Watch Out Zynga, Japanese Gaming Company GREE Is Aggressively Hiring In Silicon Valley

Leena Rao

Leena Rao is currently a Senior Editor for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More

Friday, December 9th, 2011
gree

It’s no secret that Japanese mobile social gaming company GREE is aggressively pursuing the U.S. markets, especially with the $104 million acquisition of mobile gaming platform OpenFeint earlier this year.

Now with sights set on establishing a large engineering and development presence in Silicon Valley, the company has added a new billboard on I-80 northbound to advertise for job openings in the company’s California office. This is the third billboard GREE has put up to attract talent (the others are positioned on highway 101).

Of course the Japanese company faces stiff competition from talent from Zynga, EA, CrowdStar, and the many other gaming companies in the U.S.

But GREE is hoping that game developers and designers will flock to the company (perhaps some of those that are discontent at other gaming companies in the area) to work on its soon to be released mobile social gaming network for the global market.

GREE, which is on track to generate $1.7 billion in annual revenues, says it plans to double its U.S. headcount with 100 new hires over the course of 2012.

Check out my colleague Erick Schonfeld’s interview with GREE founder and CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka here.


Company: GREE
Website: gree-corp.com
Launch Date: December 7, 2004
IPO: 3632

GREE provides Japan’s leading mobile social network, and is at the forefront of mobile technology. GREE was ranked as Japan’s fastest-growing tech company by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. in 2009 and 2010. GREE, following its acquisition of OpenFeint in April 2011, is expanding globally and will soon offer a single, worldwide mobile social gaming platform. Combined, GREE reaches over 190 million players and offers over 7,500 game applications for smartphones. GREE aims to build the leading mobile social gaming...

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