Jam City

Cedar Falls, Iowa, May 23, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, Buenos Aires, And, most recently, Cedar Falls which is part of the Cedar Valley region located in northeast Iowa.  That's the list of creative studio venues for global game developer Jam City.  

The mobile gaming powerhouse recently made Iowa the home of its studio outside the Pacific time zone.  "Top talent drives our industry," said Josh Yguado, Jam City's co-founder and president.  "To be honest, it can be easy to overlook talent that's not in your backyard.  That's not a mistake we're making, so we're hiring the best and brightest where we find them, and Cedar Falls and the Cedar Valley is one area whose talent - and - technology infrastructure - we're not ignoring."

Based in Los Angeles, Jam City's titles include Panda Pop, Juice Jam, Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff, Marvel Avengers Academy and megahit Cookie Jam, named Game of the Year by Facebook in 2014.  People play Jam City games more than 30,000 times a minute in every part of the world.

The Iowa studio happened because three developers Jam City wanted to hire lived in Cedar Falls, preferred to stay, and pitched the idea to the company leadership.

"They had to be convinced," recalls lead sofware engineer Nick Cash.  "They asked all the questions typical of a coastal lack of awareness about the Midwest.  'Is there decent cell service? Is there an airport?"

For Nick and fellow developers Ray Ryan and Dan Cash, the pitch came down to connectivity and economics.

Jam City's Cedar Falls team uses all-fiber gigabit Internet services from a pioneering community-owned provder, Cedar Falls Utilities (CFU).  Nick says the other offices are jealous.

"In our industry, the joke is, 'Well, I'm waiting for my code to compile,'" said Nick Cash.  "But one of the perks of living in Cedar Falls and the Cedar Valley is our gigabit Internet.  If we have Skype connection issues during our daily standup, it's always on the Silicon Valley end.  We tell them we have 'corn-fed' bandwidth here."

With better connectivity, the team saves time on routine tasks, "Every time there's a game engine update, we have to reinstall the program - and this happens fairly frequently," says Dan Cash.  "It takes our other offices about half a day to get an update downloaded and installed.  It takes us about 7 minutes."

By hiring in place, Jam City saved relocation expenses and ongoing occupancy costs.  The Iowa team works in Cedar Falls' Mill Race co-working center, where permanent and drop-in workspace accomodates a growing number of knowledge workers employed locally or remotely.

Most recently, Jam City released Family Guy - Another Freekin' Mobile Game which the Cedar Falls team was first hired to develop!  Another Freakin' Mobile Game is one of six major launches that the company is doing in 2017.

The Iowa team sees lower costs as a win-win for employees and employers.  It puts less pressure on the salary scale, helping the employer stay cost-competitive.  Yet the Cedar Falls developers can afford homes just minutes away from work by car or bike.

"For me, living and working in Cedar Falls and the Cedar Valley was a better alternative to the high rents and congestion of other tech communities," said Dan Cash.  "Quality of life is high and cost of living is low.  With housing as affordable as it is here, I'm keeping more of my paycheck."

Jam City leaders now showcase the Cedar Falls, Iowa studio as proof that you don't need to be on the Coast or in Austin to make globally popular software and games.

For its part, the Cedar Falls Team thinks they've made the case for finding talent where it lives in the Cedar Valley of Iowa.

"It's not that anybody thought we couldn't do it," says Nick.  "They just had no frame of refence.  So our challenge was to prove it out, make sure we have the right people in the right place.  And I think we've delivered because we've already added more members to the Cedar Falls, Iowa team."

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About Jam City

Jam City (formerly SGN) is a Los Angeles-based mobile gaming company specializing in fun, colorful gaming apps for the strategic thinker.  Jam City games have been downloaded more than 800 million times and are regularly played by nearly 50 million people per month, half of whom live outside the United States.

Created in 2010 by former MySpace co-founders Chris DeWolfe and Aber Whitcomb, along with the former 20th Century Fox executive Josh Yguado, Jam City is the creative force behind 6 of the Top 100 highest grossing games across Google Play and Apple App Store.

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/68abd2ae-e0dc-49b5-8509-fb011e829d72

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/138f7f66-f51d-40ab-a412-b1a53f403778

Lisa Skubal, Vice President of Economic Development
                  Greater Cedar Valley Alliance & Chamber
                  (319) 232-1156
                  lskubal@cedarvalleyalliance.com