AUSTIN - In the land of live music a separate growing industry is leaving its mark.
"We anticipate that in the next two and a half years we are going to be doubling in size,” said Mojdeh Gharbi of Certain Affinity.
Certain Affinity, Austin’s largest independent video game developer, opened its new headquarters Friday. It's a high tech space complete with recording suites, a motion-capture set up and room to grow.
“Right now we are occupying the second and third floor. We even have space for expansion on the first floor,” said Gharbi.
The brains behind the 10 year-old company have helped develop some of the biggest titles in the gaming world.
“The work has really focused on what we call FPS, First-Person Shooters, and so we’re known and have worked on a lot of games like Halo, Call of Duty, Doom,” said Gharbi.
The new space means more opportunity to use state of the art tools. Over 125 full time staff members work in this space whose location was strategically chosen.
“It was really important for us to find a location that was commuter friendly. We’re literally a 10 minute walk from the rapid bus, we have the train going by. There’s amazing bike lanes,” she said.
It is a setup that is beneficial not just to the company. Certain Affinity said it has data showing that it helps generate $100 million in combined revenue for the city.
“It’s actually surprising we weren’t expecting that there would be such a big game presence here but there is. We hope to make it a bigger presence and continue to make this a home for a long time,” she said.
Certain Affinity games have sold a combined 75 million copies.