U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, second from right, stops to view a game being developed by Velan Studios with co-founder Karthik Bala, right, during a visit to Velan Studios on June 1, 2021 in Troy, N.Y. The senator is now pushing for Microsoft to invest in the region after it acquired Activision Blizzard, the parent company of Vicarious Visions, which has 200 employees in Colonie and was started by Bala and his brother, Guha Bala, in Troy in the 1990s. The Balas have since launched Velan Studios. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
Brothers Guha and Karthik Bala founded Vicarious Visions in Troy in the 1990s. That video game company was acquired by Activision in 2005 and now employs 200 people at its Colonie headquarters. The Balas have since launched a new video game publisher, Velan Studios, in Troy, along with Velan Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on investments in the video game industry. The exterior of Velan Studios in Troy, N.Y. is pictured from March 2020. (Lori Van Buren/Times Union)
COLONIE — U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., recently met with Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, to urge the software giant to invest in the Capital Region’s video game industry after the company announced it was acquiring Activision Blizzard, which employs 200 people locally.
The Capital Region is home to 23 video game companies that have 600 employees. Activision’s Vicarious Visions subsidiary, which is located in Colonie, is the largest local video game publisher and the first of many that have been grown from scratch here.
“The gaming industry generates hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue and shows no signs of slowing down, and some of the most cutting-edge games are being developed right in the Capital Region,» Schumer said. «I made it clear to Microsoft that if they are looking to level up their gaming biz that the Capital Region has all the components to become the next global gaming hub.”
Vicarious Visions was started in the mid-1990s by brothers Guha and Karthik Bala. Karthik attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy. The company was acquired by Activision in 2005 and was one of the driving forces behind Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.
Since Vicarious Visions was created, many other video game startups have launched in the Capital Region, many of them in downtown Troy and with ties to RPI as well.
Microsoft makes the popular Xbox video game console and with its Activision Blizzard purchase – for $68.7 billion – will become the third-largest video game company in terms of annual revenue.
Activision Blizzard owns popular game titles such as Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Call of Duty and Candy Crush. It has 10,000 employees and is based in Santa Monica, Calif.
The video game industry is expected to grow to $218.7 billion in annual sales by 2024, up from $178.73 billion in 2021. The industry has flourished during the COVID-19 pandemic as children were forced indoors and parents to work from home.
Other local gaming companies are Warner Brother Games, PUBG, MadGlory, 1st Playable Productions and Agora Games. After they sold Vicarious Visions, the Bala brothers started a new video game publisher, Velan Studios, in Troy, along with Velan Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on investments in the video game industry.
Larry Rulison has been a reporter for the Albany Times Union since 2005. Larry’s reporting for the Times Union has won several awards for business and investigative journalism from the New York State Associated Press Association and the New York News Publishers Association. Contact him at 518-454-5504 or [email protected].
