(Essex, UK) Two university graduates from England have decided to use the recession as an opportunity to set up their own business and launch an online gangster game. With more people choosing to stay at home, David Heward and Elliot Reeve hope to exploit this by getting them to play their modern online gangster game, Street Crime.

The two childhood friends from Maldon in Essex have been working on a beta version of the game for the past 2 years. Dave initially built the first version of the game for fun whilst studying Business Administration at the University of Kent. With no computer programming experience, Dave set about creating the game using books and online material. After graduating, he decided to set up business with Elliot and focus on bringing Street Crime to the masses.

Street crime is a refreshing, gritty take on the gangster game genre offering a range of activities from petty crimes like robbing a paper shop, through to grand theft autos and more advanced organised crimes.

Elliot Reeve explains, "As an online game, it can be played from any computer with a web browser and an Internet connection, and we now have nearly 10,000 players, with hundreds more signing up every day. Players join gangs and compete to take control of land in different cities such as New York, London, Tokyo, Rome. Right now, people are going out less for entertainment, and spending more time on their PC - so it made sense to take advantage of this.".

NOTES TO EDITORS

Street Crime is produced by the pair's company, Bytewire Limited. It's potential was spotted at the end of 2008 by a hampshire-based online publisher, Fubra Limited, who invested in the firm.

The online games market is worth $1 billion annually and is growing by 22% each year.

For further enquiries, please contact us via email: bytewire@bytewire.co.uk.