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Rensselaer spends $300K to start new industry “accelerator”
Rensselaer County aims to build video game sector./
Rensselaer County is launching a new video gaming industry accelerator in Troy that would support on-the-rise video game companies.
The Rensselaer County Industrial Development Agency is spending $300,000 and has hired a well-known local technology consultant to help get the organization up and running.
It’s expected that companies like Velan Studios, the Troybased video game software development firm, could be among the initial corporate investors in the accelerator.
Velan Studios recently came out with Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, a new hybrid alternative reality video game played on the Nintendo Switch that includes a real-life radio-controlled go kart that players control in their home while playing the game.
The Rensselaer County IDA approved the $300,000 in seed funding for the accelerator back in October, and the IDA is now in talks with a number of potential benefactors that could potentially spend millions of dollars on the program that is designed to launch new and innovative gaming studios.
“We’re hoping to leverage this not only with New York state money but private sector investment like Velan Studios,” Bob Pasinella, the executive director of the IDA, explained before the Oct. 8 vote to approve the funding. “They’ve
agreed to, somewhere down the line, when we get this off the ground, they will be funding a significant portion of this accelerator.”
Velan Studios, started by brothers Guha and Karthik Bala, the founders of the enormously successful local video game publisher Vicarious Visions, has already gotten rave reviews for Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit. The game is a nominee for
“best family game” at The Game Awards being held Thursday.
The Rensselaer County IDA has also hired Thomas Triscardi Jr., a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a technology consultant, to help get the initiative off the ground.
“Tom would not be taking a profit on this project,” Pasinella said during the Oct. 8 meeting.
Staff members from the Center for Economic Growth in Albany, which had been working on the accelerator idea with the IDA, will also be hired for their institutional knowledge of the project.
Troy would be the logical headquarters for the accelerator since the city is home to a number of video game publishers, including Velan, which also has its own investment arm.
In a phone interview on Tuesday, Pasinella said that the next big hurdle would be to hire an executive director for the accelerator.