A video game maker with backing from the Central Intelligence Agency plans to open a design studio in Raleigh this month and hire 100 software engineers, graphic designers and others.

Destineer, a Minneapolis company, picked the Triangle over San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle, calling it an emerging hub for the computer game industry. A number of video game design companies have operations here, collectively employing several hundred people, and two local colleges offer courses in video game design.

"Raleigh has a strong existing base of talent," said Destineer's president, Peter Tamte.

The area's two best-known computer game design shops are Red Storm Entertainment in Morrisville and Epic Games in Cary. Red Storm is known for its military themes, created by Tom Clancy, best-selling author of "Red Storm Rising."

Destineer has about 40 games on the market, publishing under Destineer, MacSoft, Bold Games and Atomic Games.

Its best-sellers are "First to Fight," a combat game featuring the U.S. Marines, and "John Deere: American Farmer," an agricultural tycoon game in which players invest in farmland and grow virtual crops. Destineer also makes training simulation programs for the U.S. military and intelligence communities.

"Once you have three decently sized companies in town, you can properly say it's a hub," said Cliff Bleszinski, the lead designer at Epic Games.

Tamte founded Destineer five years ago in Minneapolis, at first converting existing Windows-based games to work on Apple Macintosh computers. The privately held company also created proprietary game technologies used to win contracts with the federal government.

Last year, Destineer received an undisclosed amount of funding from In-Q-Tel, a private venture capital company funded by the CIA to invest in products with potential security applications.

This spring, it raised $12 million from The Exxel Group, a venture capital fund in Argentina.

Destineer is moving quickly to open a new office and expand, and decided to forego seeking financial incentives because they would have required too much time to negotiate as production deadlines loom, Tamte said. Destineer plans to lease a 16,000-square-foot office at Westchase Office Park near the RBC Center and begin operations Aug. 28.

The first projects out of the Raleigh studio are expected to be commercial video games with espionage themes and training products for U.S. spy agencies. As part of Destineer's contracts, the company gets information about combat and operational tactics from the Marine Corps and intelligence organizations. Several Destineer employees have security clearances.

Destineer plans to hire 70 people within 18 months and 30 more over several years.

The company expects to hire recent college graduates, experienced designers from around the country and designers already employed in the region, Tamte said.

The Raleigh office will include creative director Juan Benito, one of the founders of Red Storm.

Destineer executives also are trying to sell game designers on Raleigh, which is an unknown quantity to designers in far-flung parts of the country.

"The challenge is to get people to give it a shot," Tamte said. "I talk to a lot of people who live in Los Angeles, New York and Seattle, and [they] are tired of the long commute and the two-bedroom apartment for two grand a month."

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