Sega Nerds

Zoe Mode to open London studio

Posted by Graham. Filed under Europe, G, News. Tagged with Crush, Zoe Mode.

This isn’t Sega news per-se, but it is related to Sega.

As every Sega Nerd should know that Zoe Mode is the company responsible for the most excellent, and horrifically underrated, CRUSH on the PSP (which is still my favourite PSP game by far).

Zoe Mode, formerly Kuju-Brighton (and based in Brighton), has been expanding it’s staff since the name change, and they are planning on moving to new, bigger offices in Brighton, plus also starting up a new London studio.

“Since we re-branded last year we have had an enormous interest in the studio from both publishers and new recruits,” Zoë Mode boss Ed Daly explained to Develop.

“Following on from our huge growth in Brighton where we are now approaching 150 staff, we felt the time was right to open a second studio. This will enable us to take on more projects and staff without losing the intimate company culture that is so central to our approach.”

The London-based Zoe Mode studio is due to open this September, will initially share offices with their ’sister’ studio Kuju London, and will be headed up by Zoe Mode Brighton executive producer Nick Rodriguez.

He commented: “London has been a development hub for the games industry for many years now, which means that there’s a fantastic pool of talent here to join our new studio. We’re looking for staff in all disciplines and we’re really excited about the opportunities that being in London present to us.”

Even though CRUSH was a flop in the sales charts, (though critically a success), it would be great to see Zoe Mode do some more work with Sega.  With both Zoe Mode’s new offices and Sega Europe in London… who knows…

Well truthfully distance doesn’t really matter these days, what with email, telephones and motor-carriages.  But maybe we can see a CRUSH 2 in the future?  I’m always going to remain optimistic on this :o)

[Source: DevelopMag]
[Special Thanks: Diogo]
[Image from Zoe Mode]