Ex-Blue Tongue owners start new social games company

Two former THQ employees, who originally founded Australian de Blob developer Blue Tongue Entertainment, have formed a new casual games company and are looking to release their first game next month. Melbourne-based Twiitch is CTO Shane Stevens and GM Steven Spagnolo, who will launch their first game Coco Loco, published by Chillingo, on March 8. The duo joined THQ when it bought out Blue Tongue in 2004, and went on to take roles as global directors for the company. However, they then both left in 2010 to start this new studio. Twiitch currently houses 10 members of staff. Speaking to Australian newspaper The Age, Stevens explained, "The time was right. We watched the market very closely for the six years following our sale of Blue Tongue, basically not trusting where it was all going." "Multi-year development cycles costing tens of millions of dollars just weren't sustainable for all but a few," he continued. "The release of the iPhone and the explosion of Facebook caused a strategic, permanent shift towards the casual market, and that's where we wanted to be." "After six years, we could see the writing was on the wall for $30 million budget games, and wanted to start a fresh new company focusing our sharp technical skill on games which could appeal to the masses, on devices everyone has in their pocket." It was revealed last year that THQ had closed a number of its Australian studios, including Blue Tongue, and laid off around 200 employees.