Lucasfilm Games is an American video game licensor that is part of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development group alongside his film company; as part of a larger 1990 reorganization of the Lucasfilm divisions, the video game development division was grouped and rebranded as part of LucasArts. LucasArts became known for its line of adventure games based on its SCUMM engine in the 1990s, including Maniac Mansion, the Monkey Island series, and several Indiana Jones titles. A number of influential game developers were alumni of LucasArts from this period, including Brian Moriarty, Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, and Dave Grossman. Later, as Lucasfilm regained control over its licensing over the Star Wars franchise, LucasArts produced numerous action-based Star Wars titles in the late 1990s and early 2000s, while dropping adventure game development due to waning interest in the genre.
EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to imitate real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network" (EASN) with pictures or endorsements with real commentators such as John Madden, it soon grew up to become a sub-label on its own, releasing game series such as FIFA, NHL, NBA Live, and Madden NFL.
In the history of video games, the sixth generation era is the era of computer and video games, video game consoles, and handheld gaming devices available at the turn of the 21st century, starting on November 27, 1998. Platforms in the sixth generation include consoles from four companies: the Sega Dreamcast (DC), Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2), Nintendo GameCube (GC), and Microsoft Xbox. This era began on November 27, 1998, with the Japanese release of the Dreamcast, which was joined by the PlayStation 2 on March 4, 2000, the GameCube on September 14, 2001 and the Xbox on November 15, 2001, respectively. In March 31, 2001, the Dreamcast was among the first to be discontinued. Xbox in 2006, GameCube in 2007 and PlayStation 2 was the last, in January 2013. Meanwhile, the seventh generation of consoles started on November 22, 2005, with the launch of the Xbox 360.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by LucasArts. The first installment of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series, it was released for the Xbox on July 16, 2003, and for Microsoft Windows on November 19, 2003. It was ported to Mac OS X, iOS, and Android by Aspyr, and it is playable on the Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and Series S via backward compatibility. A Nintendo Switch version was released on November 11, 2021.
FIFA, also known as EA Sports FC from July 2023, is a series of association football video games developed and released annually by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports label. As of 2011, the FIFA franchise has been localised into 18 languages and available in 51 countries. Listed in Guinness World Records as the best-selling sports video game franchise in the world, the FIFA series has sold over 325 million copies as of 2021. On 10 May 2022, it was announced that EA and FIFA's partnership of 30 years would come to an end from 12 July 2023 onwards; the series will be retitled EA Sports FC. FIFA intends to enter a partnership with a new developer to produce "the real game that has the FIFA name". FIFA 23 is the last entry to the franchise under the FIFA name.
Over one hundred video games based on the Star Wars franchise have been released, dating back to some of the earliest home consoles. Some are based directly on films while others rely heavily on the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
Guerrilla B.V. is a Dutch first-party video game developer based in Amsterdam and part of PlayStation Studios. The company was founded as Lost Boys Games in January 2000 through the merger of three smaller development studios as a subsidiary of multimedia conglomerate company Lost Boys. Lost Boys Games became independent the following year and was acquired by Media Republic in 2003, renaming the studio to Guerrilla Games before being purchased by Sony Interactive Entertainment in 2005. As of June 2021, the company employs 360 people under the leadership of joint studio directors Jan-Bart van Beek, Joel Eschler and Hella Schmidt. It is best known for the Killzone and Horizon game series.
Numerous computer and video games have been inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's works set in Middle-earth. Titles have been produced by studios such as Electronic Arts, Vivendi Games, Melbourne House, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.
Call of Duty is a first-person shooter video game franchise published by Activision. Starting out in 2003, it first focused on games set in World War II. Over time, the series has seen games set in the midst of the Cold War, futuristic worlds, and the modern day. The games were first developed by Infinity Ward, then also by Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games. Several spin-off and handheld games were made by other developers. The most recent title, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, was released on October 28, 2022.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) is a media franchise of space western role-playing video games created and developed by BioWare, which have seen releases on the original Xbox, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, OS X, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Android. The franchise takes place in the fictional universe of Star Wars by George Lucas. The first title, and subsequent massively multiplayer online role-playing game series, was developed by BioWare while the second was done by Obsidian Entertainment per LucasArts' request. All were published by LucasArts. The video game series is based on an earlier comic book series; the franchise includes a subsequent new comic book series. Both comic series were published by Dark Horse Comics and act as prequels to the video games.
Star Wars: Jedi Knight is a series of first- and third-person shooter video games set in the fictional Star Wars expanded universe. The series focuses primarily on Kyle Katarn, a former Imperial officer who becomes a mercenary working for the Rebel Alliance, and later a Jedi and instructor at Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy. While the first game is set a year after the events of A New Hope, the sequels take place in the decade following Return of the Jedi.
The Sims is a series of life simulation video games developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. The franchise has sold nearly 200 million copies worldwide, and it is one of the best-selling video game series of all time.
Knight Rider is an American entertainment franchise.
Davilex Games B.V. was a video game developer and video game publisher, located in Houten, Utrecht, Netherlands. It was founded in 1986 as part of Davilex International, and is most well known for its Racer franchise, with the games London Racer and London Racer II selling over 600,000 copies in the UK. Autobahn Raser's sales in the German market totaled 103,000 units from January through September 1998, which made it the region's sixth-best-selling computer game during that period. In February 1999, Autobahn Raser's computer version received a "Gold" award from the Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland (VUD), indicating sales of at least 100,000 units across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Davilex closed the game division in 2005 because it was not profitable enough, and their games were generally not well received.
World Rally Championship is a rally racing video game series. To date, three series of video games with the official license have been released.
Knight Rider is an American entertainment franchise created by Glen A. Larson. The core of Knight Rider is its three television series: the original Knight Rider (1982–1986) and sequel series Team Knight Rider (1997–1998) and Knight Rider (2008–2009). The franchise also includes three television films, a short-lived spinoff series, computer and video games, and novels, as well as KnightCon, a Knight Rider convention. Beginning with the original television series and continuing with the subsequent films and series, the franchise has developed a cult following and spawned many pop culture references.
Batman: Arkham Knight is a 2015 action-adventure game developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Based on the DC Comics superhero Batman, it is the successor to the 2013 video game Batman: Arkham Origins, a direct sequel to Batman: Arkham City (2011) and the fourth main installment in the Batman: Arkham series. Written by Sefton Hill, Ian Ball and Martin Lancaster, Arkham Knight is inspired by the long-running comic book mythos. Set nine months after the events of Arkham City, the game's main storyline follows Batman as he confronts Scarecrow, who has launched an attack on Gotham City and caused a citywide evacuation. Scarecrow, with the help of the mysterious Arkham Knight, plots to unite all of Gotham's criminals in an attempt to finally destroy Batman.
Dark Souls is a series of action role-playing games created by Hidetaka Miyazaki of FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The series began with the release of Dark Souls (2011) and has seen two sequels, Dark Souls II (2014) and Dark Souls III (2016). Dark Souls has received critical acclaim, with the first title often cited as one of the greatest in video games, with the series as a whole being both praised and criticized for its high level of difficulty.
