Krome to open in SA with Ratbag staff?

Stan Beer
Monday, 30 January 2006 03:54

IT Industry - Development

Brisbane-based games developer Krome Studios has reportedly sent its scouts to Adelaide with a view to opening an office there in the wake of the closure of Ratbag by its new US parent Midway in December last year.

Reports out of Adelaide and on games blogs say that Krome, creator of the successful Ty the Tasmanian Tiger games series, wants to employ at least 20 developers in Adelaide, some of whom will from the remainder of the Ratbag employees who weren't snapped up by other developers in the wake of that company's closure.

Apparently many of Ratbag's talented staff where enticed to move interstate by other studios as soon as word spread that the company was closed. However, quite a few either refused or could not leave Adelaide due to family ties and commitments.

Krome, which bills itself as Australias largest games developer, has about 120 staff developing for PS2, X-Box, GameCube and GameBoy Advance. There has been some speculation on games blogs that Krome itself has financial difficulties but to date there is no supporting evidence for this, especially as the company is making plans to expand.

In the games industry, however, there does seem to a propensity for developers to keep hiring new staff right up to the last minute of their demise. In the case of Ratbag, two Romanian developers who had sold up their belongings and were ready to emigrate to Australia to take up jobs at the games company, only found out at the last minute that they no longer had jobs waiting for them.