Game developer CCP opens Gateshead office
ICELANDIC game developer CCP has opened its fourth office Gateshead Quays to follow bases in Rejkjavik, Shanghai and Atlanta.
The creator of massively popular multiplayer game EVE Online has been quietly employing a team in the North East for nearly a year to provide console expertise for its upcoming multiplayer online shooter Dust 514. The company has now decided to establish CCP Newcastle as a permanent base in the region.
The founding engineers were formerly employed by the Newcastle outlet of Midway Studios, which closed in July last year after its owners filed for bankruptcy. They have been liaising with CCP Asia in developing Dust 514’s development for consoles, and have recently teamed up with Cambridge’s Geomerics to develop realistic lighting for the game environment.
CCP’s VP of business development Thor Gunnarsson said: “We believe that we’ll be looking a team of probably upwards of 30 people in the office in the short to medium term, but we’re here for the long term.
“It’s an office with some extraordinary engineering talent, many of whom have been working on projects in the Newcastle area for several years.”
The team has been operating in temporary premises for the last year, but CCP Newcastle expects to move into its Gateshead Quays offices in the next few weeks. The Newcastle base will be focused on console-specific research and development projects, drawing on the expertise of organisations such as Newcastle University.
Former Midway studio technical director Richard Smith met with CCP last summer as part of speedy talks designed to keep the defunct studio’s talent in the region.
He said: “It seemed too talented a bunch of people to let the team go to waste and fragment around the country and abroad. CCP moved quickly to secure these talented people before they were snapped up.” CCP is the headline sponsor of the Gamehorizon conference, which kicked off at The Sage Gateshead yesterday. The company’s director of business development Yohei Ishii was among the speakers at the two-day gathering of international gaming industry leaders.
Since launching in 2003, its flagship title EVE Online now boasts 340,000 paid subscribers within the same sci-fi universe, holding down professions such as mercenary, mining engineer or commodities trader.
Read the full report in the Journal tomorrow.
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