Category Archives: Scotland

Realtime Worlds said today it’s hit 250 staff, and has more than 40 positions currently available.

The Scottish developer is finally moving to launch MMO APB in conjunction with EA Partners and now taken on an additional 8,000 sqft of offices to provide high quality working space to compliment the current 26,000 sqft premises.

All the firm’s jobs are listed here. Press release after the break.

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Realtime Worlds’ Dave Jones has told GI he’s not exactly thrilled Crackdown 2 went to Ruffian Games.

“I think it was unfortunate that it had to be with a start-up in Dundee… it is challenging to get enough developers in one region as it is, so that was the only little big of negativity to the story,” he said.

“It’s just one of those awkward moments. In terms of the franchise, as always – as with anything we’ve created – we’re always keen to see it do great things. This is like a bump in the road… was there really no way it could have been done by one of the studios Microsoft shut down?

“I was a bit miffed at Microsoft that it happened that way, but you live and learn,” he added.

Ruffian’s staff roster includes many that worked on the original Crackdown.

Crackdown 2 was announced in Microsoft’s E3 press conference at the beginning of the month.

Realtime Worlds’ Dave Jones has called on the UK government to invest more heavily in the games industry in an effort to help it maintain its position in the global trade.

“Let’s make sure we invest in careers to” keep Britain at the “cutting edge” of the global industry, he told BBC News today.

The interview took place at Realtime’s Scottish offices. And yep, APB was on the screens.

Jones, the original creator of Grand Theft Auto, noted that “some of the biggest ever games in the world have come out of the UK.”

The BBC’s TV report described games as a “huge growth area”.

Britain’s creative industry’s in general will contribute £85 billion to the economy by 2013, said the piece, and employ some 1.3 million people.

Ruffian’s just updated its homepage to include a list of jobs, presumably to work on Crackdown 2.

Are you an environment artist, senior gameplay engineer, senior environment artist, outsource manager or animator? Do you care that Ruffian’s based in Dundee?

Get on it, then.

This is Ruffian Games’ fridge. It’s full of Stella and Red Bull. Almost looks as though it’s stocked for a celebration.

Can you guess why?

We’re now officially stupidly excited. The MS conference starts at 10.25am PST, or 6.25pm UK time.

Over at Edge’s job section you can see that Rockstar North – you know, that tiny Scottish-based dev firm that does those open world thingies called ‘Grand Theft Auto’ – is looking to fill eight positions.

The jobs range from level designer, AI programmer to senior tools programmer giving us that sneaky suspicion that perhaps a new title is on the way. Either that, or eight people just left and they need replacing.

So, fancy a job working for one of the best development houses in Europe? All through the link.

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival just confirmed its main keynote as Peter Moore.

Said the EA Sports boss: “I am honoured to be invited to deliver the opening keynote at the Edinburgh Games Festival. This event is a milestone on the interactive entertainment industry’s calendar, and I look forward to contributing to this year’s discussions.”

EIF chairman Chris Deering’s quite pleased about it, too: “We are delighted Peter has agreed to give this year’s Keynote. He is one of the industry’s global leaders and his presence at Edinburgh is an indicator of the importance and influence of the Festival.”

The show runs the week of August 10. Press release after the break.

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When you’re wrong you’re wrong. We were wrong. Former SCEE president David Reeves isn’t going to Realtime Worlds.

“I’d never ever heard of Realtime Worlds until someone asked me about them a couple of days ago,” he told Develop.

“I can honestly say no, that rumour is not true.”

We’d been told that Reeves was on his way to RTW as CEO. The company confirmed today that former Capcom Euro boss Gary Dale has taken the position.

That’s right, Mr Source. We’re looking at you.

Realtime Worlds has confirmed that Gary Dale has joined the developer as CEO.

Ex-SCEE boss David Reeves was heavily tipped for the job when he stood down from his Sony role earlier this month.

Dale was previously Euro MD for Capcom.

“Having worked with Gary earlier in his career at BMG Interactive, I am deeply impressed with his management style and profound understanding of the entertainment business,” said David Jones, co-founder and creative director, Realtime Worlds.

“As RTW transitions from being a traditional developer to an online publisher I could not be happier that Gary will lead us through this exciting phase of our growth. His years of experience at companies such as Capcom and Take-Two will prove invaluable in ensuring we meet our goals of becoming a world leading next-generation online publisher. My focus going forward will be on ensuring we continue to deliver quality innovative experiences as with our debut title, Crackdown.”

There’s a press release here.

Thanks, deftangel.

Don’t call Scottish people English. They turn blue and start shouting about “freedom”. Sega learned this to its cost at the weekend, when the Sunday Mail realised Scot tennis player Andy Murray had been labelled English in Virtua Tennis 2009 and asked some north-o’-the-border patriots what they thought.

They pretty much didn’t like it.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw this on YouTube,” said Murray fan Steve Johnstone.

“The BBC are always at pains to call Andy British, which is fair enough,” said Tartan Army spokesman Tam Coyle, “but this is a new low.

“You have to ask yourself what would be worse – Andy being deemed English or Tim Henman being made a Scot.”

Nothing could be worse than that, Tam.

Sega’s fixing the error. Thanks, Darkzero.

VG247 has been told that David Reeves – confirmed as leaving SCEE as president this morning – is to take up a senior position at Scottish developer Realtime Worlds.

Reeves will leave SCEE on April 30, to be replaced by current CMO Andrew House.

No one at Realtime Worlds could be reached for comment. Sony staffers have been told the exec is retiring.

It’s worth noting that Ian Hetherington, RTW’s chairman, was a Psygnosis co-founder.

The Dundee outfit is currently working on MMO APB.

Chalk it up as rumour. But don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Want to work? Want to get paid for doing the work? Want to live in Dundee? You should probably look at the press release after the break.

Realtime Worlds is ensuring job applicants they’ll be paid overtime if they take the Scottish plunge.

“The games industry has long depended on getting excessive amounts of free overtime out of its developers, which in the long run just serves to drive them to another field. We want to ensure that Realtime Worlds is always very attractive – both creatively and financially – to our staff, and offering paid overtime is only fair when products of the standards we demand require more effort than is sometimes possible 9-5,” said HR boss John Duthie.

The firm currently has more than 40 jobs listed on its site. Apply. You’ll be given some money if you win.

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Update: Sorry, we boo-booed here. This is a Realtime Worlds ad, and the game’s APB. It’s an old post that’s just been refreshed. We apologise for being so shit. Thanks, TheDifficult3rdAlbum.

A GI job ad posted by a Dundee developer has revealed the company is working on a 360 MMO.

“Our client is one of the World’s leading XBOX360 developers now working on an MMO which is likely to be a benchmark for online action games for next-Gen consoles,” says the ad, which could probably do with a bit of an edit.

Which company? Well, it’s either Realtime Worlds or Ruffian, unless there’s a secret console developer in Dundee. Which there isn’t.

An online Crackdown game? That’d be a shock.

Microsoft should get on and announce this. There’ll be nothing left before too long.

A UK publishing source has reliably informed VG247 that the unannounced Crackdown game in development at Ruffian is a multiplayer-only effort.

“Crackdown 1.5? That’s generous,” our man added. “It’s more like 1.25.”

When pushed on whether or not the project was definitely underway at Ruffian, the chatterer was unequivocal: “Oh yes, it is true.”

We’ve verified the lack of single-player with two other dev sources, who described the information as “good”.

The game is supposedly being scheduled for “late 2009″.

Ruffian, the newly-formed Scottish developer, announced this week that it’s taken on another two Crackdown veterans, and was mainly formed initially from Realtime Worlds staffers.

Microsoft was unavailable for comment at the time of writing.

Newly-formed Ruffian Games – working on the as yet unannounced “Crackdown 1.5″ – has added Steve Iannetta and Ed Campbell as lead designer and senior designer respectively.

Iannetta previously worked at VIS, Red Lemon Studios, Realtime Worlds and Midway Newcastle. Campbell’s CV includes titles such as NARC, State of Emergency 2 and Crackdown.

“Given the abundance of talent, the chance to work with old friends on a ground breaking project and to be back in my beloved home town of Dundee, being a part of the Ruffian team is easily the most exciting opportunity I have ever been presented with,” said Iannetta.

Campbell added: “I’m delighted to be joining the excellent team at Ruffian. There’s a lot of talented, experienced guys here and that, coupled with a real knowledge and love of games, is what makes this an exciting team to be a part of.”

More on GI.

Ruffian’s Billy Thomson has reiterated to Edge that the newly-formed Dundee developer’s focus is online gaming, despite the fact single-play will play an important part in its projects.

“It’s not like we’re going to avoid making singleplayer games,‭ ‬we still see a massive market in them,” he said.

“‬But,‭ ‬moving forward,‭ ‬many games are pushing things like co-operative play.‭ ‬If you look at the consoles that are out there now,‭ ‬everybody’s encouraging everyone to stay online,‭ ‬particularly through your friends list on the‭ ‬360,‭ ‬and now with the PS3‭’‬s Home.‭

“We definitely want to keep making solo games‭ – ‬we want to make great solo games‭ – ‬but we see the life of games online.‭ ‬Because when you finish your solo experience,‭ ‬if you want to get anything else out of the‭ ‬£45‭ ‬or‭ ‬$60‭ ‬you’ve spent,‭ ‬it’s going to be through online play.”

This piece was supposed to be published two weeks ago, as we alluded to in this article. Billy and the boys are working on a new Crackdown game, although it’s yet to be announced.

Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2009 will take place on August 10-16, the event’s announced this morning.

The Festival will also continue partnership with Abertay University and its Protoplay event which showcases talent as part of its Dare to be Digital programme.

The Screening Sessions will form the “most popular” part of the event again this year, “with several key games already secured,” according to the press release.

Full thing after the break.

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It’s not going away, and it sounds as though you’re about to hear an awful lot more about it. Newly formed Scottish developer Ruffian is most certainly working on a new Crackdown game, says “rumour” today, and apparently it’s scheduled for the end of 2009 or early 2010.

The project’s being called “Crackdown 1.5″ in the UK trade, and it’s set in the same city as the original Realtime Worlds 360 classic. Multiplayer’s going to play a massive part in the game, aparently, moreso than the new single-player stuff.

Just a hunch: you might hear more about this… tomorrow. Life on the edge, and all that.

Realtime Worlds put out a statement at the end of December saying the firm was in ongoing negotiations with Microsoft about continuing the franchise as a reaction to rumour that Ruffian had picked up a second game.

Ruffian – the Dundee-based developer comprised largely of ex-Crackdown staffers – was confirmed as open in late January.

Gamasutra’s reporting that a Dundee-based developer called Ruffian Games has been founded by key Crackdown-related employees, including lead designer Billy Thomson.

There’s a Flickr set here of three Ruffian staff looking at office space. In case you’re bored, like.

Obviously… Crackdown 2! Or not. More through there.

MCV writes that a new subject, ‘Games Development’, will added to compulsory school lesson content in Scotland.

As part of its new national curriculum, dubbed “The Curriculum of Excellence”, Scottish schoolchildren will learn the basics of videogame design.

Maureen Watt, Minister for Schools and Skills, said: “There is huge confidence that Scotland will continue to play an important part in the future of video games and interactive entertainment and we are focusing on establishing firm foundations for lifelong learning and, for some, specialised study and careers.

“The pace of change in the world means that we should be equipping young people with the skills to embrace and use all the tools of modern life.”

Oh, to be a kid again.

By Mike Bowden