Exient

Last updated

Exient Limited
Company type Private
Industry Video games
Founded2000(25 years ago) (2000)
Headquarters England
Website Official website OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Exient Limited is a British video game developer and publisher. Developing for handheld, mobile, console, VR and PC platforms, Having studios in the United Kingdom and Malta, Exient grew a name for designing and developing popular series' games to portable systems. It is known for its ports of various games in the Madden NFL , FIFA , Need for Speed , and Tiger Woods PGA Tour series for Electronic Arts and for developing numerous titles in the Angry Birds series. The company was incorporated in 2000 and began operations in January 2001.

Contents

History

Exient was founded by Charles Chapman and David Hawkins in 2001. Chapman began developing computer games at age 14 and graduated with a mathematics and computation degree from Keble College, Oxford. Hawkins worked with software engineering in automotive and switched to project management in games. They met when Hawkins, working for Atari, was looking for ideas for games and Chapman, impressed by Hawkins works, decided to found a development company. [1]

Up to 2013, the bulk of their development was for gaming platforms such as PSP, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy Advance but since 2014 their games have been developed for platforms including Android, iOS, PC and Console. Exient currently develops its games on a proprietary, in-house developed, engine named XGS, the Unity and Unreal Engine platforms.

In 2020, the company rebranded its publishing labels, Sad Puppy and Donut, to Exient Publishing. [2] [3] In July 2022, an anonymous source told MCV/Develop that Exient was restructuring resulting in redundancies. [4] In August 2022, Exient produced a two hour long documentary titled "Lemmings: Can you dig it" on the history of the Lemmings series, featuring the original developers, alumni of DMA Design. The documentary was premiered at the Dundee Centre of Contemporary Arts (DCA) and released free to watch on YouTube. [5]

Games developed

ReleaseGameFormatPublisherRef
2024The Grinch: Christmas AdventuresiOS, AndroidOutright Games
Angry Birds Fury RoadArcade Motion PlatformDOF Robotics
Parlini Land iOS, Android Magic Games Factory
Nina u Ninu iOS, Android Magic Games Factory
2023 Ultimate Sackboy iOS, Android Exient Publishing
CoComelon: Play with JJNetflix, Inc.
2019 Lemmings Exient Publishing
2017Top Gear: Donut DashBBC Worldwide [6]
2016Dancing with the StarsDonut Publishing
Furby Connect World Hasbro
Strictly come DancingDonut Publishing
F1 2016Codemasters
2014 Angry Birds Transformers Rovio
Bake Escape iOS Donut Publishing
2013 Angry Birds Go! Android, iOS, Blackberry 10Rovio
Diggs Nightcrawler PlayStation 3
Angry Birds Trilogy PlayStation Vita Rovio
Angry Birds Star Wars PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS Activision
CSR Racing Android NaturalMotion
2012 Angry Birds Trilogy Nintendo 3DS
Fireworks PlayStation Vita
Pulzar
2010 Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Wii Electronic Arts
The Sims 3 Nintendo DS
FIFA 11
X2 Football 2010 iOS X2 Games
X2 Snowboarding
2009 FIFA 10 Nintendo DS Electronic Arts
DJ Hero Wii, PlayStation 2
Tiger Woods PGA Tour iOS
X2 Football 2009
2008 FIFA 09 Nintendo DS
Madden NFL 09
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 PS, PSP2
Skate It Nintendo DS
Need for Speed: Undercover Wii, PlayStation 2
FIFA Street 3 [7] Nintendo DS Electronic Arts
2007 NASCAR 08 PlayStation 2
FIFA 08 Nintendo DS
Madden NFL 08
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08
Need for Speed: ProStreet
2006 FIFA Street 2
2006 FIFA World Cup Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable
Madden NFL 07 Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS
FIFA 07
NASCAR 07 [8] PlayStation Portable Electronic Arts
Need for Speed: Carbon Nintendo DS
2005 FIFA Football 2005 Gizmondo
SSX 3 Gizmondo
Madden NFL 06 Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS
FIFA 06
2004 Madden NFL 2005
FIFA Soccer 2005 Game Boy Advance, N-Gage
SSX Out Of Bounds N-Gage
WWE Aftershock N-Gage Electronic Arts
2003Total SoccerMobile devices
FIFA Soccer 2004 Game Boy Advance, N-Gage Electronic Arts
NCAA Football 2004 N-Gage
2002Alex Ferguson's Player Manager 2002 Game Boy Advance Ubisoft
FIFA Soccer 2002 PDAElectronic Arts
NHL Hitz 20-03 Game Boy Advance
FIFA FootballElectronic Arts
2001Steven Gerrard's Total Soccer 2002Ubisoft

Awards

GameYearCeremony / PublicationAwardResultRef
Ultimate Sackboy (mobile)2023 TIGA Best Arcade GameNominated
2023Best Casual GameNominated
2023Best Small StudioNominated
Diggs Nightcrawler2013Best Casual GameNominated
The Sims 32010 BAFTA Best Handheld GameNominated
The Sims 3 (NDS)2010 Gamescom Best Mobile TitleNominated [9]
2009 Develop 100The World’s Most Successful Game Studios - 2009 Edition [10] 67th
2007The World’s Most Successful Game Studios - 2007 Edition [11] [12] 50th
2005 TIGA Best Handheld Games Development Studio [13]

Further reading

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References

  1. Hartford, Maggie (20 November 2008). "Game, set and match". Oxford Mail . Retrieved 5 January 2025.
  2. Wallace, Chris (26 August 2020). "Exient rebrands its publishing labels as Exient Publishing". MCV/Develop . Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  3. Partleton, Kayleigh (25 August 2020). "Exient rebrands Sad Puppy and Donut under Exient Publishing". PocketGamer.biz . Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  4. Pavey, Vince (7 July 2022). "Exient restructuring to result in "unavoidable" redundancies — worse to come, says anonymous source". MCV. ISSN   1469-4832 . Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  5. Paprocki, Matt (25 August 2021). "Documentary about Amiga classic Lemmings due for game's 30th anniversary". Ars Technica .
  6. "Ian Bickley at Exient Talks Bake Escape and Playtesting Mobile Games". Gamasutra. 17 May 2017. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
  7. IGN, February 28, 2008 - FIFA Street 3 Review. A vast improvement over last year's mess, but still not a portable hit. by Craig Harris
  8. Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, 01-NOV-2006. Review of NASCAR 07.
  9. "EA nominated for several gamescon awards". Gaming Nexus.
  10. "Home". develop100.com.
  11. Develop 100 Retrieved 8 April 2008.
  12. "MCV, Mar 12 2008, 4:17pm – Develop 100: UK studios triumphant in 2007. Michael French". Archived from the original on 13 March 2008. Retrieved 8 April 2008.
  13. Tiga – List of 2006 finalists