Striking Distance Studios leased 25,000 square feet at Bishop Ranch for a new headquarters.
SAN RAMON, CA—Video games aren’t just an at-home experience for young male fans–increasingly large-scale events are setting live attendance records, and dedicated eSports arenas are popping up around the world, according to a report by Cushman & Wakefield. One game development studio, Striking Distance Studios created by PUBG Corporation, recognizes this wide appeal in its lease of 25,000 square feet at Bishop Ranch for its new headquarters. Striking Distance Studios is an independent wholly owned subsidiary of PUBG Corporation, the developer behind the popular PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
“We’re always looking for unique and forward-thinking companies like PUBG Corporation and its new Striking Distance game studio to join our community at Bishop Ranch,” said Alexander Mehran Jr., president and chief operating officer of Sunset Development Company, owner of Bishop Ranch. “We look forward to watching the company thrive and create, and we take great pride in providing customers with innovative and complete solutions in a modern workplace.”
The CEO of the new studio is industry veteran Glen Schofield, chief executive officer of Striking Distance Studios and co-founder of Sledgehammer Games. Schofield’s game development credits include hugely popular award-winning titles, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Call of Duty: WWII.
“We consider ourselves as forward-thinking creatives and are excited to bring our state-of-the-art game studio to Bishop Ranch,” said Schofield. “Bishop Ranch and the East Bay are able to deliver the best-in-class environment that attracts amazing talent. Planting roots here was a no brainer.”
The company’s move to Bishop Ranch is scheduled to take place by February 2020. Financial terms of the lease were not disclosed. Striking Distance Studios will join neighbors Berkshire Hathaway and Cooper Companies at Bishop Ranch.
“Striking Distance Studios is at the forefront of innovation. We are excited to see them take advantage of the Bishop Ranch campus to attract talent to build their team, and continue on a path of growth and success for years to come,” Mehran tells GlobeSt.com.
Striking Distance Studios’ goal was to locate space that would allow it to create a high-caliber game studio with desirable amenities in a central location in the Bay Area, said Madeline Serafin, president of Realmark, who brokered the deal.
In the past four decades, playing video games has gone from an adolescent pastime to a global business and a burgeoning world of competition, becoming more popular than baseball, basketball and football among men age 18 to 25. According to the NewZoo 2018 Global eSports Market Report, there are currently 165 million eSports enthusiasts around the globe and another 215 million occasional viewers. To put that into perspective, the record for a Super Bowl-viewing audience is 114 million people.
Certain types of real estate locations with higher vacancies may serve as landing spots for venues to watch, participate in and/or practice eSports, according to the Cushman & Wakefield report. Some examples include malls with retail vacancies that could use eSports to fill vacancies and draw young shoppers, older suburban office locations near major cities that could utilize eSports as a repositioning strategy, as could retail locations with big-box stores that are closing some or all locations, and theme parks that have space, technology and capital to create environments where players experience games in interactive ways. Hotels can also benefit from eSports locations as an amenity and demand driver, as has been the case around the Blizzard Arena LA and the eSports Arena Las Vegas, the latter of which is situated inside the Luxor Hotel & Casino, says Cushman & Wakefield.
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Lisa Brown
Lisa Brown is an editor for the south and west regions of GlobeSt.com. She has 25-plus years of real estate experience, with a regional PR role at Grubb & Ellis and a national communications position at MMI. Brown also spent 10 years as executive director at NAIOP San Francisco Bay Area chapter, where she led the organization to achieving its first national award honors and recognition on Capitol Hill. She has written extensively on commercial real estate topics and edited numerous pieces on the subject.
