October 17th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »
Though rumours started coming in yesterday, today I-Play confirmed big changes in the company in order to cut costs toward Gamesindustry.biz.
In this strategy, I-Play moves a big part of the development to Bucharest in Romania where I-Play owner Oberon announced two new studio acquisitions yesterday (Kenjitsu Russia and Friends Games Ukraine). Not to long ago, Gameloft had sacked a big part of their Romanian developers (200 according to our sources) which could suggest I-Play’s move as a lot of coders in the area need a new job. With the Purchase of the Kenjitsu Studio, which was owned by Nikitova, Nikitova’s CEO Olya Nikitova becomes VP of online for Eastern Europe at Oberon Media.
The studios in the UK that should get affected by the move are expected to be mainly the Dunfermline and Macclesfield studios and rumours say that I-Play will remain with only one development team in the UK.
David Gosen explained to GamesIndustry that Oberon allows I-Play to work more effectively with the costs that come with mobile game development. The costs are a real challenge to the industry he explains. Read the full interview here.
