After a tough year for the game industry in Vancouver, Japanese mobile social game developer and network operator Gree has announced plans to open a new development office in the city.
The creation of this studio is also a rare bright spot for what's been a dark period for game makers in Vancouver, as companies there have been laying off employees or shutting down studios left and right.
Gree's Vancouver studio, which will be headed up by OpenFeint and Google veteran Steve Lin, intends to release its first game in the next six to eight months, and is currently hiring engineers, artists, and an executive producer to help the team meet that goal.
The company had previously developed ties with the city after investing an undisclosed sum in Vancouver-based developer IUGO Mobile Entertainment (Animal Academy) to create free-to-play titles.
Sad to see Vancouver console studios disappear or shrink every other day. Good that mobile studios are scooping up lots of the displaced people - new mobile studios springing up out of the ashes and many established ones are growing quickly and hiring
