A "clustering of talent" is driving Puget Sound to the top of the U.S. video-game development industry, generating nearly $5 billion in revenues and more than 15,000 jobs, and elevating the average salary of a local game developer to $77,700, compared to $73,000 nationally.

That's according to the preliminary results of an economic-impact study spearheaded by enterpriseSeattle and produced by Community Attributes, a Seattle-based consultant. The study is the first ever to comprehensively measure the economic impacts of the region's growing number of video-game developers. It arrives as industry observers watch "Halo 3," the blockbuster first-person shooter for Redmond-based Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, post sales of more than $300 million in its first week on the market.

Friday, leaders of area game-development companies gathered for a lunch hosted by enterpriseSeattle, the lead economic development agency for Seattle and King County, to discuss the preliminary results of the study.

Chris Medford, founder of Community Attributes, said a "clustering of talent," the definition of which includes a rising class of creative types, some 30,000 computer programmers and engineers, Microsoft Corp. and the Redmond-based video-game college DigiPen Institute of Technology, makes Puget Sound a global leader in the entertainment world of video games.

"There's a deep talent pool," Medford said. He said the region ranks third, behind San Francisco and Los Angeles, in its concentration of multimedia artists and animators. And the University of Washington continues to boost education in interactive media, he said, while Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console "is just now reaching its stride."

Since at least the mid-1990s, a growing number of video-game developers have called Washington home. But their impact hasn't been fully understood until now. The preliminary results of the study show:

 · Revenues generated by regional game-development companies are projected to climb 20 percent to $4.9 billion in 2007

 · Area game companies or divisions have created more than 15,000 jobs since 2004, growing at an annual average rate of 33 percent

 · The average salary of game developers is $77,700 in Washington, compared to $73,000 nationally

 · More than 150 companies or divisions are "wholly involved" in the video-game sector in western Washington, primarily in the Puget Sound region.

John Vechey, co-founder of Seattle's PopCap Games Inc., one of the most dominant players in the emerging and fast-growing casual games market, said the cultural and environmental amenities of the Pacific Northwest are big reasons why the region has attracted talented video-game developers.

"The traffic is better than in L.A.," he said, "and the air is clean."

Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, said the region must also look beyond the U.S. to growing international markets. Further understanding how customers in other countries want to be entertained is important if the game-development industry wants to become "the next mainstream form of entertainment," Kim said.