Simon Prytherch joins Kwalee as its new head of publishing

Publisher Kwalee has hired Simon Prytherch as its new head of publishing.

Prytherch has most recently worked at Amazon as a software development manager but had previously worked with Kwalee’s CEO at Codemasters. His 31-year career in the games industry has included roles as CEO of Lightning Fish Games, Chromativity, and Fluid Games, as well as head of development at Empire Interactive where he also worked closely with Kwalee COO, Jason Falcus. 

The publishing division is described as helping third party developers publish their games “and achieve chart-topping success” which last year reports a 580 per cent increase in publishing revenue. Prytherch says he echoes Kwalee’s “intent to expand the publishing side of its business in 2020 and beyond” and his long-term vision is to “grow the company’s externally developed games from less than 10 to over 300 within three years”.

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

“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,” Prytherch said. “The company had a brilliant 2019, but with all the Kwalee expertise, there’s a great opportunity to grow the publishing department. I’m looking forward to working with developers from around the world and recruiting a world-class team.”

Kwalee says the hire “comes off the back of a year where every game released by [the publisher] achieved more than 10 million downloads and Q4 closed with the publisher ranked number 4 for downloads on the App Store”.