L.A. MAY LURE GAME MAKER; NEW YORK'S GT INTERACTIVE CONSIDERS SITE CLOSER TO RIVALS.Byline: Ben Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer One of the biggest names in videogame production will move from New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. to Los Angeles to be closer to competitors such as Calabasas-based THQ THQ Toy Headquarters THQ Territorial Headquarters THQ Tehsil Headquarters (Pakistan) THQ The Holy Quran THQ Theater Headquarters Inc., an industry journal reported this week. MCV MCV mean corpuscular volume. MCV abbr. mean corpuscular volume Mean corpuscular volume (MCV) A measure of the average volume of a red blood cell. , a business weekly that tracks the $6 billion-per-year videogame market, said the new chief executive at Manhattan-based GT Interactive Software Corp. told his staff that he plans to move much of the firm's headquarters from the Big Apple to the Big Orange in the coming months. The executive, Thomas Heymann, headed the The Disney Store chain before he left the Burbank-based Walt Disney Co. Heymann took over as chief executive and chairman of the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of software firm Feb. 9. GT Interactive is one of the nation's top game makers for the PC, Macintosh, Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64 platforms. For the nine months that ended Dec. 31, the company generated sales of $479.3 million on games such as the ``Doom'' series, ``Duke Nukem: Time to Kill,'' ``Deer Hunter'' and ``Deer Hunter II.'' Less homicidal hom·i·cid·al adj. 1. Of or relating to homicide. 2. Capable of or conducive to homicide: a homicidal rage. titles include ``Blue's Birthday Party.'' By moving the company to Southern California, Heymann would put it closer to THQ, Interplay and Activision, as well as the gaming wings of movie studios Sony, Universal Studios, Warner Bros BROS Brothers BROS Benefits and Retirement Operations Section (King County, Washington) BROS Barnes and Richmond Operatic Society (London, UK) . and DreamWorks SKG SKG Stichting Kwaliteit Gevelbouw (Dutch) SKG Spielberg, Katzenberg,and Geffen (DreamWorks Studios) SKG Thessaloniki, Greece - Thessaloniki (Airport Code) SKG Smith and Kraus Global . But precisely where the Manhattan firm might set up shop is open to debate. Rohit Shukla, executive director of the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance, said the most likely move would be to the West Los Angeles
``If a company is just getting started in town, they need to be around other people, breathe the dust, that sort of thing,'' Shukla said. A third option would be Culver City, he said, largely because of the presence of Sony. GT Interactive releases software under a number of labels, including Humongous Entertainment, Cavedog Entertainment and Oddworld Inhabitants. Heymann was unavailable for comment Thursday on the possible move, and a company spokesman would not comment on the MCV story. ``The short of it is, this isn't the time for us to discuss plans being considered,'' said spokesman John Uppendahl. If the company moves, Heymann will almost certainly lose some staff members reluctant to make the switch. And that may be part of his plan, since the Los Angeles area probably has more videogame programmers than any other part of the country. So far, however, local players say they haven't had any employees give notice to join GT in new Los Angeles offices. |
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