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Games studio resurrected

A NORTH East video games developer which was snapped up by the former games giant Midway is back in business having recovered from the collapse of the American firm.

Robert Troughton, co-founder of UK developer Pitbull Syndicate, has opened a new studio in Newcastle and already secured a development project for the newly formed Pitbull Studio Limited.

Pitbull Studio opens a year after Midway liquidated the original Pitbull Syndicate team, which had been renamed Midway Newcastle following a takeover by the American games giant in 2007 for more than US$3m.

Mr. Troughton said: “The North East has a lot of games development talent. It was a very sad day when the old studio closed and it’s really been my dream to revive it.

“The industry has changed a lot since the day that we sold the original Pitbull. It was a real shame that Midway’s management never seemed to move fast enough with the trends. We won’t be making the mistakes of the past with the new studio.”

As Pitbull Syndicate, the studio created numerous Test Drive titles, as well as Demolition Racer, LA Rush and Wheelman for Midway.

Pitbull Syndicate Limited created several games for consoles and PC, many of which went on to sell over a million copies each. The company worked on Test Drive 4, 5 and 6, Demolition Racer and LA Rush. The Test Drive series alone sold over 5.5 million copies for Pitbull.

Meanwhile, the Minister for Communications Ed Vaizey yesterday reaffirmed the Government’s strong support for the UK video games industry, despite its decision to scrap Labour’s planned tax breaks for developers.

Mr Vaizey along with skills minister John Hayes welcomed an independent review of education and training in the UK games sector to be spearheaded by Ian Livingstone OBE, Life President of Eidos, and carried out by NESTA and Skillset.

Speaking at the Develop video games conference, Mr Vaizey set out a further series of Government measures aimed at supporting growth in the industry.

These included the formal launch of a £2m fund to help small businesses create video games prototypes. The fund will be managed by the University of Abertay in Dundee which will welcome applications from eligible businesses across the UK.

This new help is the first offering from the new video games centre of excellence being created at Abertay.

The UK Government is investing £2.5m in this project but with regional and other funding investment totals around £8.5m

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