Come Meet Some of gumi’s Leadership Team, Now Opening a Major Studio in Austin!
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Come Meet Some of gumi’s Leadership Team, Now Opening a Major Studio in Austin!
Best known in Asia, gumi is one of the top mobile game publishers in the world. In the US, gumi is best known for ‘Brave Frontier’, which is one of the top grossing games on Google Play and the Apple App Store.
We are incredibly lucky to have some of gumi’s top leadership team presenting at ‘Video Game Makers Unite!’ this Thursday night. Come meet Rhett Bennatt (Director, Art Department) and Kory Fluckiger (Senior Designer) of gumi who is opening their regional headquarters here in Austin. The studio will be under the leadership of game veteran AJ Redmer (Sr. VP, Western Studios).
Rhett Bennatt has been working in Austin as a developer for about 17 years. He worked with Digital Anvil/Microsoft for over 8 years in numerous roles ranging from Art Director to PM and had been the Studio Art Director at Aspyr Media for over 8 years until joining gumi this past summer.
Kory Fluckiger has over fifteen years of experience in fine art, graphic design, marketing, visual communications, user interface and user experience design as well as creative direction in a variety of industries. After more than four years of game design and development, including multiple solo mobile titles and collaborative projects, Kory joins the gumi as Senior Designer.
AJ has also been living in Austin for over 7 years where he has seen three boys graduate from Round Rock High School and go on to UT and TAMU. AJ and Rhett’s relationship dates back to their time together at Digital Anvil/Microsoft. AJ was instrumental in keeping Digital Anvil alive and worked with Ed Fries to acquire the studio for Microsoft Games. AJ has been working with folks in Austin since the 1980’s, partnering with Richard Garriott and Chris Roberts at Origin Systems to collaborate on several games including ‘Ultima 5’ and ‘Wing Commander’.
Here is some more background on Gumi:
Businesswire http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140821005966/en/Japanese-Mobile-Games-Giant-gumi-Launches-U.S.#.U_bPFrxdUq8
Bloomberg IPO http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-09/gumi-said-to-plan-japan-ipo-at-1-billion-valuation.html
Sega Investment Announcement http://thebridge.jp/en/2014/07/gumi-funding
IPO announcement http://www.techinasia.com/japanese-mobile-game-company-gumi-file-ipo-year/
Oh BiBi http://www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/deal/59429/motor-world-car-factory-dev-oh-bibi-raises-4-million/