Gaming Corps AB (publ) (Nasdaq: GCOR, ”The Company” or ”Gaming Corps”) has made the decision to downsize the Austin studio and increase the amount of staff in the Maltese organization, further cutting costs to ensure a lean production going forward.
Gaming Corps USA has been under a work-for-hire contract with Certain Affinity since January 2019. This contract ends on June 30th and was initially slotted for extension until the point where the Company restarts its own game development. With the Nasdaq re-listing process still ongoing, business development has, despite moving forward very well, taken longer than planned. The prospect of an extended period of work-for-hire has however not been considered an attractive option by the Austin team, nor does the management team consider it to be in the best interest of Gaming Corps business moving forward. After some time of respectful dialogue between employees and management team, a mutual decision has been made to downsize Austin operations and the Company has decided not to hire replacement staff.
“Our Austin studio has had a tough year having to work three parallel projects due to failure on behalf of a previous subcontractor to deliver work according to contract on American Ninja Warrior for GameMill. We will have exciting new development opportunities within a year but right now what we can offer in the USA is work-for-hire and that is not what this experienced team wants. With wage levels substantially higher in the USA as opposed to Europe the management team has decided to relocate all the production to Malta which will reduce our operational costs significantly.” says Juha Kauppinen, CEO.
The Maltese office currently has three employees plus contractors, given this decision more team members will be engaged in the coming period. Expanding the Maltese studio has been part of the management team’s strategy since early 2019 and the current staff has both iGaming and Gaming experience, thus the Company is well equipped to manage production despite downsizing in Austin.
Director of Gaming, Dan Borth, steps down from the management team as of July 1st but remains in the Company in an advisory role, engaged in facilitating business development in the USA and surrounding region.
Gaming Corps cooperation with Chimney Group within interactive, narrative entertainment will continue as planned and is not affected by the relocation from Austin to Malta. Neither is the casino slot production affected as the decision to relocate enables a cost reduction allowing additional team members in Malta to be added swiftly, thus ensuring enough resources for both iGaming production as well as development and sales within Gaming.