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RIT To Share In More than $1 Million From NYS To Develop Digital Gaming

RIT  will share in more than a million dollars being granted by the state's economic development agency. It’s money that will be used to expand efforts to build upon programs in digital gaming.

Empire State Development has announced three new "Digital Gaming Hubs" in New York, at RIT, NYU  and RPI.

State officials say the idea to encourage students and businesses to create new, innovative technologies, and help students and entrepreneurs get into a $70 billion a year global industry.  RIT and the other schools will each get $150,000 a year for three years.

Andrew Phelps is Director of RIT's Magic Center, which stands for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction and Creativity.  He says digital gaming fits in well with the academic programs available at RIT.

“It sort of fits the DNA of RIT, it’s technical and it’s computing, so it has that flavor to it, but it’s also very artistic, very creative”

Phelps says he sees no reason why New York State cannot become even more competitive in terms of digital game development.

“I think we have an opportunity to really kind of grow something here, in New York. If you look at where schools are that help students platform into these careers there are a bunch of them in New York, I think second only to California in terms of number of schools so we should reap the benefits of that.”

Phelps says a number of the graduates from his program have already gone on to work for major players in the digital game industry. 

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.