San Francisco-based online videogame maker Kixeye is opening a new game development studio in Victoria, B.C.

The Canadian branch is the second international studio (it has another one in Brisbane, Australia) for the California company, best known for making the games Backyard Monsters, Battle Pirates and War Commander.

Newly appointed general manager, Clayton Stark, is leading Kixeye’s efforts to hire technical and creative talent in what is his hometown, Kixeye said in a statement.

Over the next year the company is looking to hire about 50 people for the studio, Playback was told.

Stark is a 20-year gaming industry veteran; previously he was chief operating officer at Mercurial Communications, which worked on the 8.0 browser for Netscape, and was the chief technology officer and VP of engineering at Flock, creators of a so-called social browser, which was acquired by Zynga in 2010.

He stayed on to serve as director of development.