Gaming in the United States is on the rise, worth $21 billion dollars in 2013 alone. But in Texas, it’s growing faster than the national average, contributing $800 million to the Texas economy last year according to the Dallas Morning News.

The Dallas-Ft. Worth area houses gaming companies, including Id Software, the developer of Doom and Rage. Plano is the home to Gearbox Software, the creative minds behind the multimillion dollar series Borderlands. Here on campus, gaming is no less popular.

“It doesn’t surprise me that it’s a big contributor to the economy, that there is a desire for more video games and for companies to be making video games,” animation teacher Ray Cooper said. “I think that so many people relate to the world of video games. When I was a kid, I had Pong and Atari and the graphics weren’t great, but now, you can just immerse yourself in these virtual worlds.”

Students who spend their free time gaming agree that the presence of the gaming industry in DFW is a big thing.

“I think gaming in DFW is fun because it brings people together in different ways than usual,” sophomore Brenden Murphy said. “You get immersed in the great games while making lifelong friends.”

The gaming industry in DFW is relatively new, and it offers many opportunities for businesses.

“Both DFW and Austin have a great mix of tech and art,” the CEO and founder of Bonus XP, a gaming company located in McKinney, Dave Pottinger said.  “Games need both. DFW has benefitted some from the explosion down in Austin. It’s been a lot easier to get folks to come to Dallas in recent years. We used to have a very hard time. I think it’s helped to have some notable companies in Dallas, too. ID has always been a draw. Ensemble Studios was, too, until it shut down. More recently Gearbox and Robot have grown fairly large.”

Contributing also to this large rise in the gaming industry is the economic conditions in Texas, DFW in particular, plus the large companies bringing in more business.

“The DFW area is a fairly affluent area and our economy is doing better than in other parts of the US,” Cooper said. “There is just such a base of great schools that have great multimedia programs in the area, and there are many companies in the area that can feed into that. The corporate base is here, the education is set up to feed into that corporate base, and there’s just so many teenagers and adults that love playing games that buy all the products, so it’s just a great little treadmill thats set up.”