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Nevada Film Office courts video game developers as e-sports heats up

The Nevada Film Office wants the Silver State to be the set of more video games.

Competitive video gaming, or e-sports, is an emerging industry from which many in Nevada hope to benefit.

The emerging global e-sports industry generated $352 million in revenue in 2015 and is slated to generate $1.1 billion in 2019, according to a 2016 report by Newzoo, a provider of market intelligence covering the global games, e-sports and mobile markets.

Eric Preiss, director of the Nevada Film Office, said he sees many opportunities for Las Vegas and Nevada when it comes to e-sports wagering, hosting e-sports competitions, broadcasting e-sports competitions and “for Nevada to be an essential part of the games themselves.”

Courting game developers

Game developers have previously incorporated Nevada into video games such as “High Stakes on the Vegas Strip: Poker Edition” and “Deja Vu II: Lost in Las Vegas.”

But Preiss said those games mostly came on their own accord without any type of initiative by the Nevada Film Office.

“In those games in the past, they’ve reached out to Nevada, or they’ve used Nevada because of the unique locations that we have here,” Preiss said. “What we’re trying to do moving forward is market specifically to them to try to get them here.”

Preiss said his office has reached out to a few game publishers within the past year, including California-based Electronic Arts Inc. and New York City-based Rockstar Games Inc.

“We’re in the very beginning

stages in this process,” Preiss said, adding that it’s going to take some time to build new relationships.

A new approach

The Nevada Film Office has historically relied on cultivated relationships within the film industry, often made at industry trade shows, as well as the Las Vegas brand to recruit companies to film in Las Vegas.

Now the office is working to break into a new industry, build those relationships and figure out what works in terms of marketing Nevada to video game developers.

“There’s a lot of overlap,” Preiss said. For example, film productions often hire a location manager to help find places to film. He said that could be useful for a game developer as well.

The Film Office has also offered tax credits to at least 10 qualifying productions since 2014, according to government reports. Tax credits are also a “tool in the toolbox” for video games, Preiss said — but those tools might need some work in order to be effective.

For example, in order for productions to qualify for film tax incentives, a production has 18 months from the time of their application to finish their production.

“A big video game might not be able to finish in 18 months. It might be a two-year development cycle,” Preiss said.

The office has not had a video game production apply for tax incentives, but Preiss said he is “hopeful.”

Contact Nicole Raz at nraz@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512. Follow @JournalistNikki on Twitter.

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