Thorunn Howatt
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 22/02) - Byron Meyer likes to play games. The 15-year-old Yellowknife youth used to like to hang out at the arcade. Then it closed.

Jeremy Morrison came to the rescue.

"Basically I've offered my company to the kids," said Morrison, the Side Door's part-time employee. His company, Symbios Entertainment Systems, makes metal game boards with magnetic playing pieces.

This weekend he wants teens like Meyer to learn how to create and market the games then use the money to help finance the Side Door.

The NWT Development Corporation's Cheryl Best will be at the Side Door youth drop-in centre to help out with the seminar on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Morrison hopes to attract about 12 potential entrepreneurs. Then the group will have to work on its game plan.

"We will need to do research then we will go over stuff for about three weeks and then hopefully bring more kids into it," he said.

Morrison spent about $3,000 of his own cash on the game-making company in the last year. He received a $4,500 grant from Human Resources Development Canada to buy a vinyl cutter for the business.

Morrison wants to hang on to the intellectual property rights but said business isn't his game.

"I'm creative. I'm not a business man."