The following is an archived video story. The text content of that video story is available below for reference. The original video has been deleted and is no longer available.

Video Gaming Jobs Hit And Miss In Austin

The video gaming industry brings in millions of dollars to the Austin economy every year and creates thousands of jobs. Events like South-by-Southwest help keep the industry booming.

Chief Executive Officer of GameSalad Frank Coppersmith said gaming jobs are some of the highest paying jobs in Austin.

Coppersmith said Austin is a desirable place to work in and the city has the ability to attract talented people and companies.  But these companies do not stick around once their product is launched.

“The industry catches a cold and Austin gets the flu,” Coppersmith said.

More than 1,000 people lost their jobs in the gaming industry in Austin last year.

Coppersmith said a big reason for the loss of jobs is because games have gone from box products to online and it is saturating the market. The result is that more pop-ups are being created.

“People can build a game in 24 hours and get 10 million downloads,” Coppersmith said. “No one really knows what exactly it takes to make those games truly successful.”

He said the gaming industry is hit-or-miss. Austin is lacking big video game company headquarters so when a game is successful or fails companies have no incentives to stay.

“We are at the end of the whip,” Coppersmith said. “We are at the tail end, and when the industry sees small changes we see big changes.”

By Cassie Gallo