for the movie industry was $25.9 billion, and it projects sales of $32 billion in 2023. Not playing games None of the people WBJ spoke with for this story identify as a hard-core gamer. Students who enter the Fitchburg program expecting to just play video games may transfer out of the program, as it requires an academic approach and a maker's mentality, said Tobin. e program is nested in the Com- munications Media Department among majors like graphic design, film and video production, and public relations, social media, and advertising produc- tion. It is separate from the computer science department, though there is some crossover of skills. "Game technology is another kind of storytelling, an artistic medium," said FSU Associate Professor Jonathan Amakawa, who is the coordinator of the video game design major. Amakawa, who has a fine arts back- ground, sees uses for gaming technolo- BY TIMOTHY DOYLE WBJ Staff Writer O n ursday, May 11, on the second floor of a nearly 100-year-old, largely vacant theater building in downtown Fitchburg, a group of students wearing virtual reality headsets turned their heads and waved their arms around be- hind the glass walls of the school's new game design lab. ese Fitchburg State University students are testing a game called Worm Punk, a networked VR movement shooter, wherein the player flies around an arena trying to kill opponents before being killed themselves. Students and faculty say it is the first game of its kind. e students developed the game from scratch as part of their capstone projects for their bachelor's degree in game design. Students in the game de- sign program must complete either an internship or game studio, a 40-hour- a-week class where students develop a video game with their classmates. "We've been able to do some really great stuff because it's an environment where our careers aren't reliant on us selling it. It's reliant on us having a good and interesting product," said Christian Hotte, a senior in the program who was the lead on the Worm Punk project. "at's what I'm here for, to be able to do kind of radically experimental things." FSU's program was the first game design major offered by a public univer- sity in New England and is still one of the few. It was first offered in 2014 aer former executive vice president and provost Robin Bowen approached the Communications Media Department head Jeffrey Warmouth and Professor Samuel Tobin in 2012 with the idea. ey got to work figuring out what would be needed for such a program, securing the facilities and personnel. e program is still going strong with graduates going on to work with large companies like North Carolina-based Epic Games, which is behind the video game phenomenon Fortnite, starting their own game studios, or taking the skills they learn to other industries like online retail, robotics, and defense. e university invested in a new game design studio in the Fitchburg theater building, which it is redeveloping, to house its entrepreneurial-style video game design capstone class. Fitchburg State's program is not the only game design program in Central Massachusetts. Clark University in Worcester and Worcester Polytechnic Institute both took on parts of Becker College's celebrated program aer the Worcester school dissolved in 2021. Video games are big business. Overall total consumer spending on video games in the U.S. totaled $56.6 billion in 2022, according to a Jan. 17 press release from the Entertainment Soware Asso- ciation. However, 2022 video game sales saw a 5% drop from 2021 COVID-in- fluenced highs. In comparison, Gower Street Analytics of London said global Fitchburg State's video game design program positions students and the school near the forefront of a $57B industry Level up Christian Hotte, a senior at Fitchburg State University, said one of the appealing aspects of the university's game design program is students retain intellectual property rights on their games. Hotte (standing) leads the team of FSU students developing the Worm Punk game at the university's new downtown design lab. Jonathan Amakawa, FSU associate professor in game design

• Cover