Rensselaer Magazine: Summer 2005: In the Game (Page 1)

The entrepreneurial journey of Karthik Bala ’97 has taken him from his parents’ basement in Rochester to meetings with Hollywood stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst to get their voices just right for the video games spun off from their films.

Today, Bala and a staff of a hundred design games with the special effects, production costs, and the buzz of highly anticipated blockbuster movies. Vicarious Visions, housed in offices near the Rensselaer campus, is behind such megahits as “DOOM 3” for Xbox and “Spider-Man 2’’ for the new PlayStation Portable platform. The company has produced 15 million units, with retail sales exceeding $500 million. If you’ve played “Finding Nemo” or “Shrek 2” from Game Boy Advance, that’s due to Vicarious Visions, which also produced the Japanese versions.

by Jane Gottlieb

Photo: Artist Edward Bowman II at Vicarious Visions, which is behind such megahits as “DOOM 3” for Xbox and “Spider-Man 2’’ for the new PlayStation Portable platform. The company has produced 15 million units, with retail sales exceeding $500 million. Photo by Lonny Kalfus.

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