Leading Leamington games publisher hires familiar face as head of growing department following successful year

Leading casual games publisher Kwalee has hired a familiar face as its new head of publishing as its department continues grow into 2020
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Simon Prytherch is well known to Kwalee CEO David Darling from their days at Codemasters.

The pair worked together for seven years on titles including LMA Manager, Club Football and Pete Sampras Tennis.

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Including his time working with David at Codemasters as Studio Head, Simon’s 31-year career in the games industry has included roles as CEO of Lightning Fish Games, Chromativity and Fluid Games, in addition to Head of Development at Empire Interactive where he also worked closely with Kwalee COO Jason Falcus.

Simon Prytherch is pictured between CEO David Darling, and COO Jason Falcus.Simon Prytherch is pictured between CEO David Darling, and COO Jason Falcus.
Simon Prytherch is pictured between CEO David Darling, and COO Jason Falcus.

Before joining Kwalee, Simon also spent three years at Amazon as Software Development Manager, learning more about how to scale a global digital business.

The publishing division itself helps third party developers to publish their games and achieve chart-topping success.

Rocket Sky! developed by DP Space AG in Moscow, was the department’s first big success, achieving over 20 million downloads.

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Following successes like Rocket Sky! and a 580 per cent increase in publishing revenue in 2019, Simon echoes Kwalee’s intent to expand the publishing side of its business in 2020 and beyond.

His long-term vision being to grow the company's externally developed games from less than ten to over 300 within three years.

The hire also comes off the back of a year where every game released by Kwalee achieved more than ten million downloads and Q4 closed with the publisher ranked number four for downloads on the App Store.

David said: “The focus of Simon and his team will be to find the new hyper-casual games that stand out from the crowd.

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"Working with developers globally to bring their ideas to market quickly, and using the Kwalee teams’ vast game design heritage to hone and improve the games, so both Kwalee and the developers share the success.

"With a history where he has successfully managed his own companies/studios and also managed external studios to great effect, Simon is the perfect fit for the role”.

Simon added: “I’m thrilled to be joining Kwalee and in turn, re-joining colleagues such as David, Jason and many other faces at such an exciting time in the business.

"The company had a brilliant 2019, but with all the Kwalee expertise, there’s a great opportunity to grow the publishing department.

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"I’m looking forward to working with developers from around the world and recruiting a world-class team.”

To find out more about Kwalee, and how it can help developers publish their games, visit: https://www.kwalee.com/publish-with-us/

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