Romania-based game development studio Amber Studio is continuing its expansion by opening a new office in Warsaw, Poland, although the firm has announced it will work on console and PC titles exclusively.
The opening of the new office comes at the initiative of Amber co-founder Dragoș Hâncu and will be led by the Polish writer and game designer Greg Ciach.
Previously, Ciach has worked as CEO of indie studio PolyAmorous, business development director at Platige Image, a game designer at Winko Games and narrative designer at Tequila Games.
Now, Ciach will be the general manager of Amber Warsaw.
Developing in Europe
Amber as a whole has grown to more than 1,000 staff this year, and opened another new studio in Kyiv, Ukraine this February which remains active despite the ongoing conflict.
Commenting on the new Polish studio, Ciach said: “I’m looking forward to building a safe, nurturing environment with plenty of space to grow and polish individual skills. I strongly believe in creating games with powerful emotional impact.
“I’m certain we can bring a breath of fresh air to the Polish AA/AAA game dev scene as we set out to take advantage of the latest industry trends and become a major player while doing so.”
Record turnover
Amber has also disclosed its financial results for 2021, revealing record turnover of $30.5 million at a 56 per cent increase year on year and outperforming revenue estimates for the year by 10 per cent.
Since founding in 2013, the game development agency has partnered with brands like Amazon, Disney and Rovio. In 2021, Amber developers worked on over 10 games for mobile, PC and console, in addition to entering the blockchain sector.
“2021 has been an excellent year for Amber, a year when we saw massive growth in the sales pipeline, driven by the investments carried out over the last few years in strengthening our development teams and our sales organisation,” said Amber CEO Jaime Giné.
“For us, Poland is a great example of how a Central and Eastern European country has successfully created a favorable climate for local game developers.”
A number of developers have been opening new studios of late, from Jagex and Codemaster execs unveiling a VR and metaverse studio to the new France-based development studio Gameloft Paris.
