Play NYC Caps Off New York Gaming Industry’s Summer of Growth With Help From Anime Community and the Mayor’s Office
variety.comJennifer Maas TV Business Writer New York City is not the first location that comes to mind when listing off gaming development capitals of the world — but the Big Apple is working overtime this summer to try and change that through sponsorships, partnerships and friendly competitions.
The latest in a string of events branded under NYC Summer of Games, a citywide initiative running from June-September led by the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME), is the ninth edition of Play NYC, the city’s top gaming convention.
The con kicks off Friday at the Javits Center with three days of gaming developer-centric activities and demos planned across 80,000 square feet of the Manhattan event space. “We focus on providing a showcase space for indie developers and small studios and students and other community groups, and it’s just a way for us to let developers come and showcase their games at an event that gets a lot of media attention,” Krysti Pryde, executive director of Play NYC organized Playcrafting, told Variety. “They get a lot of hands on their game.
It’s really important for them to get this play testing for the overall roadmap of their games. And we focus on developers from underrepresented backgrounds.
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