Ben Ruiz has been developing video games for eight years. Over the years, he has worked everywhere from professional studios to inside cramped coffee shops and out of his home. Now, Ruiz has a new place where he can spread out his work and be around other designers and developers.
“This space is specifically catered for game developers and their ilk. Not that I mind speaking to people from other industries, but it’s cool knowing that anyone who walks through the door is going to care about games,” Ruiz said.
Game CoLab opened its doors at Sixth Street and Grant at the beginning of May, offering a new collaborative work space in central Phoenix that gives local independent game and software developers a place to work and interact with others working on projects of their own.
The space gives the independent game development community a centralized place to meet others and work on their current projects while also encouraging others to take an interest.
The company was co-founded by Joseph Darnell and Ben Reichert. Darnell said he met Reichert in an entrepreneur class where they both wanted to start a new co-working space but needed a niche to set them apart from other companies offering similar services.
“When I met Ben, I already had some wheels in motion and he had been playing around with the notion of this game space for awhile, so when we met it kind of put the fuel on the spark that was there,” Darnell said.
The current space has a capacity for 45 developers to work at once, though Darnell said there is room to expand in its current location if there is enough demand from members.
Membership costs run from a $15, one-day trial to a $350 monthly fee that grants developers the ability to use the space whenever they want and their own dedicated desk.
Ruiz and his development partner Matthew Wegner were some of the first members of the Game CoLab.
For Wegner, the benefit of being a member is mostly mental, providing him with a place he can come to with the sole purpose of getting work done.
“It’s a place that’s not a coffee shop where I can talk to my friends that walk in the door or at home where I’m now on YouTube,” Wegner said.
If all goes according to Darnell’s plan, the space will not only be used by serious game developers, but by the entire community. Weekly game nights and bimonthly lectures are just some of the activities the company is offering to bring people together. Additionally, the Phoenix chapter of the International Game Developers Association has adopted Game CoLab as their new meeting space.
“We really want to see the Game CoLab take on much more of a life of its own rather than just a space for co-working. We want it to be a bigger entity,” Darnell said.
Eventually, he sees the space as a place for educating the public about games and their place in the modern world.
“There’s a 21st century skill set involved in making games,” Darnell said. “There’s a lot of technical skills and there’s also a lot of analytical and other things involved in making a game. It’s science. It’s technology.”
ASU’s Center for Games & Impact member Sinem Syahhan believes Game CoLab could be powerful in changing how people talk about games.
“It offers a space for people to get together to talk about games, design games and start the larger discussion about games and how they change the world,” Syahhan said.
Contact the reporter at jrhamel@asu.edu
