Nikitova branches out into game development

Speaking in an interview with gamesindustry.biz, Jon Hare has revealed that outsourcing company Nikitova Games has opened its own game development division.

Hare will act as Director of Development for the company, which will initially focus on DS and Wii titles with a move to other platforms a possibility.

The company, currently hard at work on a sports title and a film licence, will utilise its strong staff base in the Ukraine to produce games in a cost-effective manner – with Hare complaining that development in the UK is ‘too expensive’.

“It’s always interested me, having run Sensible for years, and finding that the problem is that English people are too expensive to employ,” he said.

“It’s quite hard in the UK to keep a company going, that’s one of the reasons we’ve seen lots of companies hitting the wall, or selling up. So, to me this is really exciting because it’s an opportunity for me to have as much control in development as I used to have, working very closely with the top management, without having to worry about the company having to pay loads of people UK wages.”

Earlier this year a survey conducted by CMP revealed that European games professionals make between 25-36 per cent less than their American counterparts, with the majority of the people studied being from the UK.