New casual games studio launches

Veteran games designer Rick Marazzani has opened a new development studio in San Francisco which will produce games for web, mobile and PC.

iQ212 is already working on three original games which will launch across all three platforms.

"Our games are designed for the mass-market, but please donât call our games âcasual gamesâ," said Marazzani.

"There is nothing casual about a commuter, mum or office worker playing one of our games for 30 hours a week."

Marazzani has spent more than a decade designing titles for the likes of EA, Pogo and Digital Chocolate. His new team is said to include "executives and top tier talent with years of success building hit games, robust game frameworks, and sticky user communities".

iQ212's first batch of titles will be unveiled at the Game Developers Conference 2007, which takes place in San Francisco between March 5 - 9.