Indie Game Developers Connect in DUMBO

BROOKLYN, NY

In a modest office under the Manhattan Bridge in New York’s Dumbo, game developers met to share drinks and ideas at the monthly happy hour.  Around 30 young people mingled in in the headquarters of GUMBO, a group created in 2016 to support developers working on new projects. Music from speakers filled the room and developers showed off their latest builds at their desks. “GUMBO is here to create opportunities in New York for indie developers,” said Yiyi Zhang, a GUMBO director and pr/community manager at Heart Machine, a game development company.

Video game development is a growing industry in New York, and it employs over 13,000 directly and indirectly. The industry generated around two billion dollars in 2020 in New York City. Those working in the independent game development industry bring creativity and new ideas to video games; over half the state’s game companies are in New York City.

GUMBO began when a group of independent, indie, developers met at a co-working space. As the group expanded, they eventually relocated to a place of their own. “We felt it important to make a space of just devs,” said Vinit Shah, a GUMBO Director and developer at Cheap Ramen Games. The indie developers at GUMBO are mostly small or solo teams. Most are too small to qualify for financial incentives and opportunities from New York City and the state.

The city and state have been creating opportunities to stimulate game development. New York State provides 25 million dollars in tax credits to video game projects made in the state as part of their New York State Digital Game Development Program. However, it has a 100,000-dollar minimum production cost and that makes it out of reach for the small teams at GUMBO.

New York City has a  Made in NY marketing credit, through the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME), again requiring a 100,000 dollar minimum. MOME also allows the usage of the Made in NY logo if the development team has production costs of at least 10,000 dollars in New York City.

But the people at this happy hour have big dreams and are putting in the work. They hope to qualify for the money and achieve success. As Vinit Shah said, New York City has the “people, interest, [and] talent.”