2003 has seen immense changes for Austin, Texas-based game publisher Aspyr Media Inc., and Monday brought with it another indication of just how far things have come. Aspyr has announced the opening of several internal programming positions for its Mac game efforts.
Aspyr has been a player in the Mac game market since 1996, and has struck gold several times with its conversions of popular console and PC franchises like The Sims and the Tomb Raider series. Aspyr works closely with leading console and PC game publishers like Electronic Arts, Ubi Soft and Activision.
Earlier this year the company announced its intention to publish PC games as well. Since then, it’s brought Mac and PC conversions of popular console titles to market simultaneously, including SpyHunter and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4. Recently, Aspyr branched out into the Game Boy Advance market two titles.
At the company’s “AspyrWorld” event in Austin earlier this month, Aspyr unveiled its newest media efforts — the company is publishing independently produced DVDs and audio CDs. Monday’s news underscores Aspyr’s continued desire to be a leading Mac game publisher, according to its president, Michael Rogers. “Even though we are venturing into several new markets, we will continue to maintain our solid base in the Mac space,” he said.
The news comes two months after Aspyr Media brought on board former Westlake Interactive president Glenda Adams as the company’s director of Mac and PC development. Aspyr continues to work with Mac conversion studios like Westlake, i5works and Beenox, but Aspyr indicated that its internal developers will “take over some of the duties” that it has up until now relegated to these outside firms.
Adams is looking for programmers to have experience in C/C++ programming, or specialization in OpenGL, Mac OS X optimization debugging or sound. “Familiarity with DirectX and Windows APIs [is] a plus, since the development group’s efforts will be focused on porting games from Windows to Mac,” said the company.
Aspyr is scheduled to ship 21 Mac games by the end of 2003. Adams said that Aspyr plans to ship even more Mac games than that in 2004, which is why they need to add an internal development group. “By building a top notch internal Mac game development group we will be able to bring more of the best games to the Mac,” said Adams.
Qualified applicants are requested to send their resume to jobs@aspyr.com.