Even though several gaming companies in the area have been experiencing a round of layoffs and financial setbacks, mobile gaming giant GREE is opening an office in Vancouver. This comes as another phase of their expansion into American territory, as the #1 Japanese social network launched an office in San Francisco earlier this year.

According to GamesIndustry, the team will be completely new, and will be launch a game by next year:

The new studio will be headed up by OpenFeint vet Steve Lin, who also has experience working at Google. Lin will manage a full team currently being hired. The team is looking for engineers, producers and artists to ramp up production with the hope of launching a new game in six to eight months.

Currently, GREE’s U.S. operations include the support and publishing of several mobile games, including Zombie Jombie, Alien Family, Modern War, and Dragon Ark.

GREE made a large into the mobile market during this expansion by acquiring social gaming service OpenFient for over $100 million dollars, as reported in the first quarter of 2011.

Source: GamesIndustry