There’s a new video game studio in town, and it’s growing faster than expected.
A group of three senior software engineers left the PUBG video game studio in Saratoga Springs last fall to start their own, Rushdown Studios.
"My initial goal was I wanted to hire 10 people at Rushdown. We're already going to hit 10 people in six months,” said Kirk Becker, Rushdown co-founder and CEO. “We are on track to double what we were originally looking at doing in the first year."
The short-term goal after that is to hit 30-40 employees, which he expects will be pretty easy, considering the high demand for the services Rushdown offers. From there, he’ll decide how large he wants the studio to be.
The studio is offering mostly contract work for backend systems of online and multiplayer games.
“It ends up, nowadays, that there's still an online component, even if you don't interact with other people. Most games are always online,” Becker said. “Especially right now with the market, how people are getting so much money ... from VCs to take a chance on a small game studio – that's great, but those small game studios just want to focus on the gameplay. They know their game needs to be an online game, but they don't have the expertise in that area, so that's why it's valuable for us."
Becker started in the Capital Region as an intern at Agora Games in Troy, which was later acquired by WB Games, while he completed a master’s degree in computer information science at the College of Saint Rose. His bachelor’s degree in computer science is from SUNY Polytechnic Institute.
Then his colleague, Brian Corrigan, started MadGlory, which was later acquired by PUBG Corporation. He was one of MadGlory’s first employees in 2013. During that time, he helped build MadGlory and learned how to run a gaming contracting group, he said.
Becker was the engineering team lead at the PUBG studio in Saratoga Springs for over three years before starting his own studio in September 2021.
The Rushdown co-founder and chief technology officer, Richard Hall, followed the same timeline starting with MadGlory. Andy Polidore, co-founder and chief operating officer, started at MadGlory in 2016.
"For years, I've been talking about it. I just have that edge and entrepreneur mindset. Since I was leaving, [the other Rushdown co-founders] were super interested in getting involved somehow," Becker said. "I think it's kind of cool. The feeling of ownership, as being co-founders, and having these people with different skill sets that are motivated to grow a business."
Becker said Rushdown is already working on about five projects for small and big-name studios. Some of the smaller companies the studio is working with are well-funded startups that need help with backend work for multiplayer games, he said.
"We have a lot of contacts in the industry, so we're able to call up the people we worked with previously that know we did a good job, and they know people that need help, so it kind of starts from there,” Becker said.
And the studio may find more this week — the team is attending its first Game Developers Conference in San Francisco as a new studio.
Rushdown does similar work as Wolfjaw Studios in Troy. It turns out, like most people in the tight-knit video game industry, Becker and Wolfjaw’s founder, Mitchell Patterson, are friends. But Becker said there are no hard feelings that Becker is entering the same field.
"There's definitely plenty of work to go around,” Becker said.
As Rushdown builds its base of workers, Becker said he is looking for experienced software engineers from any field. He’ll look toward hiring college grads and less experienced engineers down the line.
"It's a lot easier for a business like ours, an agency, to add those less extreme engineers after we have a really solid foundation of senior engineers.”
Because the founders have houses in the Saratoga area, where PUBG is based, Becker plans to look for a physical office in the Ballston Spa or Schenectady areas.
