Dominic Cerquetti onstage with his band, Rare Candy, at Tigercon 2009 on Sept. 26 at Towson University. When not rocking out to video game tunes, Cerquetti works as a programmer for Firaxis, a Hunt Valley-based game developer. (Photo by the Baltinerd)
Dominic Cerquetti thought he was just goofing around with high school friends on the computer, making computer-generated objects in 3D Studio Max. But when an artist from local video game developer Firaxis came to a career day at his high school, he realized his hobby could lead to a job.
“He was like ‘Hey, want me to show you some 3D stuff?’ And he popped out some models from ‘Sim Golf’ and showed us these incredible houses and people they had modeled and golf courses and all this crazy stuff,” Cerquetti said.
Cerquetti realized he could never stack up as an artist, so he decided instead to go into programming. Cerquetti graduated from Loyola University Maryland in 2006 with a degree in computer science. He then got a job as a programmer for Firaxis, the Hunt Valley team known as much for its flagship series, “Civilization,” as its lead creative mind, Sid Meier.
Cerquetti credits Firaxis and its spiritual predecessor, Microprose, with being a driving force in the local video game industry. Former Firaxis and Microprose employees have done on to work at or start other companies, including Big Huge Games (“Rise of Nations,” “Catan”), Zynga (Facebook’s “FarmVille”), ZeniMax Online Studios and BreakAway Games.
Mario Armstrong, a Baltimore-based tech expert and contributor for NPR and CNN, sees the growing video game market as part of the technology industry’s larger regional health. He attributes the tech sector’s growth to a number of factors, including location, colleges and the community itself, calling it a “sweet spot.”
Gus Sentementes writes about technology for The Baltimore Sun and blogs for BaltTech on the newspaper’s Web site.
“I think Baltimore has been attractive for tech startups for a couple reasons. There are lots of smart people being churned out by the local universities, i.e. [Johns Hopkins], Towson, University of Maryland, etc.,” he said in an e-mail. “It’s also still a comparatively inexpensive place to launch a tech business, when compared against other East Coast cities.”
Cerquetti echoed those sentiments, calling Baltimore “an open community.”
“There’s a lot going on. There’s a lot of fusion of artistic, creative tech and a lot of other stuff in the area like software companies, defense contractors and stuff like that,” he said.
Armstrong sits on a Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development committee looking for ways to better market the region as a tech hotbed. He said game developers are on the forefront of marketing the region.
“You got all these companies, and so now these companies are going to national events in California and developers and designers are saying ‘We heard about Hunt Valley. We want to know if we can come to Hunt Valley.’ So the discussion is starting to take place,” he said.
According to Armstrong, one of the things that helps make Baltimore strong as a tech market is its cultural strength and the creative power of the new generation.
“The tech community has really branched beyond just techies to be more business-savvy people, more creative people,” he said. “We have people now that are creative types that love culture, that love art, that love music, mixing in with people that love programming, love database design and develop mobile applications. And so, when you have that mixture of culture and creative class with entrepreneurship and intelligence and embracing community and technology, it just makes for an awesome vibe.”
Cerquetti lives that blend. Besides his programming job, he plays keyboards for a Baltimore video game cover band, Rare Candy. He’s also vice chair of MAGFest, a video game and music convention in Alexandria, Va.
“It’s about gaming, but it’s also about people. There are people that are really, really awesome, in all the scenes, in all the stuff I’m involved with, with MAGFest, Rare Candy and Firaxis. It’s all great people you want to hang out with,” he said. “All the activities I’m involved in extend from that.”
Cerquetti encourages people to “jump in” to the Baltimore tech scene and its culture.
“If you’ve got something cool or you’ve got some skills… there are people that are just dying for tech help right now, making their ideas and stuff come to life,” he said.
Here’s where you can find a few of these key companies:
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Check out Rare Candy playing at Towson University (courtesy of BaltimoreGamer):
Want to hear more from Mario Armstrong? We’ve got you covered. A full audio interview with Dominic Cerquetti will be down the pipe before the week is out.
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