Nottingham, UK – Thursday, November 10, 2022 – Leading British metaverse game developer and publisher Lockwood Publishing has revealed the appointment of three strategic hires: Ivee Feria-Padua, Jay Cho and Ketan Vachhani.
Stepping in as Director of Production, Jay Cho joins Lockwood from Jagex, having previously been the Lead Producer on Old School RuneScape. He will head up Lockwood’s development teams and enable the company to continue the development of its Avakin Life, the leading mobile metaverse experience, as well as other projects.
Jay has been developing games for more than 20 years, having begun his career at Xenon Games working on MMORPG MooC Online before moving on to Producer and Director roles at Eyasoft and Smilegate in Korea. He was then a Producer at EA where he was responsible for online F2P and mobile game development of AAA franchise titles.
Ivee Feria-Padua joins as Product Director. Ivee has been in the gaming industry for 17 years, having worked at Jagex, Playdeo, King and Ubisoft on diverse games genres across various platforms and revenue models. She has experience in product management, leadership, analysis and business intelligence and has worked in UX design, operations and community management.
Lastly, Ketan Vachhani joins as Director of Cyber Security, from Investis Digital, and brings in 20 years of experience in web, enterprise IT & cloud security and information governance projects. He will be heading up the product security team.
Lockwood Publishing CEO Halli Bjornsson said: "Jay, Ivee and Ketan have impressive career histories with a wealth of games industry experience, and we’re excited to see what they will bring to Lockwood. As we mature and transition into the future of gaming, this talent will prove invaluable to our efforts to build on the success of Avakin Life and explore new experiences for our community.
"Being able to attract such strong talent gives us the unique opportunity to show the immense possibilities that games such as Avakin Life have in the metaverse. We have exciting plans for its evolution and look forward to seeing how this space develops over the coming months.”
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Press contact: jon.goddard@lockwood-publishing.com or lockwood@fiveinaboat.com
About Lockwood Publishing
Founded in 2009, Lockwood Publishing is a leading independent UK company that specialises in developing virtual worlds for console and mobile platforms. The award-winning team is headquartered in Nottingham with further studios in Newcastle, Lisbon and Vilnius. For more information about Lockwood Publishing, go to www.lockwoodpublishing.com
About Avakin Life
Avakin Life is a social 3D avatar-based metaverse for mobile launched in 2013. Its global community consists of more than 200million downloads and 1.3million daily active users, who design their avatars using more than 30,000 virtual items and accessories, including real world brands. In Avakin Life, players become avatars that explore, create and meet others in a rich and ever-changing virtual world. For more information Avakin Life, go to www.avakin.com