Attracting Game Companies to Malta

Games industry to produce a solid base of economic development for Malta as well as more jobs within the industry.

Malta is a high quality location to work from, to base people or to create. These were the words uttered by Chris Deering. Described as being a ‘games evangelist’, Chris Deering is a veteran of the games, technology and entertainment industry. Recently interviewed by The Times Business, Mr Deering was chief executive for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe between 1995 and 2005 and is a graduate of Harvard Business School.

Malta’s special envoy for digital games

Mr Deering, Malta’s recently named special envoy for digital games, has pledged to be an evangelist for the island’s potential to be a base for game design firms. He said he was impressed with the inroads Malta was making in technology and games.

His appointment by Malta Enterprise follows his endorsement of Malta after TRC Family Media Entertainment, of which he is chairman, moved a team to Malta to work on an ambitious multi-player online game designed for family entertainment. The original $6 million investment is supported by intellectual property worth $18 million which has also been relocated to Malta.

Speaking about Malta, he said that the fact that there are online gaming companies means there is a headstart of sorts. Malta also does have a number of graduates in C++ programming.

Mr Deering is set to evangelise on behalf of Malta and plans to help companies decide if Malta suited them and their aspirations. He was also keen to help Maltese companies identify outposts for international projects.

He plans to do this in fields of high tech entertainment that are not specifically about gambling or video games. It could be about internet companies that are doing games for social networks.

Previous key roles he has held include his being vice-president international for Atari game consoles and computers, and executive vice-president and chief operating officer for Columbia Pictures International Video. He also led the team at Sony which sold more than 80 million consoles and paved the way for the sale of more than one billion games.

This is how he has become known as the ‘Father of the PlayStation’. He was also chairman of the UK-based Codemasters, the independent game developer of the hugely successful F1 and Dirt games, and served on the boards of Sony Ericsson and WayFinder Systems – that was later acquired by Vodafone.

Malta’s Mediterranean lifestyle

Malta’s Mediterranean lifestyle, and accessibility to and from it, were major factors that made facilitated Mr Deering’s decision making process and it was a high quality location to work from, to base people or to create.

He continued by saying that the more game companies that are based in Malta, the better the talent pool. Game design can take anything between a few months to a couple of years with.

Thus, staffing levels cannot be maintained but if there are more projects in the region, then the labour force will move around the circuit, seeking freelance or contract posts in programming, music or post-production.

He also expressed satisfaction saying he was impressed how many people in the wider technology industry had heard of Malta at some time or other, especially Europeans. Outside of Europe, Malta required a proper business introduction.

In this respect, the games industry is geared to produce a solid base of economic development for Malta.