Star Control: Famous Battles of the Ur-Quan Conflict, Volume IV or just simply Star Control is a science fiction video game developed by Toys for Bob and published by Accolade in 1990. It was originally released for Amiga and MS-DOS in 1990, followed by ports for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum in 1991. The game was a commercial and critical success, and is remembered as one of the best games of all time, as well as the foundation for the highly praised sequel. Two sequels were released, Star Control II in 1992, and Star Control 3 in 1996.
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.
Accolade, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher based in San Jose, California. The company was founded as Accolade in 1984 by Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead, who had previously co-founded Activision in 1979. The company became known for numerous sports game series, including HardBall!, Jack Nicklaus and Test Drive.
Need for Speed (NFS) is a racing game franchise published by Electronic Arts and currently developed by Criterion Games, the developers of Burnout. The series generally centers around illicit street racing and tasks players to complete various types of races while evading the local law enforcement in police pursuits. The series is one of EA's oldest franchises not published under their EA Sports brand. The series released its first title, The Need for Speed, in 1994. The most recent game, Need for Speed Unbound, was released on December 2, 2022. Additionally, a free-to-play mobile installment released in 2015, Need for Speed: No Limits, was actively developed by Firemonkeys Studios, the developers of Real Racing 3.
Homebrew, when applied to video games, refers to games produced by hobbyists for proprietary video game consoles which are not intended to be user-programmable. The official documentation is often only available to licensed developers, and these systems may use storage formats that make distribution difficult, such as ROM cartridges or encrypted CD-ROMs. Many consoles have hardware restrictions to prevent unauthorized development. A non-professional developer for a system intended to be user-programmable, like the Commodore 64, is simply called a hobbyist.
A video game clone is either a video game or a video game console very similar to, or heavily inspired by, a previous popular game or console. Clones are typically made to take financial advantage of the popularity of the cloned game or system, but clones may also result from earnest attempts to create homages or expand on game mechanics from the original game. An additional motivation unique to the medium of games as software with limited compatibility, is the desire to port a simulacrum of a game to platforms that the original is unavailable for or unsatisfactorily implemented on.
EA Vancouver is a Canadian video game developer located in Burnaby, British Columbia. The development studio opened as Distinctive Software in January 1983, and is also Electronic Arts's largest and oldest studio. EA Vancouver employs approximately 1,300 people, and houses the world's largest video game test operation.
The Sega Genesis, known as the Mega Drive outside North America, is a 16-bit fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master System. Sega released it in 1988 in Japan as the Mega Drive, and in 1989 in North America as the Genesis. In 1990, it was distributed as the Mega Drive by Virgin Mastertronic in Europe, Ozisoft in Australasia, and Tec Toy in Brazil. In South Korea, it was distributed by Samsung as the Super Gam*Boy and later the Super Aladdin Boy.
The Duel: Test Drive II is a racing video game developed by Distinctive Software and published by Accolade for Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple IIGS, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, MSX, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, Sega Genesis and SNES.
Donald Allan Mattrick is a Canadian businessman known for being the former CEO of social gaming company Zynga, as well as a member of its board of directors. Previously, Mattrick was the president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. In this role, he was responsible for a collection of consumer businesses including Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox One, Kinect, TV Music and Video services, Microsoft Mediaroom, PC and Mobile Interactive Entertainment as well as the manufacturing and supply chain for Microsoft. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2007, Mattrick served as the president of Worldwide Studios for Electronic Arts, where he worked for 15 years. In 1982, Mattrick founded Distinctive Software, which was acquired by Electronic Arts in 1991 and subsequently became EA Vancouver.
Accolade's Comics is an adventure game released in 1987. Published by Accolade and developed by Distinctive Software, the game intersperses arcade-style games into its plot.
Test Drive is a series of racing video games that were originally published by Accolade until they were bought by Infogrames, the first game was released in 1987 and has since been followed by several sequels and spin-offs, the last of which was released in 2012.
Test Drive is a racing video game developed by Distinctive Software and published by Accolade, released in 1987 for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and DOS, in 1988 for the Apple II, and later ported for the PC-98 in 1989. It is the first game in the Test Drive video game series.
Abandonware is a product, typically software, ignored by its owner and manufacturer, and for which no official support is available.
A video game console emulator is a type of emulator that allows a computing device to emulate a video game console's hardware and play its games on the emulating platform. More often than not, emulators carry additional features that surpass the limitations of the original hardware, such as broader controller compatibility, timescale control, greater performance, clearer quality, easier access to memory modifications, one-click cheat codes, and unlocking of gameplay features. Emulators are also a useful tool in the development process of homebrew demos and the creation of new games for older, discontinued, or rare consoles.
Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc., 977 F.2d 1510, is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit applied American intellectual property law to the reverse engineering of computer software. Stemming from the publishing of several Sega Genesis games by video game publisher Accolade, which had disassembled Genesis software in order to publish games without being licensed by Sega, the case involved several overlapping issues, including the scope of copyright, permissible uses for trademarks, and the scope of the fair use doctrine for computer code.
HardBall II is a baseball video game developed by Distinctive Software and published by Accolade for IBM PC compatibles (1989). Macintosh and Amiga version were released in 1990. It is the sequel to HardBall! which was released in 1985.
Code Mystics is a Canadian video game developer specializing in both the emulation and remastering of older video games for modern systems, and porting of indie titles.
Tryon "Tarrnie" M. Williams is a Canadian businessman. He is the founder of Canada's first publicly traded software company, Sydney Development Corporation formed in 1978. From 1987 to 1991 he was President and CEO of Distinctive Software Inc. of Vancouver. After the acquisition of that company by Electronic Arts Inc., he became President and CEO of Electronic Arts (Canada) Inc.
Sydney Development Corporation ("SDC"), was the first publicly-traded software company in Canada. Founded by Tarrnie Williams, SDC developed an online real-time project management system for the IBM System z mainframe computer, then various different business applications for microcomputers such as the Apple II, and eventually became the first developer and publisher of computer games for microcomputers in Canada.
