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Jobs boost at games giant

A FORMER boss at the Midway video games studio on Tyneside - which was axed last year - has spoken of a whirlwind month which has brought foreign investment and jobs to the region from the unlikely source of Iceland.

As reported on bdaily earlier this week, Icelandic games firm CCP has opened a new office in Gateshead to complement its other global centres in Shanghai, Rejkjavik, Shanghai and Atlanta.

The company has already added 12 former Midway developers to its team and has told bdaily that it is aiming to more than double its workforce to 30 in the next three years.

Richard Smith, who served as the studio technical director at Midway and now has the same roll at CCP, said: “There was a lot of luck involved in making this happen. For a while at Midway we knew what was going to happen so I had been looking for other opportunities.

“An ex colleague had been working with CCP and mentioned what was happening to the staff and suggested they talk to us. Its been a whirlwind romance and within a month of our first meeting with CCP, the employment contracts were being drawn up.

He also said the key draw for CCP to the North East was its rich talent pool created by the region’s universities.

Meanwhile, since the studio will be collaborating with the firm’s Shanghai branch, staff have been taking Mandarin lessons to prepare for overseas visits.

CCP has largely been involved with PC games and will harness its team of ex-Midway staff to focus on the console market.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .