Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Video games |
Founded | May 1999 |
Founders |
|
Headquarters | , Czech Republic |
Key people | |
Revenue | 796.1 million Kč (2016) [1] |
500.1 million Kč (2016) [1] | |
636,874,000 Czech koruna (2020) | |
Total assets | 1,032,294,000 Czech koruna (2020) |
Total equity | 471.9 million Kč (2016) [1] |
Number of employees | 400+ [2] (2023) |
Website | bohemia.net |
Bohemia Interactive a.s. is a Czech video game developer and publisher based in Prague. The company focuses on creating military simulation games such as Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis and the Arma series. It is also known for having worked on a game conversion of the DayZ mod created for Arma 2 .
Founded by Marek Španěl in May 1999, the studio released its first game in 2001, a military shooter titled Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis , which received critical acclaim and brought recognition for the studio. Following Operation Flashpoint was a series of downturns, such as porting the game to Xbox, which led to financial losses and the development of a sequel later abandoned by the publisher Codemasters. The studio fell into financial troubles until the United States Marine Corps employed the studio to create simulation games to train soldiers. A new division called Bohemia Interactive Simulations was created, and later spun off and became a standalone business entity. Following Codemasters' decision of not supporting the studio, Bohemia Interactive decided to develop a spiritual successor to Cold War Crisis titled Arma: Armed Assault . It was both a critical and financial success, spawning a number of sequels. Smaller projects such as Take On Helicopters were also released.
In 2012, Dean Hall produced DayZ , a mod for Arma 2, that prompted the studio to develop a standalone game. The same year saw the arrest of two employees of Bohemia, who were charged with espionage by Greece and jailed for 129 days. This event had significantly lowered team morale and forced the team to rename Arma 3 's setting to a fictional one.[ citation needed ] The company is working on several new projects, including making a survival game named Vigor, releasing content patches for DayZ, and developing Ylands , an adventure game which was part of Bohemia Incubator, a platform for Bohemia Interactive to release small, experimental projects.
Bohemia Interactive founder Marek Španěl aspired to become a game developer in the 1980s, after his brother was convinced to buy a TI-99/4A computer. Španěl first worked as a salesman for a game distribution company and made a 3D hovercraft simulator Gravon: Real Virtuality for Atari Falcon in 1995, which sold 400 copies only. [3] He, along with his brother, Ondřej Španěl, and business partner Slavomír Pavlíček, decided to develop a game in 1997, using the money given by his former employers. They formally founded Bohemia Interactive in May 1999. [4] [5]
The team initially wanted to develop a shooter named Rio Grande, which was described by Španěl as "a 3D clone of River Raid ". However, the team did not see the potential of the project and shifted their focus to make an open world game. [3] It then became Poseidon, which was a first-person shooter with a heavy focus on realism. At that time, the team expanded significantly, from having only one full-time programmer, to having 12 full-time employees by the end of the game's development. According to Španěl, the entire development team was very enthusiastic about the game and was focused on creating a game that they "wanted to play", thus opting not to study the works of another development team. Poseidon suffered from an extended development cycle of over three years, causing some of its technologies to become outdated. Original publisher Interactive Magic was sold in 1999 and another publisher which signed the project later wanted to abandon it. [3] The frequent changes of publishers caused uncertainties regarding the game's funding. Despite these development issues, Poseidon was successfully released in June 2001 under the official title Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis by Codemasters to critical acclaim. [6] It was shipped without any game-breaking bugs, and it became an international success, selling more than 500,000 copies in its first three months of release, as well as reaching a top position in retail sales chart across the world including US, UK, Germany and Australia. [4] The team was satisfied with the game's release, with Španěl describing it as a dream coming true. [7] Bohemia Interactive won Best Debut at the Game Developers Choice Awards, defeating strong opponents including Remedy Entertainment ( Max Payne ). [4]
Following the release of Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, the team intended to continue updating the game with post-release content, develop a port for the Xbox console, and create a sequel. [4] Projected to take only nine months to develop, the Xbox version (known as Operation Flashpoint: Elite ) was released in 2005, four years after the game's initial release. [8] The reason for the long development cycle stemmed from the team's unfamiliarity with the console's structure. With the release of a new generation of hardware including a new Xbox console, Elite's release did not gain its audience's attention. Sales were lackluster and the development suffered a huge financial loss. [4] In 2005, the company also founded the Independent Developers Association (IDEA Games) with Black Element Software and Altar Games. The organization aimed at supporting other independent game development studios with services including marketing support and negotiation with publishers. [9] Bohemia went on to acquire Black Element Software, Altar Games, and Centauri Production (a fourth IDEA Games member) in September 2010. [10] Bohemia acquired the 25 staff members, technology, and facilities of the Slovak studio Cauldron in March 2014, integrating them with Bohemia Interactive Slovakia, which had been established in 2013. [11]
In 2020 THQ Nordic acquired the entire team of Bohemia Interactive Bratislava which ceased to exist and all people joined newly created Nine Rocks Games. [12] [13] Additionally, in late 2020 30 people from Bohemia Interactive Brno were acquired by THQ Nordic and they joined newly created Ashborne Games studio. [14]
The team started developing a sequel to Operation Flashpoint, codenamed Game 2, after they cancelled their open world Western-themed project, which was described as "Flashpoint in Western" by Španěl. The team had lots of ambition for Game 2 and hoped that it would become a perfect game, thus the team began spending an excessive amount of time on small details, from doing 3D scanning of real-life weapons to modelling the player character's eyeball. However, in doing so some basics were neglected by the team, and many goals remained unattained due to the team's skill and technology status. As a result, the team constantly missed the deadlines set by publisher Codemasters. Codemasters was dissatisfied with the team's work and began looking for outside help. Bohemia disagreed with the search for outside assistance, and the two studios decided to part way with each other. With Codemasters no longer supporting the studio financially, Bohemia entered a series of financial troubles. In addition, Codemasters retained the rights to Operation Flashpoint preventing Bohemia from using the title in the future. [4]
In the early 2000s, the US Army began using a mod of the game Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, named DARWARS Ambush! , to train soldiers. In financial distress, Bohemia capitalized on its use and made a small sum of money, saving the company from falling into immediate bankruptcy. Bohemia also set up a new division called Bohemia Interactive Simulations, specializing in creating military simulation games with its Virtual Battle Space titles for armies around the world to use. Meanwhile, the main studio, realizing that they should release a game as soon as possible, decided to rework on Elite' engine and make a spiritual successor to Cold War Crisis called Armored Assault, later renamed Arma: Armed Assault . According to Španěl, the team hated the title. Bohemia decided to self-publish the game, and launched in an early access form. The game received high critical praise and great sales, sufficient to save the company. [4]
"We can't stop Codemasters from releasing a game using the words 'Operation Flashpoint'. But it is not right to promote this game as the ‘official sequel to the multi-award-winning Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis or the ‘return' of Bohemia Interactive's ‘genre-defining military conflict simulator.' The awards were given for the game created by Bohemia Interactive – not to a name."
— Marek Španěl on the promotion of Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
The development of a sequel to Arma commenced afterward. The team decided to reuse some of its assets of Game 2 for Arma 2 , and did not hold unrealistic ambitions for the game. An Xbox 360 version was planned but was later scrapped after the team thought that its power was inferior to that of personal computers. [4] During this period, Codemasters announced Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising , a game falling into competition with Bohemia's own Arma titles, as it was marketed as the true successor to Cold War Crisis. [15] Španěl was not happy with how Dragon Rising was being marketed as a return to the Operation Flashpoint series despite being created without the involvement of Bohemia. [16] The team became anxious, but found relief after viewing gameplay footage Dragon Rising', which they considered to be subpar and "[did] not come even close to what they promised". [4] Arma 2 was released in mid-2009 to high critical praise and high sales. The development team soon began work on an expansion titled Operation Arrowhead , though Codemasters took legal actions to force Bohemia to change its name due to its similarity with Operation Flashpoint. [4] In early 2010s, the company continued to develop expansions for Arma 2, and released smaller titles such as Take On Helicopters . [17]
Following the release of Operation Arrowhead, the company started development of a new Arma game, this time set in the future. The game was titled Arma Futura, in which players fight aliens, and its direction once shifting to role-playing. All of these futuristic elements were later scrapped, and were remade into a more realistic setting. The title eventually became Arma 3 . The Greek media reported in 2012 that two Czechs were arrested on the Greek island Lemnos, the setting for Arma 3 after being charged with espionage. This was later confirmed to be Martin Pezlar and Ivan Buchta, both of them employees at Bohemia Interactive. The main reason for their charge is that they took photos of military installations, which under Greek law threatened their national security. [18] Charges were refuted, and both of them insisted that they were traveling the island for entertainment only. [19] If convicted, the duo faced a 20-year sentence. This soon became a diplomatic concern, with Czech President Václav Klaus urging the Greek President to solve this issue with "special attention". [4] Bohemia also made efforts by motivating its Arma communities to petition to pressure Greece for the pair's release. During this period of time, team morale dropped. Carrier Command: Gaea Mission was released by the studio, but according to Španěl, "nobody at the studio really cared" because their friends were stranded in a foreign jail. Regardless, Pezlar and Buchta were held in prison for 129 days until the Greek government allowed them to be released on bail. [20] After this incident, the team decided to rename Arma 3's setting from Lemnos to a fictional island called "Altis". [21] Arma 3 was eventually released in September 2013 to positive critical reviews. Two mobile Arma games, Arma Tactics and Arma Mobile Ops, were released in 2013 and 2016 respectively. [22] [23] In January 2013 the investment company Riverside Co. bought Bohemia Interactive Simulations. While both companies share the engine technology due to the shared past they are now completely separate entities. [24]
In 2012, Dean Hall, an employee at Bohemia working on Arma 3, released a massively popular mod for Arma 2 named DayZ , which includes zombies as the game's main enemies. [25] Its popularity led to a resurgence in Arma 2's sales, with registered players count being raised from 500,000 to one million. Impressed with the success of DayZ, Bohemia appointed Hall to fully capitalize on it by leading the development of a standalone DayZ video game, which ensured that he would not be limited by the restraints of Arma 2. While the main goal is to transit the mod into an entirely new game, the team also intended to add more content such as base-building and improved crafting. [26] Hall eventually left Bohemia in 2014, [27] and the game remained in early access more than five years after its release in December 2013 with a final alpha release in December 2018. [28]
In November 2016, the company announced Bohemia Incubator, a platform for the development of experimental games. According to Bohemia Interactive, the incubator aimed at testing designs and concepts and getting the community involved in game development, as well as being the guidance of Bohemia's other technologies including its Enfusion engine and supporting services. Two titles were announced as part of the incubator. [29] This includes Ylands , an adventure game, and Argo , a free-to-play shooter without microtransactions released in June 2017. [30] The company is also working on Vigor, a survival game powered by Unreal Engine for the Xbox One. [31]
Tencent acquired a minority stake in Bohemia in February 2021. [32]
The company had announced a live stream for May 17 19:00 CEST, during the livestream they released Arma Reforger calling it a "milestone on the long road to Arma 4..." [33] Arma Reforger is a test bed for their new engine Enfusion. On the same livestream Bohemia announced that Arma 4 is in development, but did not give a definitive release date. [34]
Bohemia Interactive prides themselves on open communication with players. [35] The company laid out road maps in an effort to offer details on some of their post-release content, such as in the case of Arma 3 and DayZ. [36] The company also sometimes let players to help out with game design process. It invited players to the Czech studio to help with the design of the first Operation Flashpoint, and released several titles via early access, a way in which early build of a game is released for the community to test and play. [7] [37] Many of Bohemia Interactive games are moddable, a focus since the release of the Arma: Armed Assault. The company awarded players who create user-generated content with their games in 2009 during the BIS Community Awards and announced a modding competition called "Make Arma Not War", in which modders must create mods that shift Arma's focus from war into anything else. [38] [39] Bohemia Interactive also took a stance against pirating with their DEGRADE technology, which would automatically create technical issues to pirated copies. [40] For instance, in Take On Helicopters, pirated copies' visuals would be extremely blurry, whereas copies bought legitimately would not suffer from the same issue. [41] The team also bought a T-72 tank in order to express gratitude, stating: "A massive tanks goes out to everyone who has supported the studio and its games throughout the past 16 years". [42] [43]
Bohemia Interactive also had a close relationship with International Committee of the Red Cross, in which they partnered together for a special award named Health Care in Danger Special Award at the Make Arma Not War competition, and Bohemia also promised to follow some of Red Cross' suggestions on how video games should handle war crimes. [44] [45]
Bohemia Interactive specializes in making simulation games with a focus on realism. They created the military simulation game Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis in 2001, and followed it with an expansion called Operation Flashpoint: Resistance . [46] While Codemasters developed two Operation Flashpoint sequels, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising and Operation Flashpoint: Red River , the series was put on hiatus when Codemasters announced their plans to refocus on racing games. [47] Meanwhile, Bohemia followed up their first game, Cold War Crisis with a spiritual successor [48] called Arma: Armed Assault , which was followed up by two sequels, Arma 2 and Arma 3 , both of which have been critically acclaimed. [4] The developer also had another simulation franchise called Take On, which includes Take On Helicopters , which allows players to play as a helicopter pilot, and Take On Mars , in which players explore Mars. [49] However, both titles are smaller in scope when compared with the Arma franchise. [4]
Year | Title | System |
---|---|---|
2000 | Fairy Tale about Father Frost, Ivan and Nastya | Microsoft Windows |
Missing on Lost Island | Microsoft Windows | |
2001 | Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis | Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS |
2002 | Operation Flashpoint: Resistance | Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS |
2005 | Operation Flashpoint: Elite | Xbox |
2006 | Arma: Armed Assault | Microsoft Windows |
2007 | Arma: Queen's Gambit | Microsoft Windows |
2008 | Memento Mori | Microsoft Windows |
2009 | Arma 2 | Microsoft Windows |
Pat & Mat | Microsoft Windows | |
2010 | Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead | Microsoft Windows |
2010 | Alternativa | Microsoft Windows |
2011 | Take On Helicopters | Microsoft Windows |
2012 | Memento Mori 2: Guardians of Immortality [50] | Microsoft Windows |
2012 | Carrier Command: Gaea Mission | Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 |
2013 | Arma Tactics | Microsoft Windows, Shield Portable, Linux, macOS |
Arma 3 | Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux | |
2016 | Arma Mobile Ops | iOS, Android |
2017 | Take On Mars | Microsoft Windows |
Mini DayZ | iOS, Android | |
Argo | Microsoft Windows | |
2018 | DayZ | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One |
2019 | Vigor | Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 |
Ylands | Microsoft Windows, iOS, Android | |
2021 | Mini DayZ 2 | iOS, Android |
2022 | Arma Reforger | Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X/S |
2023 | Someday You'll Return: Director's Cut | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 |
Silica | Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux | |
2027 | Arma 4 | Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, and Xbox Series X/S |
TBA | Brute Horse | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S |
TBA | Skyverse | Microsoft Windows |
Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis is a 2001 tactical shooter simulation video game developed by Bohemia Interactive Studio and published by Codemasters. Set during the Cold War in 1985, the game follows United States Armed Forces personnel in various combined arms roles as they combat a rogue Soviet Armed Forces field army invading the fictional island countries of Everon and Malden.
The Codemasters Software Company Limited is a British video game developer and former publisher based in Southam, England, which is a subsidiary of American corporation Electronic Arts and managed under EA Sports division. Founded by brothers Richard and David Darling in October 1986, Codemasters is one of the oldest British game studios, and in 2005 was named the best independent video game developer by magazine Develop. It formerly also published third-party games.
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is a tactical shooter video game for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 developed and published by Codemasters. Codemasters has advertised the game as a tactical shooter designed to represent modern infantry combat realistically. It is a stand-alone sequel to Bohemia Interactive's Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, but was developed entirely by Codemasters due to a falling-out between the two companies.
Arma: Armed Assault is a 2006 tactical shooter simulation video game developed by Bohemia Interactive and published by 505 Games in Europe and Atari in North America for Microsoft Windows. It is the first installment in the Arma series and is a spiritual successor to the 2001 video game Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, which was also developed by Bohemia. Set on the fictional Atlantic island of Sahrani, the game follows United States Armed Forces military advisors as they are caught in the midst of a conflict between the two rivalling nations on the island.
Feral Interactive Limited is a British video games developer and publisher for macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows platforms. It was founded in 1996 to bring games to Mac and specialises in porting games to different platforms.
DARWARS was a research program at DARPA intended to accelerate the development and deployment of military training systems. These were envisioned as low-cost, mobile, web-centric, simulation-based, “lightweight” systems designed to take advantage of the ubiquitous presence of the PC and of new technology, including multi-player games, virtual worlds, off-the-shelf PC simulations, intelligent agents, and on-line communities. The project started in 2003 under the leadership of DARPA Program Manager Dr. Ralph Chatham, a former U.S. Navy officer.
Arma 2 is a 2009 tactical shooter simulation video game developed and published by Bohemia Interactive for Microsoft Windows. It is the second main entry in the Arma series and the third installment in the series overall. The game is set in the fictional Eastern European country of Chernarus during a civil war between the Chernarussian government and communist revolutionaries, and follows escalating tensions when the United States Marine Corps is deployed to defeat the rebels.
FADE is digital rights management software developed by Codemasters. FADE operates by checking whether a game has been pirated; if it has, it initially allows the game to run normally, but deliberately alters gameplay mechanics over time to make the game difficult, if not outright unplayable.
Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead is a standalone expansion pack to Bohemia Interactive's tactical shooter Arma 2. Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead includes three new multiplayer maps, new vehicles and equipment, new factions, along with a new campaign.
Operation Flashpoint is a series of military simulation games. The first game, Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis and its expansions Operation Flashpoint: Red Hammer and Operation Flashpoint: Resistance, was developed by Bohemia Interactive Studio. The second games, comprising Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising and Operation Flashpoint: Red River, were developed by Codemasters. There is also a spiritual sequel series to the original game made by Bohemia Interactive Studio, Arma.
Arma 3 is an open world tactical shooter simulation video game developed and published by Bohemia Interactive exclusively through the Steam distribution platform. It is the third main entry in the Arma series, and the eighth installment in the series overall. Arma 3 was released for Microsoft Windows on September 12, 2013, and for macOS and Linux on August 31, 2015.
DayZ is a multiplayer open world survival third-person shooter modification designed by Dean Hall for the 2009 tactical shooter video game Arma 2 and its 2010 expansion pack, Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead. The mod places the player in the fictional post-Soviet state of Chernarus, where a mysterious plague has infected most of the population, turning people into violent zombies. As a survivor with limited resources, the player must scavenge the world for supplies such as food, water, weapons and medicine, while killing or avoiding both zombies and other players, and sometimes non-player characters, in an effort to survive the zombie apocalypse.
Dean "Rocket" Hall is a video game designer from New Zealand. He is best known for creating the zombie apocalypse PC game DayZ, which began as a mod and was later developed into its own game under the same title. Hall left the DayZ development team in 2014 to found his own studio, Rocketwerkz.
Operation Flashpoint: Red Hammer, also known as Operation Flashpoint: Gold Upgrade, is an expansion pack to Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis. It was developed by Codemasters.
Operation Flashpoint: Resistance is an expansion pack to Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis. It was developed by Bohemia Interactive, authors of the original game, and published by Codemasters. It is the second expansion of Operation Flashpoint, the first one being Operation Flashpoint: Red Hammer, which was developed by Codemasters. Resistance was later re-released as part of ArmA: Cold War Assault.
Arma is a series of first- and third-person military tactical shooters developed by Czech game developer Bohemia Interactive and originally released for Microsoft Windows. The series centers around realistic depictions of modern warfare from various perspectives. Arma was originally conceived as a spiritual successor to Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis after Bohemia Interactive lost the intellectual rights to the series. The first installment was released in 2006 and the most recent in 2022.
The video game industry in the Czech Republic has produced numerous globally successful video games such as Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis and the subsequent ArmA series, the Mafia series, Truck Simulator series, the Kingdom Come: Deliverance series, the Samorost series and others. There were 300–400 video game developers and around 30 video game companies focusing on video game development in 2014. In 2017, the country had 1,100 developers and 47 companies. Video games are also considered by some experts to be the country's biggest cultural export. The video game industry did not enjoy a good reputation and was unsupported by the state until 2013, when the Ministry of Industry and Trade started to seek ways to kickstart the economy. By 2014, programs were planned to support the video game industry. Another problem is a lack of video game development specialization at any university.
Gravon: Real Virtuality is a 1995 video game developed by Suma. The game originally was released for Atari Falcon and later ported to Microsoft Windows in 2013 and packed as a bonus game to Take On Mars. The famous game Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis is considered to be a spiritual successor to Gravon.
Argo is a free-to-play multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Bohemia Interactive. The initial prototype of the game, Project Argo, was released on 1 November 2016 as part of Bohemia Incubator. The game was released as Argo on 22 June 2017. On June 26, 2018, the developers announced that official servers are shutting down, only allowing unofficial server support. Servers were shut down on December 15, 2021.