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ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL — Incredible Technologies has acquired State Street Games, a videogame software developer based in Chicago’s western suburbs.
IT president and chief executive Elaine Hodgson said she expects “a strong period of growth during the next few years” for her company. The acquisition aims to help the videogame maker, best known for its long-running Golden Tee golf series, deliver more products to the coin-op market faster, the company said.
WELCOME: Former staffers from State Street Games joining IT West, from l., are Steve Gehrke, Joe Chang, Jim Terdina and Mike Lanasa.
Four former SSG staff members, including experienced programmers, graphic artists and technical specialists, were hired by IT. They will continue working in their original offices under the informal name “IT West.” Separately, IT said it has hired additional creative and technical experts from various other companies.
Joining IT from SSG are Jim Terdina, game programmers Joe Chang and Mike Lanasa and artist Steve Gehrke. All are veterans of the videogame industry, having worked at various companies such as Midway and Electronic Arts.
Other new hires include game programmer David Pasquinelli, previously at Digiot, where he was responsible for optimizing artificial intelligence for games made for the T-Mobile Sidekick; Web developer Brendan Dite, formerly a software consultant assisting on numerous Java projects at Sogeti USA; and former Neopong game programmer Waison Cheng, who has programmed Nintendo games.
Francisco “Patch” Paz is IT’s new composer and sound engineer, an experienced tunesmith whose works have graced three WMS Pac-Man games as well as numerous syndicated Paramount TV shows such as Entertainment Tonight, Dr. Phil and others.
Former Best Buy graphic artist Mike Sanchez also joined the company.
Tauseef Ahmand, IT’s new database administrator, previously worked for Discover Financial and Federal Express. Tino Kalafatis has returned to the company from a stint with Electronic Arts, and will be the senior software engineer. He played a key role in the development of IT’s most successful game, Golden Tee Golf, and also assisted on Silver Strike Bowling. | 
