Formerly | Geoff Brown Holdings Limited (1997–2000) |
---|---|
Type | Private |
Industry | Video games |
Founded | January 1997 |
Founder | Geoff Brown |
Defunct | 9 September 2003 |
Fate | Receivership |
Headquarters | England |
Key people | Geoff Brown |
Subsidiaries |
Kaboom Studios Limited (formerly Geoff Brown Holdings Limited) was a British holding company established by Geoff Brown in January 1997 to pursue video game development investment.
In December 1996, Geoff Brown acquired a 75% stake in Silicon Dreams Studio for at least £500,000. [1] Silicon Dreams Studio was founded by Brown in March 1994, as in-house development team for his publishing company, U.S. Gold, until the entire CentreGold umbrella (including U.S. Gold and Silicon Dreams) was sold to Eidos Interactive in April 1996. [2] In January 1997, Brown also acquired Attention to Detail, and opened Geoff Brown Holdings to manage the majority ownerships in the two studios. [3] A motion capture studio, Audiomotion, was established under the Geoff Brown Holdings umbrella in 1997, [4] and Pivotal Games, another developer, was acquired by the company in August 2000. [5]
In 2003, Kaboom Studios faced major financial issues, resulting in the closure of Attention to Detail and Silicon Dreams Studio on 28 August 2003 and 3 September 2003, respectively. [6] [7] Meanwhile, Audiomotion's Mick Morris performed a management buyout for the company, in order for Audiomotion to "reboot" itself and avoid closure. [4] [8] Kaboom Studios went into receivership on 9 September 2003, [7] with all assets being transferred to Ernst & Young, of which the still-active Pivotal Games was put up for sale. [9] On 29 September 2003, SCi Games acquired Pivotal Games from Ernst & Young for a total of £2.36 million. [10]
Rockstar Games, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in New York City. The company was established in December 1998 as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, using the assets Take-Two had previously acquired from BMG Interactive. Founding members of the company were Terry Donovan, Gary Foreman, Dan and Sam Houser, and Jamie King, who worked for Take-Two at the time, and of which the Houser brothers were previously executives at BMG Interactive. Sam Houser heads the studio as president.
Miniclip SA is a mobile game publisher and a browser game website that launched in 2001. It was started by Robert Small and Tihan Presbie with a budget of £40,000. In 2008, the company was valued at over £275 million.
U.S. Gold Limited was a British video game publisher based in Witton, Birmingham, England. The company was founded in 1984 by Geoff and Anne Brown in parallel to his distributor firm, CentreSoft, both of which became part of Woodward Brown Holdings. The company primarily aimed at publishing games imported from the United States with a lower price tag in Europe and especially the United Kingdom.
Square Enix Limited is a British subsidiary of Japanese video game company Square Enix, acting as their European publishing arm. The company formerly owned Tomb Raider, which was in development under CentreGold in 1996, and had acquired Crystal Dynamics in 1998, among numerous other assets, until 2022. Square Enix Limited and fellow group company Square Enix Incorporated shared "Phil" Rogers as CEO and other executives from 2013 to 2022.
Gameloft SE is a French video game publisher based in Paris, founded in December 1999 by Ubisoft co-founder Michel Guillemot. The company operates 18 development studios worldwide, and publishes games with a special focus on the mobile games market. Formerly a public company traded at the Paris Bourse, Gameloft was acquired by media conglomerate Vivendi in 2016.
SCi Entertainment Group plc was a British video game publisher based in London. The company was founded in 1988 by Jane Cavanagh and floated on the stock exchange in 1996. In May 2005, SCi acquired Eidos plc, the parent company of publisher Eidos Interactive, and merged their operations by June 2006. In December 2008, SCi was briefly renamed Eidos and was subsequently acquired by Square Enix in March 2009.
Silicon Dreams Studio Limited was a British video game developer based in Adderbury, England.
Acclaim Studios Manchester was a British video game developer based in Manchester, England. The company was established in 1985 by Richard Kay. They were primarily known for their video games based on movie and comic licences like Marvel Comics, Cutthroat Island, Disney's Beauty and the Beast and the original titles Plok, Solstice, and its sequel Equinox.
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is an American video game publisher based in Burbank, California, and part of the newly-formed Global Streaming and Interactive Entertainment unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. WBIE was founded on January 14, 2004 under Warner Bros. and transferred to the Home Entertainment division when that company was formed in October 2005. WBIE manages the wholly owned game development studios TT Games, Rocksteady Studios, NetherRealm Studios, Monolith Productions, WB Games Boston, Avalanche Software, and WB Games Montréal, among others.
Vivendi Games was an American video game publisher and holding company based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1996 as CUC Software, the publishing subsidiary of CUC International, after the latter acquired video game companies Davidson & Associates and Sierra On-Line. Between 1997 and 2001, the company switched parents and names multiple times before ending up organized under Vivendi Universal. On July 10, 2008, Vivendi Games merged with Activision to create Activision Blizzard.
Behaviour Interactive Chile Ltda. was a Chilean video game developer based in Santiago. The company was founded as Wanako Games in 2002, by Esteban Sosnik, Tiburcio de la Cárcova, Santiago Bilinkis, Wenceslao Casares. The studio was first acquired by Vivendi Games in February 2007 and ended up under Artificial Mind and Movement in December 2008. When Artificial Mind and Movement was renamed Behaviour Interactive in 2010, Wanako Games was renamed Behaviour Santiago. Behaviour Santiago was shut down on 20 November 2017.
Pivotal Games Limited was a British video game developer based in Corston, England.
Geoffrey Brown may refer to:
VIS Entertainment Limited was a British video game developer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company was founded in 1996 by Chris van der Kuyl and Peter Baillie. In April 2003, VIS Entertainment acquired BAM! Entertainment's London-based development studio, though, after financial struggles, closed it down in September that year. A studio on the Isle of Wight was closed in August and several jobs were cut from their VIS iTV joint venture in November. VIS Entertainment was acquired by BAM! Entertainment in May 2004, which itself struggled financially. As a result, in April 2005, the company was placed into administration, closed its Dundee studio and laid off 52 of 96 staff. Remaining assets were sold off to various companies, and VIS Entertainment liquidated in March 2007.
Atari SA is a French video game holding company headquartered in Paris. Its subsidiaries include Atari Interactive and Atari It is the current owner of the Atari brand through Atari Interactive. Because of continuing pressures upon the company and difficulty finding investors, it sought bankruptcy protection under French law in January 2013; its subsidiaries in the United States have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as well. All three subsidiaries have since exited bankruptcy.
PlayStation Studios is a division of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) that oversees the video game development at the studios owned by SIE. The division was established as SCE Worldwide Studios in September 2005 and rebranded as PlayStation Studios in 2020.
Attention to Detail Ltd (ATD) was a British video game developer based in Hatton. Founded by University of Birmingham graduates in September 1988, it was acquired by Kaboom Studios in January 1997. The studio shut down in August 2003 due to financial issues at Kaboom Studios. The studio is known for developing the Rollcage series.
Embracer Group AB is a Swedish video game and media holding company based in Karlstad. The company was established under the name Nordic Games Licensing in 2011 as part of Nordic Games Group and as the parent of publisher Nordic Games GmbH.