The productive fabric of the Canary Islands continues to take small steps towards the long-awaited diversification with posh signings. This Thursday, and by surprise, the top executive of The video game firm The Game Kitchen announced on the social network Twitter that the firm will open a new headquarters in the Archipelago, specifically in Tenerife. And immediately, in just “a few weeks”.
Although The Game Kitchen may be unknown to those unfamiliar with the video game industry and virtual reality, It is one of the newly minted companies, a startup, that has experienced the most growth in the country in recent years. In fact, it will be very, very difficult to find a video game lover who does not know the title Blasphemous, a complete success that was distributed for all platforms –Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One– and whose developer was precisely The Game Kitchen.
Blasphemous, which was launched in September 2019, has thus become on its own merits one of the most successful video games made in Spain in history and the definitive launch platform for its developers. This is not, however, the only successful title in the still short history of The Game Kitchen, whose graphic adventure The Last Door, prior to Blasphemous, already enjoyed many favorable reviews.
The origins of the company as such date back to 2010 in Andalusia, exactly in Seville. At that time, one of the founders was Mauricio García –@nolver on Twitter–, who is today CEO of the firm and who was the one who announced the internationalization of The Game Kitchen on the social network yesterday. “It’s official,” wrote the representative of the Spanish video game factory; “In a few weeks,” he continued, The Game Kitchen “opens a branch in Tenerife.” García even advanced part of the company’s plans for its imminent headquarters in the Archipelago. This far, to Tenerife, will come the team behind All On Board!, a new virtual reality platform where users can create their own content. What types of content? Well, board games, the classic board games of a lifetime that can be created, played and shared on the platform. Plus, of course, The Game Kitchen’s new title will incorporate a number of official board games already pre-loaded, so to speak.
Well, “@AllOnBoardVR is officially moving to this venue,” said Mauricio García this Thursday, who made a first appeal to all developers interested in being part of the project. “We are going to carry out at least a dozen contracts in the coming months. We have updated offers on our website: https://thegamekitchen.com/jobs/». «If you know developers, on the island or who have emigrated in the past and perhaps want to return, let them know. Even if your profile is not on the lists, get in touch because more offers are coming soon,” explained the CEO of The Game Kitchen, who plans to join the Special Canary Islands Zone (ZEC) for its establishment in the Autonomous Community. ), the area of low taxation of the Archipelago and one of the most powerful incentives for business investment of the Economic and Fiscal Regime (REF).
The announcement of the upcoming hiring of at least a dozen workers for the Canary leg of The Game Kitchen thus dismantles the usual complaint, even among the corridors of the Parliament of the Canary Islandsthat the REF does not contribute to creating job. And that’s just the beginning, because the company’s announcement – which already bills more than 2.5 million euros a year – shows that its plans are ambitious: «We are going to make the best damn platform to play board games digitally Are you in?” The Game Kitchen CEO announced with a link to a YouTube video showing the work behind All On Board!
The national video game factory, the most important indie firm in the sector in Spain, thus joins the already long list of renowned companies that have chosen to settle in the region in recent years, many of them precisely thanks to incentives from the ZEC –no company could assume the extra costs involved in operating from the distance of the Archipelago if they are not compensated–. Entities of the importance of Rolls-Royce, whose naval division has workshops in the Port of the light and of the palmsin Gran Canaria; like the food Florette; like Wooptix; or as now The Game Market, if its integration into the ZEC materializes, they have settled in the region thanks precisely to the REF.
