The formation of two new iPhone game development studios has come to light this week - Rockstar Leeds duo Lee Hutchinson and Matt Shepcar have established Double 11, while Activision co-founder David Crane has set up AppStar Games.
According to Develop, Double 11 will be headed by director Hutchinson, a lead engineer at Rockstar Leeds until earlier this year. Along with Shepcar, a lead programmer at Rockstar, the pair worked on numerous Grand Theft Auto projects.
“I think that a lot of developers are sick of huge all encompassing next-gen projects and want to get back to grass-roots bedroom coding like it was in the 80's and is for a lot of iPhone developers today,” Hutchinson said.
The site also reports that Activision co-founder David Crane has formed iPhone development studio AppStar Games. He will be joined by Garry Kitchen and Bill Wentworth. The trio most recently held senior positions at iPhone publisher Skyworks, which released about 40 titles.
AppStar Games will also develop titles for other wireless devices and perhaps handheld consoles, according to Develop.