The workforce at Portland mobile gaming studio Brainium has doubled in the last year. With aggressive hiring plans for 2021, the 29-member team could double again, said chief operating officer Scott Willoughby.
The company has 12 open roles right now, including engineering and recruiting, and the plan is to hire 25 total this year.
Brainium, which was founded in 2009, makes mobile versions of classic games such as Solitaire, Sudoku and Mahjong. It has eight titles across the Apple App Store, Google Play and even one title in Tesla’s Arcade. The company has 7 million monthly active users.
The studio generates revenue through in-app advertising, said Willoughby. The studio is profitable and has never taken any outside investment, he added.
Last year, revenue was up nearly 50%. The explosive growth the company has mirrored that of casual mobile gaming. Willoughby was brought in by the company co-founders to help capitalize on that growth and move the studio to the next level.
“Brainium was never built to be solely mobile gaming,” said Willoughby. “We agree that if we see an opportunity to do something, if there is a way to build a better mousetrap (then) let's do it. They saw classic games and wanted to make a better quality of these classic games.”
But, Willoughby said there are more games to build and put out into the world. Including some with unique intellectual property created by Brainium.
Portland has an active community of independent game studios. Many create their own games and subsidize that work with contract projects. In Brainium’s case, it made its own profitable classic games and can now use that revenue engine to pay for other ideas.
“We know the sandbox. We do have some ideas we have been kicking around for original IP and designs. Some that we have been thinking about for a long time” said Willoughby.
So far, the talent pool in Portland has been good. The studio has found the engineering talent needed. Willoughby did note that designers can be hard to find since there are so many design agencies in town or design-focused companies that a small mobile game studio can be hard to break through the noise.
The company is flexible with remote work, but they are focusing their hiring in the Portland metro. Willoughby does expect people to return to the office.
“I am and have been for a long time a believer in the value of proximity in creative pursuits,” he said.
