Who needs Hollywood? When it comes to luring a hot industry, nations around the world are racing to set up videogaming centers. It makes economic sense: Last year the burgeoning button-mashing biz raked in $30 billion worldwide - movie studios, meanwhile, grossed a mere $19 billion at the box office. We toured some of the hot spots vying for birth rights to the next Mario or Grand Theft Auto.
Marseilles, France
The Players: Action Synth�se, Light and Shadow Productions, and Mind2Machine are among the first studios to take advantage of the region's $3.5 billion bid to transform this port town into a technology center.
Why Here: The state-of-the-art Belle de Mai Media Center is leasing 300,000 square feet of space to gaming, high tech, and broadcast media companies. And with 11 IT training schools, plus one dedicated to gaming and CG filmmaking, there's plenty of homegrown talent.
Hot Export: Action Synth�se is creating France's most expensive CG movie, the $20 million The Magic Roundabout, which hits theaters in 2004. Light and Shadow has Sitting Ducks and Dead to Rights.
Montreal, Quebec
The Players: Ubi Soft's largest facility is in this bilingual city, and Electronic Arts is building a big studio. A2M, Microids, and Strategy First hang out shingles here, too.
Why Here: Tax breaks, a weak Canadian dollar, and a big-city feel at a fraction of the cost. And the local universities are turning out game programmers tr�s rapidement. For Ubi Soft, the fact that graduates speak French is a bonus.
Hot Export: Last year, Ubi unleashed Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, which one-upped Metal Gear Solid 2. In November, the hero from Prince of Persia returns in The Sands of Time, another surefire hit for the studio.
Melbourne, Australia
The Players: Ten game outfits, including Atari, Infinite Interactive, and THQ, have set up shop in and around this coastal city.
Why Here: When not staring at a PC screen, programmers can surf, fish, or frolic on the sandy beaches. What's more, the local government is giving away PlayStation 2 developer kits, and the US dollar goes a very long way down under.
Hot Export: Atari's Melbourne House is working on the much-anticipated Transformers: Armada for PS2, due out in April. French developer Ubi Soft has teamed up with Infinite Interactive on Warlords IV.
Seoul, South Korea
The Players: Thanks to the government-sponsored broadband rollout, most of this city's 10 million people have access to high-speed Net connections. The world's largest online-game company, NCsoft, has joined forces with Samsung to sell Lineage-branded gaming boxes at half price. Now 50 percent of its online subscriptions come from home accounts.
Why Here: South Korea boasts the largest broadband audience in the world, and dozens of Internet game companies have established a presence in Seoul. Koreans are addicted to online gaming.
Hot Export: After five years of Net subscriptions, NCsoft's Lineage has gone 3-D with Lineage II, which should help this online giant break through stateside.
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