Bigpoint Opening Fifth Office In Brazil

Hamburg-headquartered free-to-play online game company Bigpoint has opened a new branch in Sao Paulo, Brazil, its fifth office and its first location in South America. The new facility, which is located in Brazil's most populous city, will have around ten employees starting January 2011. Those workers will handle Bigpoint's business development, marketing, and public relations for Latin-American countries -- there are no plans for in-house game development with the office. Bigpoint says it already has media partners lined for the new branch, and has signed a deal with Orkut to integrate its browser games like Seafight, DarkOrbit, and Farmerama on the Google-owned social network. Though it hasn't found much success in the States, Orkut is very popular in Brazil. This new Sao Paulo location follows the opening of Bigpoint's San Francisco studio earlier this year. The company also has offices in Berlin and Malta. In September, the online game developer and publisher announced plans to hire 350 employees, and it has so far beefed its staff up to 600. "The Latin-American Internet market is one of the fastest-growing markets in the world," said Heiko Hubertz, CEO and founder of Bigpoint. "This new location will become a new strategic focus point for our international expansion." The firm intends to announce more Brazilian partners soon.