Industry watchers often refer to Seattle proper as a hub for the gaming industry.
But while Seattle’s healthy indie gaming ecosystem has produced successful companies like Big Fish and Popcap Games, the epicenter of the Puget Sound gaming universe arguably rests on the eastern shores of Lake Washington: Microsoft regularly absorbs and spins out gaming studios; titans of the industry have headquarters or satellite offices in Bellevue; and Redmond’s Digipen Institute of Technology was the nation’s first higher education provider to offer a bachelor’s degree in video game development.
Independent gaming studios abound throughout Puget Sound, with newcomers cropping up all the time. Here, we highlight eight foundational companies whose Bellevue and Redmond headquarters anchor the industry and draw in talent from around the world to make the Eastside one of the world’s biggest gaming hubs.
Focused on: Tools for game developers
Famous for: The world’s most-used 3D development platform
Bio: Unity Technology’s software tools help developers create experiences in 2D, 3D, VR and AR, and are now used in the creation of over 50 percent of mobile games and 60 percent of augmented and virtual reality content. Founded in Copenhagen in 2004, the company has since moved its headquarters to San Francisco. Unity has had an office in Bellevue since 2009, and recently moved into new digs that doubled its available office space. Though the company got its start in the gaming industry, Unity now produces software for the film, construction, gambling and automotive industries.
Focused on: Start-to-finish game development
Famous for: Guild Wars
Bio: ArenaNet’s Bellevue-based team creates beautiful, fully immersive worlds and missions within them, exemplified by their signature Guild Wars online multiplayer roleplaying game series. Founded in 2000, the company was acquired by Korean gaming developer NcSoft in 2002 and released its first Guild Wars game in 2005. In 2012, the company launched Guild Wars 2 to great fanfare — and has pumped out wildly successful expansion packs ever since.
Focused on: Developing games and tools for game developers
Famous for: Fortnite, Unreal Tournament
Bio: If you’ve spent more than a few seconds within earshot of a teenager lately, you’ve almost certainly heard of Fortnite, a battle royale-style gaming sensation released last year. What you mightn’t have known is that the company behind it, Epic Games, has been around since 1991. In addition to its range of games, the company also distributes its internal development platform, Unreal Engine, to other game developers. Headquartered in North Carolina, the company has a large Bellevue office in addition to satellite offices in Japan, the U.K., Finland, Germany, Sweden and South Korea.
Focused on: Video games and related tech
Famous for: Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Steam
Bio: Microsoft veterans Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington co-founded Valve in 1996, and two years later the company debuted its most famous title, “Half-Life,” for PC. Aside from creating games, in 2003 the company launched the now-essential Steam platform for publishing and distribution. Valve also creates gaming hardware, including a gaming controller and the Steam Link — which allows gamers to play on any television within a home — and in 2016 launched the SteamVR platform to create and distribute virtual reality experiences.
Focused on: Video game titles and platforms
Famous for: Pokemon, the Legend of Zelda, Super Mario
Bio: If you want evidence of the Eastside’s dominance in the video game industry, look no further than Nintendo’s decision to build its North American headquarters in Redmond back in the 1980s. The company was founded in Kyoto in 1889 as a manufacturer of hanafuda playing cards, and entered the video game industry in the 1970s. Since then, Nintendo has gone through periodic episodes of massive popularity and, as a 130 year-old company, shown a remarkable ability to reinvent itself time and again.
Focused on: Game networking for PCs
Famous for: Polar Bowler, Word Science and other mobile games
Bio: In addition to its own mobile games studio, Redmond’s WildTangent provides distribution and promotional services for game developers. Founded in 1998, the company is responsible for the world’s largest curated preload online games service, with over 20 billion apps installed on Android and Windows devices worldwide. WildTangent uses this immense distribution network to help developers get their games in front of gamers, and assists with promotion and monetization strategies.
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