Earlier this month, Virtuos opened Calypte, its first full-service studio in North America, in the Bay area of San Francisco, leveraging both the company’s own success and Calypte’s proximity to San Francisco’s game development hub.
In a new blog post, Calypte’s leadership team discuss their passions, history in the industry and hopes for the studio.
“Building a game studio in 2022 after the pandemic shift really means no area is untapped at this point. Every company had to define and adapt their approach to doing business with a remote pipeline,” said Calypte design director Larry Charles Jr. “To follow that up, I do believe there is value in physically being this close to a rising hub of game development adjacent to Silicon Valley and big tech. As this area booms, so does the interest in candidates wanting to visit, work or join companies located here.”
“Multiple large game development studios broke ground in the Bay Area in the last five years alone – I believe we’re in the right place.”
Valuable lessons
Being one of many developers who successfully grew their business throughout the pandemic, Virtuos is applying the lessons learned to the future by promoting flexible working. Virtuos will host employees from other Virtuos studios worldwide, and employees are encouraged to work from wherever they feel comfortable doing so.
When asked about their vision for the company, studio director Kirsten Kennedy stated she hoped the new studio would be “A diverse group of enthusiastic people who enjoys coming together as a team to help make great, challenging, innovative, boundary-pushing, and most of all, fun games together.”
Technical director Thomas Gawrys agreed with the desire to create a positive workplace environment – and leaving a positive impact. “I envision Calypte to be a community of developers that care about each other and together make a positive impact on the world through games.“
Charles Jr. stressed his hopes for Calypte’s future growth. “I want more than anything to see this company continuously grow and present itself as a standout and dependable development partner in the games industry.”
2022 thus far has been a year of rapid expansion for Virtuos. Earlier this year the company expanded its reach with the foundation of Virtuos Kuala Lumpur and the acquisition of Ukranian studio Volmi Games.
