Putting Seattle In The Game -- High-Tech Fun Center Slated

You strap yourself into your seat and prepare to blast off in a contest worthy of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or a romp through Jurassic Park.

With guns blazing, you and the three groups of four competitors each race to the top of a 24-foot-high triangle, climbing higher each time you electronically hit a "bad guy" who materializes in front of you, dropping lower each time you're hit or you hit, say, the hostage instead of the kidnapper.

Vertical Reality is not an arcade game. And it definitely is not for couch potatoes; you're in the midst of the action. It is one of a series of high-tech interactive games being created by Steven Spielberg, the movie director, and a design team from GameWorks in Universal City, Calif.

In March, downtown Seattle will become the site of a 30,000-square-foot GameWorks entertainment center, which promoters say will combine the adrenaline rush of a spectator sport with the sociability of a town square and the global connectedness of the 21st century.

GameWorks Seattle, as the three-story facility is being called, will be the first of more than 100 GameWorks complexes planned for around the world over the next five years, according to company spokesmen.

The local GameWorks is part of the Meridian development project on Pike Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues, the block that contains Planet Hollywood, NikeTown and the new 16-screen Cineplex Odeon theater.

Its concept is so new that a public-relations representative for GameWorks was hard-pressed to describe all the games it will offer. But downtown Seattle leaders were not at a loss for words to describe its impact on the city's retail core.

"It is going to be a model of the new type of family entertainment that we will have in downtown," said Kate Joncas, president of the Downtown Seattle Association. "It will be a place for the whole family - daytime, evenings and the weekends. You can come downtown, do some shopping, go out to eat, catch a movie, go into GameWorks. It's going to be a lot of fun," she said.

Plans for the new GameWorks complex were outlined today at a news conference, attended by company executives and downtown-business leaders.

GameWorks is a venture of DreamWorks SKG, the production company formed by Hollywood powers Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen; Sega Enterprises, the game manufacturer; and, MCA/Universal Studios, a unit of Seagram, the beverage, movie and entertainment conglomerate.

Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen have shown interest because of an indirect tie, according to a GameWorks spokesmen. Allen is an investor in DreamWorks, and Microsoft and DreamWorks formed a $30 million subsidiary last year, DreamWorks Interactive, to develop multimedia software.

GameWorks spokesmen said the Seattle entertainment center will feature several zones aimed at appealing to all types of participants.

There will be The Loading Dock, where the newest in arcade games will be available. It will have the look and feel of an "underground nightclub," said GameWorks representatives.

The Arena will be an area three-stories high, with some sections rising as high as 45 feet. It is where the Vertical Reality challenge game will be installed, as well as other Spielberg-GameWorks-designed games, whose details have not yet been released. Twelve 6-foot video screens will show contestants as they compete.

Eventually, all the GameWorks centers will be wired so winners in one city can challenge winners in other cities, said GameWorks spokesmen.

The third zone will be the Loft, where people can relax, play chess, sip coffee and surf the Internet on computer consoles. GameWorks will have a restaurant and pub with beer brewed on site by a local microbrewer, who has not yet been selected, according to a spokesman.

Mark Dyce, co-owner of the DyceFriend public-relations firm in Seattle, which is promoting GameWorks locally, said GameWorks President Michael Montgomery and Chairman Skip Paul recently met with Seattle Mayor Norm Rice. The mayor expressed concern that the games not glorify violence, Dyce said, adding that people will find the games are more fun and thrills than violence.

Montgomery said the games will employ "a lot of humor and farce," the way the Indiana Jones movies approached their action scenes.

Montgomery, former vice president and treasurer of Walt Disney Co. and former chief financial strategist for DreamWorks, is a native of Bellevue and a graduate of Bellevue High School. His local roots, plus the area's reputation for innovations in technology, music and entertainment, made Seattle a logical choice to establish the first GameWorks, according to company representatives.

Other GameWorks complexes planned for next year are a 50,000-square-foot facility in Las Vegas, scheduled to open in May, and a 30,000-square-foot center in Ontario, Calif., scheduled to open next summer.