True Games Interactive Inc., a maker of online video games that’s owned by Indian media and entertainment company UTV Software Communications Ltd., is moving its headquarters from Irvine to Austin, Texas, as part of a consolidation.
True Games is combining its two North American offices and moving its headquarters to Austin, where it started a game development studio earlier this year.
The company said it’s shifting to a heavier focus on game development instead of just licensing games from other companies and publishing them.
“Our company has changed from a publishing-only focus to one that includes a heavy emphasis on our game development,” Chief Executive Jeff Lujan said. “Bringing our North American staff together under one roof will allow us to grow and nurture our development process.”
True Games also hopes the move will help recruit potential employees in Austin, which has become a game development hub.
Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment Inc., the biggest maker of online games, has operations in Texas.
True Games also has an office of developers in China.
In the same announcement, True Games said it hired a technology chief, Mick Giles, formerly of Electronic Arts Inc.
True Games said it expects to have about 60 workers in the Austin office by the middle of 2010.
A handful of workers from Irvine are set to relocate, the company said.
True Games, which got its start in Santa Ana a few years ago, has a business model called “free-to-play micro transactions.”
Its games are free. Players can buy virtual items along the way.
Items for purchase—such as weapons or access to other areas in the game—give each player an edge over rivals.
Others items are just for fun, such as being able to customize the look of your online character.
True Games launched an Austin studio in October after it hired industry veteran Frank Lucero.
As studio head, Lucero manages operations and heads a game now in development.
The studio’s first project, which will be True Games’ third online game, hasn’t been announced.
Earlier this year, True Games released its first title, “Warrior Epic.”
True Games was formed by a group of executives from Irvine-based video game publisher K2 Network Inc., which also runs online games based on player transactions.
In 2008, Mumbai-based UTV bought an 80% stake in True Games in a deal worth “well north of $10 million,” Lujan said at the time.
Development Software
Irvine’s Ready at Dawn Studios LLC, a maker of games for consoles and handheld devices, hired an executive to ramp up sales of its basic game software.
Ready at Dawn hired Jonathan Nagel, who previously was a senior account manager at Maryland’s Scaleform Corp., a maker of what’s known in the industry as “middleware” for game developers.
Middleware helps others have an easier time of developing games by helping out with graphics, sound and user interface coding.
Nagel is set to head a sort of mini-consulting unit of Ready at Dawn that will sell its “engine” software and offer project consulting, simple licensing models and support for others looking to launch their own games.
The game development application, dubbed the Ready at Dawn Engine, includes software and programming tools to help other developers make console video games from scratch.
It features programming code and software for editing 3-D content, sound and building a user interface, among other tasks.
The software is geared toward developing games for Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 consoles as well as the handheld PlayStation Portable.
Ready at Dawn has “a proven track record in console game development and a compelling business model that wants to solve game developers problems, not just try to cram tech down your throat,” Nagel said.
Ready at Dawn’s games include “God of War: Chains of Olympus,” “Daxter” and “Okami.”
Emulex 2010
An analyst earlier this month tapped Costa Mesa-based Emulex Corp. as his stock pick for 2010 based on recent contract wins and the prospect of improved corporate technology spending.
Paul Mansky of Vancouver, British Columbia-based Canaccord Adams said he views Emulex as “incrementally attractive” based on recent wins the company landed with makers of servers and data storage computers.
Emulex makes electronics that speed the flow of data on storage networks.
The analyst said he sees Emulex benefiting as Corporate America starts to buy servers and other technology gear after putting off spending for much of 2009.
“We see outperformance through much of the year,” he said.
The analyst’s comments are encouraging for Emulex, which earlier in 2010 fought off a hostile $912 million buyout bid by Irvine’s Broadcom Corp.
Emulex rebuffed the offer, citing its prospects as an independent company and saying Broadcom was trying to acquire it on the cheap.
The company had a market value of about $830 million at recent check.
“The next few quarters will be really important to get a sense of where they are tracking relative to those high expectations,” said Kaushik Roy, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities in San Francisco. “They have to prove to everybody they were right.”
Emulex is looking to grow with electronics for a new technology known as converged networks, which promises to bridge everyday corporate networks of servers and desktop PCs with more robust, specialized data storage networks.
Local.Com Outlook
Irvine’s Local.com Corp., which runs an online search engine for local businesses, recently narrowed its outlook for the fourth quarter.
The company said it now expects fourth-quarter revenue of $16.2 million to $16.6 million, about a 70% increase from a year earlier.
Including charges for stock compensation, write-downs on assets and other costs, Local.com expects a loss of $100,000 to $150,000.
Excluding the charges, the company is looking to post a profit of $1.5 million to $1.8 million.
For the 12 months through December, Local.com expects to see yearly sales of around $56 million, nearly double its 2008 revenue.
Local.com first turned an adjusted profit earlier this year.
Its shares are up nearly 300% in the past 12 months on a recent market value of about $80 million.
Some may remember Local.com under its earlier name of Interchange Corp.
Earlier this decade, the company saw a big stock run-up as speculation it could be the next Google Inc. made its shares a chat board favorite.
Local.com’s shares crashed in 2005 and have traded at a third or less than they did in 2004.
Internet Trivia
With 2009 coming to a close, Yahoo Inc. announced a list of the top searches from the past year.
Britney Spears fell from the No. 1 search term in 2008 to the No. 5 spot. Here are the top 10 overall searches for 2009.
• Michael Jackson
• Twilight
• WWE
• Megan Fox
• Britney Spears
• Naruto
• American Idol
• Kim Kardashian
• Nascar
• Runescape
