Worcester seeks to boost video-game startups

Worcester is looking to assist young entrepreneurs in the city to create new video-game companies.

The initiative is modeled in part on Gateway Park, a partnership forged a generation ago involving the Worcester Business Development Corporation and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute to nurture startups in biotechnology and related fields. Gateway Park has 500,000 square feet of laboratory space available to entrepreneurs and a long track record of helping startups get off the ground.

In the effort to promote the creation of video-related businesses, a key partner may be Worcester-based Becker College, which, according to a recent survey by the Princeton Review, has the nation’s fourth-best video game design program. Worcester Polytechnic Institute ranked seventh in the survey.

In late October, the City Council asked City Manager Michael O’Brien to work with Verizon to develop “4G hotspots” – “4G” refers to the fourth, and newest, generation of cellular wireless standards – in areas where an incubator could be established.

“We have buildings that for very low costs can be transferred to a Becker or a WPI,” said Frederick Rushton, the city councillor who proposed the idea. “The aim is to give post-grads a cool environment, with professional mentorship.”

Rushton said he recently toured the Enterprise Center at Salem State College, where a former General Electric factory is now home to more than 30 fledgling businesses.

Young entrepreneurs, Rushton said, “have ideas, but they may not know how to do payroll, or apply for a loan. The incubator can build a network that they can grow up in.”