Lightning Fish goes multiformat with new studio

Banbury-based developer Lightning Fish Games is expanding, thanks to an outsourcing partnership with India's Quickstart Global. It intends to have up to three multiformat games in the pipeline simultaneously as a result.

Lightning Fish has opened a new studio within Quickstart Global's client centre in Pune, India, at which it intends to hire 20 extra staff. This is on top of the existing UK team's headcount of 40 – a large team grown in the company's mere two years of existence.

"When we started Lightning Fish we planned to be a dominant force in the development of motion tracking games," said Simon Prytherch, CEO of Lightning Fish."We also wanted to build the capability to develop three titles simultaneously. 2010 is the year that we achieve both these goals. The Pune studio is crucial to these plans."

Added Neal Gandhi, CEO of Quickstart Global, "Our In-House Anywhere model was set up to enable companies such as Lightning Fish to access global talent without the headaches involved in setting up their own operation overseas. We understand just how important it is for games studios to have their own staff working under their direction and look forward to supporting Lightning Fish to grow their team and achieve their goals."

Lightning Fish specialises in motion-tracking games, a genre which is likely to prove popular in 2010 and beyond, thanks to the imminent arrival of Microsoft's Project Natal and Sony's Playstation Move. To date, Lightning Fish has released a series of fitness titles for the Wii.