Hiring run as startup studio Playground blooms

Playground Games, the new Warwickshire based development studio, has begun a significant operation to hire over fifty developers in the next twelve months.

In the year prior to the announcement, Playground had steadily grown to 21 developers, though the studio has told Develop it wants its total workforce to outgrow seventy members before 2012.

Vacancies exist for key development roles, including designers, artists and engineers. The studio has yet to announce the projects it is working on.

Based in Leamington Spa, Playground Games had been co-founded by British games industry maestros Trevor Williams and Development Director Nick Wheelwright.

“It’s a little early to talk about what we are working on, but we set Playground up to make AAA games and I can say that our project absolutely matches those goals,” said Williams.

“We will be increasing our team size significantly over the next 6 months, so are keen to hear from anyone looking for a new challenge. We’ve spent the last 12 months getting our studio ready, laying the groundwork on our project and ensuring we are prepared for this growth. We are now ready to add new team members.”

Williams founded Swordfish Studios, which he eventually sold to Vivendi Games – the studio was eventually divested in the Activision Blizzard acquisition and sold to Codemasters. Williams remained at Codemasters for a year until 2009.

Wheelwright was previously CEO of Codemasters, although his tenure did not overlap with Williams’ – the formation of Playground is the first time the two have worked directly together. Wheelwright was recently appointed to Monumental Games and now holds a non- executive director position at Playground Games.