Bigpoint Hiring 350 Workers Worldwide, 80 In San Francisco

Hamburg-based online games publisher Bigpoint (Poisonville) will add around 350 employees to its operations around the world, including 80 new workers to its San Francisco office. Bigpoint opened the San Francisco studio last March and has employed around 20 workers there since. The firm previously said the North American expansion was linked to its partnership with NBC Universal, which acquired 35 percent of Bigpoint in 2008 and paved the way for the publisher's upcoming Battlestar Galactica MMO. The San Francisco studio looks to bring in a variety of professionals, such as game designers, 3D artists, and developers who have experience with Flash, C++, C#, Unity, and PHP. It intends to assign these new hires to three new projects that are slated to begin production in the coming months. Bigpoint says it's able to hire employees while "retail-oriented game companies" are reducing their staff because its browser-based titles require constant optimization and new content. Two of its most successful releases, Seafight and Dark Orbit, launched in 2006 and 2007 respectively. The German publisher currently employs more than 500 people and has locations in Berlin, Malta, and San Francisco. Its online portal and free-to-play browser-based games are available in 25 languages and reach over 140 million gamers in Europe and the Americas. "Coming to San Francisco has helped us quickly enter and begin competing in the North American online gaming market," says Bigpoint founder and CEO Heiko Hubertz. "After only six months of operation here, we're ready to get started on a number of new projects that we'll announce soon."