Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles: Michael Morhaime, Frank Pearce and Allen Adham. The company originally concentrated on the creation of game ports for other studios' games before beginning development of their own software in 1993, with games like Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. In 1993, the company became Chaos Studios, Inc., and then Blizzard Entertainment soon after being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates early in the following year. Shortly after, Blizzard released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.
Raven Software Corporation is an American video game developer based in Wisconsin and founded in 1990. In 1997, Raven made an exclusive publishing deal with Activision and was subsequently acquired by them. After the acquisition, many of the studio's original developers, largely responsible for creating the Heretic and Hexen: Beyond Heretic games, left to form Human Head Studios.
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one of the largest third-party video game publishers in the world and was the top United States publisher in 2016.
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, including the first such game, Mystery House. It is known for its graphical adventure game series King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Gabriel Knight, Leisure Suit Larry, and Quest for Glory, and as the original publisher of Valve's Half-Life series.
Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) has been the division of Microsoft responsible for managing the firm's relationship with developers and testers, such as hardware developers interested in the operating system (OS), and software developers developing on the various OS platforms or using the API or scripting languages of Microsoft's applications. The relationship management is situated in assorted media: web sites, newsletters, developer conferences, trade media, blogs and DVD distribution.
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.
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.
THQ Inc. was an American video game company based in Agoura Hills, California. It was founded in April 1990 by Jack Friedman, originally in Calabasas, and became a public company the following year through a reverse merger takeover. Initially working in the toy business, it expanded into the video game business through several acquisitions before shifting its focus away from toys entirely. THQ continued its trend of acquiring companies throughout the 2000s.
Cryo Interactive Entertainment was a French video game development and publishing company founded in 1990, but existing unofficially since 1989 as a developer group under the name Cryo.
Mythic Entertainment was an American video game developer based in Fairfax, Virginia that was most widely recognized for developing the 2001 massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dark Age of Camelot. Mythic was a prolific creator of multiplayer online games following its establishment in the mid-1990s.
Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development Division, commonly abbreviated as Nintendo EAD and formerly known as Nintendo Research & Development No.4 Department, was the largest software development division within the Japanese video game company Nintendo. It was preceded by the Creative Department, a team of designers with backgrounds in art responsible for many different tasks, to which Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka originally belonged. Both served as managers of the EARD studios and were credited in every game developed by the division, with varying degrees of involvement. Nintendo EAD was best known for its work on games in the Donkey Kong, Mario, The Legend of Zelda, F-Zero, Star Fox, Animal Crossing, Pikmin and Wii series.
Heliotrope most often refers to:
Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain is a real-time strategy video game. The game emphasizes empire building and customization. Pax Imperia is a Latin term, meaning "peace from empire". It is the sequel to the 1992 video game Pax Imperia.
Pax Imperia is a 4X game for the Apple Macintosh, released in 1992. The game won praise for its complex gameplay, real-time mode and ability for up to 16 players to join a single game using AppleTalk.
PAX is a series of gaming culture festivals involving tabletop, arcade, and video gaming. PAX is held annually in Seattle, Boston and Philadelphia in the United States; and Melbourne in Australia. PAX was previously held annually in San Antonio in the United States.
Christopher Erhardt was the Head of School - US Campuses for the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE) from the time the school opened until his death. From 1998-2007 he was the Associate Dean as well as V.P.-Production at DigiPen Institute of Technology in the United States.
The video game industry in Australia is worth $2.96 billion annually as of 2017, inclusive of traditional retail and digital sales. A report in 2022 by Austrade estimated that 3,228 Australians worked in the video game industry. In fiscal year 2016–17, revenue from Australian game developers was approximately $118.5 million, 80 percent of which was from overseas sales.
Imperia Online JSC is a Bulgarian game production and publishing company founded by Moni Dochev and Dobroslav Dimitrov. Based in Sofia, Bulgaria, the company originally concentrated primarily on browser-based games with their main title being Imperia Online, but later started developing mobile games as well.
