New Californian Jagex studio breaks cover

New Californian Jagex studio breaks cover

Thu 11 Oct 2012 1:00pm GMT / 9:00am EDT / 6:00am PDT
PublishingDevelopment

Midnight Club veterans create company's first Facebook title

Jagex

Jagex Games Studio has developed and self-published over 40 online titles, including the Guinness World...

jagex.com

Jagex has revealed a new Californian studio, which has been working on the company's first Facebook game for the last 18 months.

Staffed by veterans of Midnight Club development, the studio has just announced Carnage Racing, a racing game for Facebook due to be released in November. The studio is the Runescape developer's first outside its Cambridgeshire home - likely a reflection of the company selling a 55 percent stake to US investment firm Insight Venture Partners.

"Carnage Racing is set to bring the development quality of AAA gaming to Facebook by presenting racing fans with a truly compelling and unbeatable multiplayer racing experience," said Jagex's Rob Ollett.

"With Carnage Racing, we are determined to offer a console-like experience which capitalises on Facebook's vast network to match player's race after race, in what promises to be the best 3D racer on Facebook."

7 Comments

Scott Davis
Product Analyst

Jagex Games Studio

Been playing it today - think Mario Kart meets Portal! Great fun!

Posted:8 months ago

#1

Bruce Everiss

Will this be the breakthrough product they need to wean them off dependency on Runescape? They are by far the biggest British game publisher so it would be good to see this succeed.

If they can manage a studio in California then why not Silicon Spa?

Posted:8 months ago

#2

John Bye
Senior Game Designer

Ideaworks Game Studio

Given the choice between working in California or Leamington Spa, I know which I'd choose.

Posted:8 months ago

#3

Jessica Hyland
Character Artist

Leamington is pretty, but California has sunshine and beaches. Beaches, man!

Posted:8 months ago

#4

Adam Campbell
QA Analyst

openbet

Yeah Bruce...

Already having a UK base in Cambridge for over a decade, if they were going anywhere else in the UK I'd probably put London in top contention for a big studio to be part of the Silicon Roundabout or something. Other than that overseas makes more sense particularly with the controlling share being American.

Posted:8 months ago

#5

Bruce Everiss

@Adam Campbell

Silicon Spa is probably the biggest concentration of game development in the UK and maybe in the world.
14+ game development companies in a small town of just 40K people mean that game development is probably one of the top two forms of employment here.

Posted:8 months ago

#6

Adam Campbell
QA Analyst

openbet

I know all the stats that but it has little to do with the potential for Jagex and more to do with the economic benefits of that town in complete confinement.

Islington, a mere segment of London has a higher physical number of games and technology companies than that area, but the real advantage is the communications and transport potential. How many people can access Leamington in 30 minutes? How many in under an hour? How many train links? I counted 1 from London. Then what about international benefits?

Being in London if choosing a second location, would be more beneficial to most companies, where Leamington might win on land prices at most. If you're going to really try and dominate the world, having studios or some presence outside your home country is almost essential, which is obviously a good reason for Jagex.

I'm not knocking 'Silicon Spa' though, its great generally to see so many games studios thriving in the UK's biggest entertainment industry.

Posted:8 months ago

#7

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