14 DAY TRIAL // Disney Interactive Studios is creating its sixth internal game production studios after it has recently acquired a Chinese-based developer called Gamestar, that has studios in both the Wuhan province and in Shanghai. The move is part of a wider Disney Interactive plan to create a strong internal division that can produce games for a variety of platforms and for a wide demographic of gamers.
Gamestar was founded in 2002 and was the first independent studio in China that focused on outsourcing rather than original projects. Most of the employees are senior ex-technical staff from Ubisoft Shanghai, a studio that for many years worked on AAA titles. Heading the studio is the game tools veteran David Zhu.
US studio WildTangent was the most important customer at Gamestar prior to it being bought by Disney. It has worked on titles for PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox, as well as some next-gen art projects. A PlayStation Portable only game engine is also rumored to be under development.
The top companies located in Shanghai can produce art assets, programming elements, and even entire console game projects at a cost significantly below that of Western titles and that makes them highly attractive to the game companies in the West. They don't have the capacity to create entire AAA titles from scratch, but Disney isn't aiming for AAA titles, but rather for a studio where assets necessary for other projects can be quickly put together, as Disney is seeking new market niches to expand its videogame business.
Graham Hopper, who is executive vice president at Disney Interactive, declared that: "Gamestar will play an important role in our global growth plans, providing a high quality talent pool for our expanding product portfolio. Our global expansion is aimed at achieving a new level of creative capacity, quality, and expertise in video game software development."
There are currently no projects announced to be developed at the new Disney studio and it's not known when games coming out of Shanghai will be available.