GlobalStep Announces Montreal Expansion with Acquisition of Bug-Tracker
GlobalStep is heading to Montréal to take advantage of two things the city knows best: AI and video games.
The Dallas-based GlobalStep, a video game quality assurance and data analytics company, has announced plans to establish a major presence in Montreal as part of a global expansion program. The company manages risk and mitigation during video game development through localization, live operations support, test automation and more.
In order to establish themselves in Montreal, GlobalStep has reportedly acquired Bug-Tracker, a game testing studio that operates in many of the areas GlobalStep itself specializes in. Bug-Tracker currently has 200 employees in Montreal.
The new entity will be known as GlobalStep and will provide clients with a more comprehensive suite of services, focusing on data analytics and smart manual testing.
“Montreal is a great location with a tremendous creative ecosystem for the games industry, a large pool of talent, and a multilingual and multicultural environment,” said Gagan Ahluwalia, CEO of GlobalStep. “Our new operations in Montreal will add localization capability to our portfolio of services as well as greater flexibility and geographic reach in serving our customers.
“Some of the initiatives we are considering in Montreal include the further development of Artificial Intelligence in data analytics for video games,” he added.
Organizations flocking to Montreal to take advantage of the AI scene is not new, as companies including Facebook and Stradigi have recently opened labs in the field. Mixing AI with video games is a natural fit as well, considering the city has several massive offices from developers like Electronic Arts and Ubisoft. In fact, Ubisoft recently pledged $780 million to open two new offices and hire more than 1,000 people over the next 10 years.
“This acquisition allows us to accelerate our business expansion by leveraging our newly established Montreal base and we look forward to expanding the team to service our growing customer base,” said Ahluwalia.
The acquisition total was undisclosed.
