Westwood Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in 1985 as Brelous Software, but got changed after 2 months into Westwood Associates and was renamed to Westwood Studios when Virgin Games bought the company in 1992. The company was bought by Electronic Arts alongside Virgin Interactive's North American operations in 1998. In January 2003, it was announced that Westwood, alongside Westwood Pacific, would be merged into EA Los Angeles. The main studio location closed in March of that year.
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one of the largest third-party video game publishers in the world and was the top United States publisher in 2016.
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, including the first such game, Mystery House. It is known for its graphical adventure game series King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Gabriel Knight, Leisure Suit Larry, and Quest for Glory, and as the original publisher of Valve's Half-Life series.
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the designers and programmers responsible for its games as "software artists". EA published numerous games and some productivity software for personal computers, all of which were developed by external individuals or groups until 1987's Skate or Die!. The company shifted toward internal game studios, often through acquisitions, such as Distinctive Software becoming EA Canada in 1991.
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993.
2004 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Madden NFL 2005, NBA Live 2005, ESPN NBA 2K5, Tony Hawk's Underground 2, WWE Smackdown! vs. Raw, Doom 3, Dragon Quest VIII, Gran Turismo 4, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater,Ninja Gaiden, Pokémon FireRed/LeafGreen/Emerald, Everybody's Golf 4, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, and World of Warcraft. New intellectual properties included Fable, Far Cry, FlatOut, Killzone, Katamari Damacy, Monster Hunter, N, Red Dead Revolver, SingStar, and Sacred. The Nintendo DS was also launched that year.
Disney Interactive Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher owned by The Walt Disney Company through Disney Interactive. Prior to its closure in 2016, it developed and distributed multi-platform video games and interactive entertainment worldwide.
1998 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as F-Zero X, Marvel vs. Capcom, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, Pocket Monsters: Pikachu, Resident Evil 2, Sonic Adventure, Street Fighter Alpha 3, The House of the Dead 2, Fallout 2 and Tomb Raider III, along with new titles such as Banjo-Kazooie, Dance Dance Revolution, Gex: Enter the Gecko, Half-Life, MediEvil, Parasite Eve, Radiant Silvergun, Spyro the Dragon, StarCraft and Xenogears. Earlier arcade video games such as Virtua Fighter 3 and Tekken 3 were also ported that year for home consoles.
1997 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Final Fantasy VII, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, GoldenEye 007, Star Fox 64, Tomb Raider II, Ultima Online, and Virtua Striker 2, along with new titles such as Everybody's Golf, I.Q.: Intelligent Qube, PaRappa the Rapper, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, Gran Turismo, Diablo, Grand Theft Auto and Fallout.
Distinctive Software, Inc. was a Canadian video game developer established in Burnaby, British Columbia, by Don Mattrick and Jeff Sember after their success with the game Evolution. Mattrick and Jeff Sember approached Sydney Development Corporation, who agreed to publish Evolution in 1982. Distinctive Software was known in the late 1980s and early 1990s for their racing and sports video games, including the Test Drive series, Stunts, 4D Boxing, and Hardball II. In 1991, Distinctive was acquired by Electronic Arts in a deal worth US$10 million and became EA Canada, which is where the most EA Sports branded games are developed.
Criterion Games is a British video game developer based in Guildford. Founded in January 1996 as a division of Criterion Software, it was owned by Canon Inc. until Criterion Software was sold to Electronic Arts in October 2004. Many of Criterion Games' titles were built on the RenderWare engine, which Criterion Software developed. Notable games developed by Criterion Games include racing video games in the Burnout and Need for Speed series. As of April 2017, Criterion Games employ approximately 90 people.
Warner Bros. Games is an American video game publisher based in Burbank, California, and part of the Global Streaming and Interactive Entertainment unit of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). The publisher was founded as Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment on January 14, 2004, under Warner Bros. Entertainment and transferred to its Home Entertainment division when that company was formed in October 2005. Warner Bros. Games manages the wholly owned game development studios TT Games, Rocksteady Studios, NetherRealm Studios, Monolith Productions, WB Games Boston, Avalanche Software, and WB Games Montréal, among others.
Radical Entertainment Inc. is a Canadian video game developer based in Vancouver. The studio is best known for developing The Simpsons: Hit & Run (2003), Prototype (2009) and Prototype 2 (2013), as well as entries in the Crash Bandicoot franchise. Radical Entertainment was founded in September 1991 by Rory Armes. Dave Davis, and Ian Wilkinson. It was acquired by Vivendi Games in 2005 and transferred to Activision in 2008. The studio faced significant layoffs in 2010 and 2012, with the latter causing it to cease development of original games and only support other Activision studios.
EA Orlando is an American video game developer located in Orlando, Florida founded in 1994. It was formerly known as Tiburon Entertainment, which was acquired by Electronic Arts in 1998. After the acquisition, the studio was renamed EA Tiburon. EA had already purchased a minority equity interest in Tiburon in May 1996, the terms of which included that Tiburon would develop games exclusively for EA.
Victor Interactive Software, Inc. was a Japanese video game software publisher and developer, established on October 1, 1996 as a division of Victor Entertainment. Their first game was Fish Eyes and their last game was Fish Eyes 3.
Telekinesys Research Limited (TR), doing business as Havok Group, is an Irish software company founded on 9 July 1998 by Hugh Reynolds and Steven Collins, based in Dublin, Ireland, and owned by Microsoft's Ireland Research subsidiary. They have partnerships with Activision, Electronic Arts, Nintendo, Xbox Game Studios, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Bethesda Softworks and Ubisoft.
DROsoft was a Spanish computer and video game software distributor headquartered in Madrid. The company was founded in 1985 out of DRO Records, Spain's first independent record label. It is considered to have played a part in the golden age of Spanish software, having been described as one of the "principal distributors" of the age.
Vision Software was a computer and video game software distributor, headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was founded in 1990. The company had regional offices in the cities of Durban and Cape Town, and had a high amount of growth in sales to Kenya, and to neighbors of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and Eswatini.
Danger Close Games was an American video game developer based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in March 1995 as joint venture between DreamWorks SKG and Microsoft under the name DreamWorks Interactive, with studios in Redmond, Washington, and Los Angeles.
