PHL Collective: new Center City game studio is staffed with local grads

PHL Collective, one of the newest game studios in Philadelphia, is proud to say that many of its 10 staffers are graduates from local universities: Penn, Drexel and the University of the Arts.

In an email, founder Nick Madonna described his team as “brilliant people we want to keep in Philly rather than lose them to other game/tech heavy cities.” He credited Nathan Solomon‘s Philadelphia Game Lab when it came to helping him connect with local universities.

Madonna himself is a native Philadelphian. The developer who’s worked on games like F.E.A.R., Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary and TimeShift grew up in South Philly, he said. He lives in Havertown now but is planning a move back into the city.

Based at Center City coworking space Benjamin’s Desk, PHL Collective will not have one focus, Madonna told Geekadelphia.

“What we don’t want is to have a ‘wheelhouse,'” he said. “We don’t want to be the shooter, fighter, or racing studio. We want to try it all.”

The studio’s first title is a mobile game is “a mix of old school arcade action and RPG elements,” he said.

Read more in this Q&A with Geekadelphia.