The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a self-regulatory organization that assigns age and content ratings to consumer video games in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The ESRB was established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association, in response to criticism of controversial video games with excessively violent or sexual content, particularly after the 1993 congressional hearings following the releases of Mortal Kombat and Night Trap for home consoles and Doom for home computers. The industry, pressured with potential government oversight of video game ratings from these hearings, established both the IDSA and the ESRB within it to create a voluntary rating system based on the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system with additional considerations for video game interactivity.
Macromedia, Inc., was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company (1992–2005) headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its rival Adobe Systems on December 3, 2005.
Broderbund Software, Inc. was an American maker of video games, educational software, and productivity tools. Broderbund is best known for the 8-bit video game hits Choplifter, Lode Runner, Karateka, and Prince of Persia, as well as The Print Shop—originally for printing signs and banners on dot matrix printers—and the Myst and Carmen Sandiego games. The company was founded in Eugene, Oregon, and moved to San Rafael, California, then later to Novato, California. Broderbund was purchased by SoftKey in 1998.
Educational games are games explicitly designed with educational purposes, or which have incidental or secondary educational value. All types of games may be used in an educational environment, however educational games are games that are designed to help people learn about certain subjects, expand concepts, reinforce development, understand a historical event or culture, or assist them in learning a skill as they play. Game types include board, card, and video games.
Adobe Shockwave is a discontinued multimedia platform for building interactive multimedia applications and video games. Developers originate content using Adobe Director and publish it on the Internet. Such content could be viewed in a web browser on any computer with the Shockwave Player plug-in installed. MacroMind originated the technology; Macromedia acquired MacroMind and developed it further, releasing Shockwave Player in 1995. Adobe then acquired Shockwave with Macromedia in 2005. Shockwave supports raster graphics, basic vector graphics, 3D graphics, audio, and an embedded scripting language called Lingo.
On2 Technologies, formerly known as The Duck Corporation, was a small publicly traded company, founded in New York City in 1992 and headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, that designed video codec technology. It created a series of video codecs called TrueMotion.
Adobe Captivate is an authoring tool that is used for creating eLearning content such as software demonstrations, software simulations, branched scenarios, and randomized quizzes in HTML5 format.
Clark Aldrich is an American author and practitioner in the field of educational simulations and serious games for education and professional skills.
2006 saw the release of many sequels and prequels in video games, prominently including Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Madden NFL 07, NBA Live 07, NBA 2K7, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2007, Tony Hawk's Project 8, New Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, alongside many prominent new releases including Bully, Company of Heroes, Dead Rising, Gears of War, Just Cause, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Ōkami, Prey, Resistance: Fall of Man, Saints Row, and Thrillville. Two new home consoles were released during the year: Nintendo's Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3.
An educational video game is a video game that provides learning or training value to the player. Edutainment describes an intentional merger of video games and educational software into a single product. In the narrower sense used here, the term describes educational software which is primarily about entertainment, but tends to educate as well and sells itself partly under the educational umbrella. Normally software of this kind is not structured towards school curricula and does not involve educational advisors.
The Nintendo DSi is a dual-screen handheld game console released by Nintendo. The console launched in Japan on November 1, 2008, and worldwide beginning in April 2009. It is the third iteration of the Nintendo DS, and its primary market rival was Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP). The fourth iteration, entitled Nintendo DSi XL, is a larger model that launched in Japan on November 21, 2009, and worldwide beginning in March 2010. Development of the DSi began in late 2006, and the handheld was unveiled during an October 2008 Nintendo conference in Tokyo. Consumer demand convinced Nintendo to produce a slimmer handheld with larger screens than the DS Lite. Consequently, Nintendo removed the Game Boy Advance (GBA) cartridge slot to improve portability without sacrificing durability.
Packet Tracer is a cross-platform visual simulation tool designed by Cisco Systems that allows users to create network topologies and imitate modern computer networks. The software allows users to simulate the configuration of Cisco routers and switches using a simulated command line interface. Packet Tracer makes use of a drag and drop user interface, allowing users to add and remove simulated network devices as they see fit. The software is mainly focused towards Cisco Networking Academy students as an educational tool for helping them learn fundamental CCNA concepts. Previously students enrolled in a CCNA Academy program could freely download and use the tool free of charge for educational use.
Adobe FreeHand is a discontinued computer application for creating two-dimensional vector graphics oriented primarily to professional illustration, desktop publishing and content creation for the Web. FreeHand was similar in scope, intended market, and functionality to Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW and Xara Designer Pro. Because of FreeHand's dedicated page layout and text control features, it also compares to Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress. Professions using FreeHand include graphic design, illustration, cartography, fashion and textile design, product design, architects, scientific research, and multimedia production.
Shockwave.com, or Shockwave, is an online and offline video games distributor and game portal. It is owned by Shockwave LLC, based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It was launched by Macromedia on August 2, 1999, to promote the company's Shockwave and Flash players, both used on the website. As of 2005, the website had 22 million users. By 2010, it hosted more than 400 games in a variety of genres.
Team17 Group plc is a British video game developer and publisher based in Wakefield, England. The venture was created in December 1990 through the merger of British publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish developer Team 7. At the time, the two companies consisted of and were led by Michael Robinson, Martyn Brown and Debbie Bestwick, and Andreas Tadic, Rico Holmes and Peter Tuleby, respectively. Bestwick later became Team17's chief executive officer until 1 January 2024. After their first game, Full Contact (1991) for the Amiga, the studio followed up with multiple number-one releases on that platform and saw major success with Andy Davidson's Worms in 1995, the resulting franchise of which still remains as the company's primary development output, having developed over 20 entries in it.
Sorenson Media was an American software company specializing in video encoding technology. Established in December 1995 as Sorenson Vision, the company developed technology which was licensed and ultimately acquired from Utah State University. The company first announced its codec at a developer’s preview at MacWorld Expo in January 1997.
Andy Schatz is a video game designer based in San Diego. He began developing video games at a young age and graduated from Amherst College. After graduation, he worked for various video game development companies, including TKO Software, before founding his own independent video game development studio Pocketwatch Games in 2004. Attempting to expand his company, Schatz tried enrolling into business school; all applications were rejected. As a result, he began working on games he was passionate about. Schatz has released four video games under Pocketwatch Games: Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa, Venture Arctic, Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine, and Tooth and Tail. Monaco 2 is currently in development. His design philosophy revolves around taking inspiration from already existing media, such as films, and transforming it into a video game.
