4J STUDIOS, the growing Dundee video games development business of entrepreneur Chris van der Kuyl, has reported another year of profit, the com-pany's accounts have revealed.

Mr van der Kuyl was on holiday yesterday and could not be reached for comment.

However, industry insiders said the company’s results reflected “increased activity” in the Scottish digital games sector after the collapse of Realtime Worlds, which closed last year under the weight of its debts.

4J Studios, which employs 15 full-time staff, filed its latest accounts under special Companies Act provisions, which allow small companies to produce abbreviated financial statements, and no pre-tax profit or turnover figures were available.

The business, which has developed a number of popular games, such as Star Trek: Conquest, Banjo-Kazooie, Wuggle and Perfect Dark, for console game systems including Microsoft’s Xbox, Sony’s PlayStation, Nintendo’s Wii and DS systems and Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, posted a retained profit of £82,865 for the year to the end of October 2010.

Mr van der Kuyl, who is best-known as the founder of now-defunct Dundee-based computer games developer VIS Entertainment, is also the chief executive of Brightsolid, the IT business owned by Dundee media dynasty DC Thomson.

The company was established in 2005 by Mr van der Kuyl, the chief executive and non-executive director, and two other former VIS Entertainment developers, Paddy Burns and Frank Arnot.

4J’s accounts also reveal that at the end of the year, £377,490 was “due to the company” by Mr van der Kuyl and £228,796 was “due to the company” by Mr Burns.

The accounts added: “It is intended that these amounts will be repaid with nine months of the year end.”