Type | Sociedad Anónima |
---|---|
Industry | Video game |
Predecessor | Microdigital Soft |
Founded | 1993 |
Founder | Pablo Ruiz Tejedor Víctor Ruiz Tejedor Nacho Ruiz Tejedor Carlos Abril José Ignacio Gómez-Centurión |
Defunct | 21 September 2001 |
Headquarters | Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain |
Products | PC Fútbol series |
Dinamic Multimedia was a Spanish software house and publisher created in 1993 which was created after the bankruptcy of Dinamic Software in 1992 by some of its former members. After having released several titles, they filed for bankruptcy in September 2001.
The "jewel in the crown" of the company was the PC Fútbol series, which featured an annual installment for a decade. Originally only featuring the Spanish leagues, later versions were developed for Italy (PC Calcio) and Argentina (PC Fútbol Apertura and Clausura). For the broader English market, EuroLeague Football was released in 2000, following a brief licensing of the Premier Manager franchise in the late 1990s. Dinamic also released other sports games, such as PC Basket, PC Atletismo or Eurotour Cycling, as well as adventure games such as Hollywood Monsters , one of the biggest projects in Spanish game development history. Most of the house titles and Spanish-produced games were marketed as budget titles and were fiercely championed by the local gaming press. In their late years, Dinamic expanded to Italy (in 1997) and distributed several titles in Spain, including high-profile titles such as Flying Corps Gold , Blade Runner , Sega Rally Championship 2 and Shogo . One of the other games such as Toyland Racing has sold 35,000 copies in Spain. [1]
In 1999, the Ruíz brothers and Carlos Abril left the company on disagreements with the main owner, and co-founded FX Interactive.
Dinamic fell into financial turmoil during the first half of 2001. [2] The publisher's ventures related to the dot-com bubble—such as the massively multiplayer online role-playing game La Prisión —proved unsuccessful, and the company was caught in the global dot-com collapse. [3] By early March, rumors had spread that Dinamic was in danger of closing. [4] The company responded that only its online division was being shuttered, and traditional game projects such as Runaway: A Road Adventure were not in jeopardy, despite their delays. [5] [4] However, key faculty secretly departed Dinamic to join Pyro Studios during the period, [6] and Dinamic entered receivership and cut 39 jobs in late March. Dinamic owed a significant debt of 1.5 billion pesetas to multiple creditors by this time. [7] On 24 September, Dinamic announced its liquidation, following its financial upheaval earlier in the year. [8] Although certain commentators had speculated that Runaway's sales would save the publisher, [9] it was ultimately Dinamic's last published title. [10]
Dinamic's bankruptcy came as a major blow to the domestic game market: at the time, a writer for VNUNet reported the closure as "bad news ... for the battered Spanish game software industry". [11] In retrospect, David Navarro of MarcaPlayer called it "probably the most traumatic event that the Spanish video game industry has experienced in history". [12]
Dinamic Multimedia published the following games: [13]
Premier Manager is a series of a football management video games started in 1992. Published by Gremlin Interactive, it was first developed by Realms of Fantasy, later passed to Spanish company Dinamic Multimedia. The later games were later published and developed by Zoo Digital Publishing, who bought the rights from Infogrames and hired some members of the original Gremlin staff. The latest releases in the series were developed by Urbanscan Limited, a company established by Gremlin founder Ian Stewart.
Dinamic Software was a Spanish video game producer and publishing company. It was founded in 1984, and its activity ceased in 1992, comprising the Golden Era of Spanish Software. One year later, a part of its owners founded an independent company named Dinamic Multimedia. At the end of the 1980s, another company, Aventuras AD destined to produce text adventures, was born from Dinamic Software.
PC Fútbol was a series of football management simulation games developed by Spanish developers Dinamic Multimedia. It was one of the big successes in the Spanish PC market, spawning several titles from 1992 until the studio's closure in 2001. The series was later revived in 2004 by developers Gaelco and there were two more releases before the series final demise.
Runaway: A Road Adventure is a 2001 graphic adventure game developed by the Spanish company Pendulo Studios and published by Dinamic Multimedia. It follows the story of Brian Basco, an American college student on the run after he unwittingly saves a murder witness named Gina Timmins from assassination by the New York Mafia. Searching for clues about a mysterious crucifix linked to the murder, Brian and Gina embark on a cross-country journey through the United States while pursued by two Mafia hitmen. The player assumes the role of Brian and explores the game world while collecting items, solving puzzles and conversing with non-player characters.
Premier Manager: Ninety Nine is a football management simulation game, for PC, PlayStation, Windows and Nintendo 64. It was released in Europe in 1999 and was developed by Dinamic Multimedia and published by Gremlin Interactive. It is part of the Premier Manager series and was endorsed by then England manager Kevin Keegan.
Runaway 2: The Dream of the Turtle is a 2006 graphic adventure game developed by the Spanish company Pendulo Studios and published by Focus Home Interactive. The sequel to Runaway: A Road Adventure, it follows protagonists Brian Basco and Gina Timmins as their vacation in Hawaii goes awry, sweeping up the two of them into a secret project by the United States military. The player controls Brian and explores the game world while collecting items, solving puzzles and interacting with non-player characters.
Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines is a 1998 real-time tactics video game developed by the Spanish company Pyro Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. The game sees players take control of a group of six Allied Commandos, who conduct a range of missions across wartime Europe and Africa, using small unit tactics. Each mission's objective varies, but ranges from sabotage, assassination or rescuing captured allied units, with players having a full view of a mission's map to plan their strategy and its execution in advance.
Pendulo Studios S.L. is a Madrid-based video game developer founded in 1993 by Ramón Hernáez, Felipe Gómez Pinilla, Rafael Latiegui and Miguel Angel Ramos. Since the company's 1994 debut project, Igor: Objective Uikokahonia, it has specialized in graphic adventure games. Pendulo first achieved mainstream prominence in Spain via Hollywood Monsters (1997), which met with critical and commercial success in the country but was never released beyond Southern Europe.
Hollywood Monsters is a 1997 graphic adventure game developed by the Spanish company Pendulo Studios and published by Dinamic Multimedia. It takes place in an alternate-history 1950s, where the creatures from Golden Age monster movies are played by real monsters who lead otherwise normal lives. Controlling reporters Sue Bergman and Ron Ashman, the player seeks to unravel a mystery surrounding the murder of Frankenstein's monster. In the process, the player undertakes a globetrotting journey to locations like Transylvania and Egypt, while solving puzzles and interacting with characters such as Count Dracula, the Invisible Man and the Mummy.
Runaway: A Twist of Fate is a 2009 graphic adventure game developed by the Spanish company Pendulo Studios and published by Focus Home Interactive. It is the third entry in the Runaway franchise. The game follows series protagonists Brian Basco and Gina Timmins as they seek to clear Brian's name of a murder. Taking control of both characters, the player explores the game world, collects items, solves puzzles and converses with non-player characters.
Igor: Objective Uikokahonia is a 1994 graphic adventure game developed by the Spanish company Pendulo Studios and published by DROsoft. The game tells the story of Igor Parker, a university student in love with a classmate named Laura Wright. Hoping to win her affection, Igor surmounts a series of obstacles in an effort to join her on a field trip to the island paradise of Uikokahonia. The player assumes the role of Igor and navigates the campus while collecting items, solving puzzles and conversing with non-player characters.
The golden age of Spanish software was a time, between 1983 and 1992, when Spain became the second largest 8 bit computer entertainment software producer in Europe, only behind the United Kingdom. The disappearance of the 8 bit technology and its replacement by the 16 bit machines marked the end of this era, during which many software companies based in Spain launched their career: Dinamic Software, Topo Soft, Opera Soft, Made in Spain and Zigurat among others. The name Edad de oro del soft español was coined by specialized magazines of the time and has been used to refer to these years until nowadays.
Aventuras AD was a Spanish video game developer, one of the most popular in Spain during the Golden Era of Spanish Software in the 1980s, specialized in text adventure games. It was created as a seal split from Dinamic Software in 1987. They popularized the genre of aventura conversacional, and they would release games until 1992, when they, like the rest of the Spanish companies of the time, had to close on bankruptcy, unable to switch in time to 16 bit development. They would release their titles mainly for ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX, IBM PC, Amstrad PCW, and in the last years also Atari ST and Amiga.
The Next Big Thing is a 2011 comedy graphic adventure game developed by the Spanish company Pendulo Studios and published by Focus Home Interactive. The spiritual successor to Pendulo's Hollywood Monsters (1997), it takes place in an alternate-history 1940s Hollywood where real monsters portray themselves in monster movies. The game follows reporters Dan Murray and Liz Allaire as they uncover a conspiracy within the film industry. Assuming control of Dan and Liz, the player navigates the game world, converses with non-player characters and solves puzzles.
FX Interactive is a Spanish video game publisher founded in 1999. It published Navy Moves, and FX Fútbol.
Ixo was a French media conglomerate established in September 2000 as a corporate spin-off of the company InfoSources. It was led by businessman Christophe Sapet, co-founder of Infogrames.
Mortadelo y Filemón: El Sulfato Atómico is a 1998 graphic adventure game developed by the Spanish company Alcachofa Soft and published by Zeta Multimedia.
The history of video gaming in Spain dates back to the 1970s, and by 2014 the country was the 10th-highest-grossing market for video games worldwide. In 2018, the Spanish video game market posted a revenue of €1.53 billion, up from €1.35 billion in 2017. The country's audience of game players was 16.8 million that year; demographically, it was 59% male and 41% female. Reportedly 80% of people aged 6-to-10 played video games, while 24% of those in the 45–64 age range did so.
PC Fútbol 5.0 is a PC sports manager video game and football-themed software developed by Dinamic Multimedia and released in Spain in January 1997. It was the fifth entry in the PC Fútbol series, covering the 1996-97 football season, and the first edition that was developed for Windows 95 and to include Internet features. Apart from the game proper, the software included additional features such an electronic database with information on all three tiers' players, a table calculator, a football lottery assistant (Proquinielas) and an online football newsletter (Infofútbol). A printed 1995–96 annual was also included along with the CD.
Carlos Abril is a Spanish video game programmer, producer and designer best known for his work in the PC Fútbol franchise.