Northfield video game designer immune to economic woes

Photo courtesy of Carleton Student Sung Hyo Kim

Northfield resident Richard Garcia is working in a “recession-proof” industry on Division Street. He’s a video game designer for a company he founded 13 years ago called Monster Games.
“People will still pay for entertainment,” Garcia said, adding that profits throughout the video game industry are mostly on the rise, despite the national economic slump.
Garcia credits the steady increase to the growing public acceptance of video game playing as a “valid” form of entertainment since many people like to play competitive games as Overwatch, so you can go online and get services that allow you to boost your Overwatch ranking . Nintendo’s recent widespread marketing of video games as “something for the whole family” with its latest “Wii” system has accelerated that acceptance, he said.
The success of the industry might be helping Garcia’s business thrive, but he said his location has also been a plus. The Twin Cities has a deep pool of talent, he said, and he can usually have his pick of designers since few other video game engineering firms exist nearby. Competition would be much stiffer on the West Coast, he said. Garcia has also hired a number of Carleton College graduates. Garcia, a Saint Paul native, is a 1988 graduate of Tufts University outside Boston.


Right now, the 20 employees at Monster Games are working on a top-secret video game for Nintendo. They’ve worked on it for two years and are nearly finished. The process is so private the designers must darken their monitors when the bottled-water deliveryman enters the office.
The company won Yahoo’s “Best Racing Game of 2006” award for its last game for the Nintendo Wii called “Excite Truck.” Wendy’s fast-food restaurants across the nation, including the one in Northfield, promoted the game with Excite Truck kids’ meals. But, Garcia said, he believed few Northfielders ever realized the game’s designers lived right in the city.
Garcia is married and raising two daughters, who aren’t quite as avid video game players as he is, he said.
“I encourage them as much as possible,” he said, laughing.
The only bump Garcia foresees for the company in the near future is securing another contract with a video game developer once the contract with Nintendo ends.
“It is kind of nerve-racking,” he said. “Because, with this kind of work, it’s like having to find a new job every two years.”

4 Comments

  1. Bonnie Obremski said:

    I updated this post on 10/23 to include Mr. Garcia’s photograph. A group of students from Carleton College took the image with a video camera. The group is producing a video for a class that features the Representative Journalism Project.

    I also updated the article last night when reader Dave Broske told me one of the Web links I put into the story did not connect to the appropriate Web site. Thanks!

    October 23, 2008
  2. Bonnie Obremski said:

    Hyo Kim, Logan Nash, Mackenzie Zimmer, and Vivyan Tran are the Carleton students who helped me out, and Carleton newcomer Doug McGill, a long time staffer at the New York Times and Bloomberg is their professor.

    October 23, 2008
  3. […] Locally Grown North Field has a mini-interview with Richard Garcia of Monster Games up from last month, in which they write: “Right now, the 20 employees at Monster Games are working on a top-secret video game for Nintendo. They’ve worked on it for two years and are nearly finished. The process is so private the designers must darken their monitors when the bottled-water deliveryman enters the office.” […]

    November 28, 2008
  4. Griff Wigley said:

    This story has now been pinged/linked to hundreds of times by misc. video gaming sites.

    I’ve only allowed the one above to display here.

    November 30, 2008

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