A leading city games firm expects to double its workforce, exploit the North American market and more than treble revenues after taking new office space on Dundee’s £1 billion Waterfront redevelopment.
Fast-growing cross-platform development technology company YoYo Games says taking the top floor of River Court, part of Unicorn Property Group’s riverside DundeeOne development, will help it continue its rapid rise to become a “very significant” industry name.
YoYo established its European base in Dundee three years ago, but has already grown to employ more than 25 people.
It hopes to double that figure by creating new roles in systems development, software engineering, sales and customer service as it continues to capitalise on the market potential of its GameMaker: Studio software.
The toolkit for game developers allows other firms to create their own titles quickly and cheaply, publishing them to a range of devices and operating systems in one fell swoop.
Chief executive Sandy Duncan said the new workspace reflected the scale of his company’s ambitions.
“When we started three years ago, we thought we would never fill all the space in our office,” he said.
“But now we’re moving into DundeeOne, I fully intend that we will fill all the space very soon. We’re really starting to see the fruits of those three years’ hard work and we are getting interest in our core product.
“Over the year to the end of October the business was profitable for us, and in the first three and a half months of the new financial year our turnover did almost as much as during the whole of last year.
“That will carry on. Our stretch target is to quadruple the figure this year, but we would like to get to between three and four times.”
Accounts to be filed with Companies House show turnover just shy of £1 million for the year to the end of October, something the company attributes to the talent on offer in the Dundee games hub.
“We think of Dundee as the centre of research and development, but the next phase is to think of how we get it to market effectively,” Mr Duncan said.
“About 50% of our current business comes from North America. We currently have a small office in San Francisco, and we expect to see that expand over the course of the next year.
“We’re on a growth path and if we stay in place then we want to be known as the best place to do games in Dundee.”
Unicorn Property Group’s Tim Allan said the 10-year letting deal was “very good news” for Dundee’s commercial property market, while city development director Mike Galloway hailed YoYo’s “outstanding example” as an entrepreneurial, technology-led business.
DundeeOne already houses Scottish Police Authority forensics services, and has also attracted leading law firm MacRoberts and Danish Offshore Renewables consultant SeaRoc.