In Nordic mythology, Asgard is a location associated with the gods. It appears in a multitude of Old Norse sagas and mythological texts. It is described as the fortified home of the Æsir gods, often associated with gold imagery. Many of the best-known Nordic gods are Æsir or live in Asgard such as Odin, Thor, Loki, and Baldr.
Vinland, Vineland, or Winland was an area of coastal North America explored by Vikings. Leif Eriksson landed there around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. The name appears in the Vinland Sagas, and describes Newfoundland and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence as far as northeastern New Brunswick. Much of the geographical content of the sagas corresponds to present-day knowledge of transatlantic travel and North America.
Interplay Entertainment Corp. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions by developers Brian Fargo, Jay Patel, Troy Worrell, and Rebecca Heineman, as well as investor Chris Wells. As a developer, Interplay is best known as the creator of the Fallout series and as a publisher for the Baldur's Gate and Descent series.
Origin Systems, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. It was founded on March 3, 1983, by Richard Garriott and his brother Robert. Origin is best known for their groundbreaking work in multiple genres of video games, such as the Ultima and Wing Commander series. The company was purchased by Electronic Arts in 1992.
Stargate SG-1: The Alliance is a cancelled first and third person shooter video game based around the television series Stargate SG-1. The game had been intended for release on Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Windows. Set during the eighth season of Stargate SG-1, players would have taken control of the four original characters from the television series; General Jack O'Neill, Colonel Samantha Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson and Teal'c.
The Creative Assembly Limited is a British video game developer based in Horsham, founded in 1987 by Tim Ansell. In its early years, the company worked on porting games to MS-DOS from Amiga and ZX Spectrum platforms, later working with Electronic Arts to produce a variety of games under the EA Sports brand. In 1999, the company had sufficient resources to attempt a new and original project, proceeding to develop the strategy computer game Shogun: Total War which was a critical and commercial hit, and is regarded as a benchmark strategy game. Subsequent titles in the Total War series built on the success of Shogun: Total War, increasing the company's critical and commercial success.
The Norse mythology, preserved in such ancient Icelandic texts as the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, and other lays and sagas, was little known outside Scandinavia until the 19th century. With the widespread publication of Norse myths and legends at this time, references to the Norse gods and heroes spread into European literary culture, especially in Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain. In the later 20th century, references to Norse mythology became common in science fiction and fantasy literature, role-playing games, and eventually other cultural products such as Japanese animation. Storytelling was an important aspect of Norse mythology and centuries later, with the rediscovery of the myth, Norse mythology once again relies on the impacts of storytelling to spread its agenda.
Rockstar Productions GmbH was an Austrian video game developer and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Vienna. Peter Baustädter, Niki Laber, and Hannes Seifert founded the studio as Neo Software in January 1993 when they neared the completion of Whale's Voyage. The game led Neo Software to early success, as did 1994's The Clue!, which sold over a million copies, and enabled the company to relocate from Seifert's house in Hirtenberg to Vienna. After Neo Software's Alien Nations sold more than a million copies in 1999, Computec Media acquired a majority stake in the company, seeking it to produce online games. It then sold the studio and several other businesses to Gameplay.com in February 2000, which sold Neo Software to Take-Two Interactive in January 2001 in exchange for a Take-Two subsidiary Gameplay.com had obtained earlier.
Stargate Worlds was to be a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) video game, but it was put on hold and never released. It was developed by Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment (CME) in association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and would have been published by FireSky for Microsoft Windows. The game's setting was based on the military science fiction series Stargate SG-1. The game was to focus on a premise set around an ancient device called the "Stargate".
JoWooD Entertainment AG was an Austrian video game publisher that was founded in 1995. JoWooD went into administration in 2011 and all assets were purchased by Nordic Games.
Germany has the second-largest video games market in Europe, with 44.3 million gamers in 2018, after Russia. Consumers in Germany spent €5.87 billion on video games over the course of 2021, a 3 percent year-on-year increase from 2020. The video game market in Germany grew by 6 percent to €6.2 billion in 2019.
Larian Studios is a Belgian video game developer and publisher founded in 1996 by Swen Vincke. It focuses on developing role-playing video games and has previously worked on educational games and a number of casino games. It is best known for developing the Divinity series, and Baldur's Gate III.
Russobit-M is defunct distributor of PC games in Russia and the CIS. It served an important role in PC game distribution in the Post-Soviet states. In 2003 it partnered with GFI to release game software and DVDs throughout Russia.
Dept. Heaven is a series of video games developed by Sting's Product Team A, headed by Shinichi Ito. Currently there are five known episodes, with four already released as well as three spin-off games. JaJa explained in his blog that the numbering system is more of a goal in originality of game design, for example, with Episode II being more original than Episode I but not as much as Episode III.
Deck13 Interactive GmbH is a German video game developer and publisher based in Frankfurt. The company was founded in July 2001 by the team behind Artex Software, a studio that primarily developed video games for RISC OS, such as Ankh: The Tales of Mystery. Originally bearing the name TriggerLab, the company was renamed to Deck13 after the release of its first game, Stealth Combat, in 2002. Deck13 is best known for developing the action role-playing games Lords of the Fallen and The Surge. Deck13 also operates a Hamburg-based subsidiary studio, Deck13 Hamburg.
The Xbox is a home video game console manufactured by Microsoft that is the first installment in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was released as Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market on November 15, 2001, in North America, followed by Australia, Europe and Japan in 2002. It is classified as a sixth-generation console, competing with Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube. It was also the first major console produced by an American company since the release of the Atari Jaguar in 1993.
GamersGate AB is a Sweden-based online video game store offering electronic strategy guides and games for Windows, macOS, and Linux via direct download. It is a competitor to online video game services such as Steam, GOG.com, and Direct2Drive.
The AFL video game series is a series of Australian rules football video games based on the AFL. Released originally by Beam Software, it has since been developed by several other game developers.
CD Projekt S.A. is a Polish video game developer, publisher and distributor based in Warsaw, founded in May 1994 by Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński. Iwiński and Kiciński were video game retailers before they founded the company, which initially acted as a distributor of foreign video games for the domestic market. The department responsible for developing original games, CD Projekt Red, best known for The Witcher series, was formed in 2002. In 2008, CD Projekt launched the digital distribution service Good Old Games, now known as GOG.com.
Cultures: Discovery of Vinland is a 2000 real-time strategy and city-building game developed by Funatics Software and published by Phenomedia. It is the first entry in the Cultures series.
