Scientifically Proven Entertainment wins $412,000 tax credit for video game

Scientifically Proven Entertainment recently received a digital media tax credit from the state to develop the "Ghost Game" video game, a venture that promises to add another 25 people to the Farmington Hills-based firm's payroll.

The one-year-old firm received a $411,650 tax credit from the Michigan Film Office for the $1 million project. The game developer currently employs 50 people in Metro Detroit. It expects to add 25 jobs, 15 of them full-time, over the next year to make the video game ready for Cbox 360 and Playstation 3.

"We'll be ramping up pretty aggressively in the next few months," says Nathanial McClure, CEO of Scientifically Proven Entertainment.

"Ghost Game" builds off the popular “Ghost Hunting” genre and is set at The Garrick Arms, a fictional apartment building in Detroit. In the game, the building, originally opened in 1939 as a hotel for visitors to the North American International Auto Show, has seen a number of tragic events within its walls over the years. Players must investigate paranormal activity in the building and try to solve the disappearance of Margaret Reynolds – a tenant who vanished under mysterious circumstances in 1954.

Scientifically Proven Entertainment has produced other video games, including "Man vs. Wild", "Rock of the Dead" and "Real Heroes: Firefighter." McClure recently moved his family to Metro Detroit from Los Angeles to pursue the state's generous film tax incentives, which were recently downsized.

"I moved here from LA because of the incentives," McClure says. "It was a combination of good school systems, cheap housing prices and low cost of living that brought me and my family."

Source: Nathanial McClure, CEO of Scientifically Proven Entertainment
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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