Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Video games |
Predecessor | Simis |
Founded | 1998 |
Owner | Eidos Interactive (1989–1998) Catalis (2007–present) |
Parent | Curve Games |
Subsidiaries | Headstrong Games (2000–2017) Vatra Games (2009–2012) Zoë Mode (2004–2016) |
Website | www |
Kuju Entertainment Ltd. is a British video game developer. The original company was Simis, formed in 1989 and purchased by Eidos Interactive in 1995. Kuju was formed in 1998 in Shalford, Surrey, England, after a management buyout of Simis from Eidos.
Kuju has released titles across different devices, ranging from Art Academy on the Nintendo DS, The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest and Battalion Wars 2 for the Wii, and an Xbox One title, Powerstar Golf .
Ian Baverstock and Jonathan Newth opened Simis in 1989 and produced a number of flight simulator programs like MiG-29 Fulcrum (1990 video game). In 1995, the company was purchased by Eidos and operated as an in-house development studio. In 1998, Baverstock and Newth led a management buyout of the studio from Eidos Interactive, forming Kuju Ltd.
The name "Kuju" originates from the initials of the founders’ first names: Ian Baverstock and Jonathan Newth. Jonathan was leafing through a Japanese dictionary when he found the numbers nine and ten – "ku" and "ju" – corresponding to the positions of "I" and "J" in the English alphabet. The combined result was Kuju. Their first game was Tank Racer , [1] a 3D action racer for PC, PlayStation and mobile.[ citation needed ]
By 2001, Kuju was employing a team of 80 developers, in three separate offices around the UK in London, Surrey and Brighton. Their most notable project at the time was Microsoft Train Simulator . [2] In 2002, Kuju floated on the Alternative Investments Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange. Shortly thereafter the company signed its first game with THQ based on the Games Workshop franchise, Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior . In the following years between 2002 and 2007, Kuju developed titles including SingStar games and the Battalion Wars franchise.[ citation needed ] Kuju was one of the companies considered to develop the game engine for BBC's game show FightBox . [3]
In 2007, Kuju Ltd. was acquired by a German media investment firm, Catalis SE. Soon after, Kuju Brighton was rebranded to Zoë Mode, and in 2008, Kuju London rebranded to Headstrong Games. In 2010, Headstrong Games completed development of Art Academy for the Nintendo DS console. [4] In June 2012, Dominic Wheatley, co-founder of Domark, was appointed as CEO; while Gary Bracey, former vice-president of development at Ocean Software, was appointed as commercial director. [5]
This section possibly contains original research .(June 2021) |
Kuju at one point had two UK studios: Headstrong Games [6] in London and Zoë Mode in Brighton. Both have since been amalgamated back into Kuju. [7]
Headstrong Games has developed versions of The House of the Dead: Overkill , The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest and Top Gun: Hard Lock . Original intellectual property include Art Academy and Battalion Wars , both now owned by Nintendo.
Zoë Mode have worked on the EyeToy series, Zumba dance franchise and Powerstar Golf. They also developed games for Xbox's Kinect.
A game controller, gaming controller, or simply controller, is an input device or input/output device used with video games or entertainment systems to provide input to a video game. Input devices that have been classified as game controllers include keyboards, mice, gamepads, and joysticks, as well as special purpose devices, such as steering wheels for driving games and light guns for shooting games. Controllers designs have evolved to include directional pads, multiple buttons, analog sticks, joysticks, motion detection, touch screens and a plethora of other features.
Sports Interactive Limited is a British video game developer based in London, best known for the Football Manager series. Founded by brothers Oliver and Paul Collyer in July 1994, the studio was acquired by Japanese video game publisher Sega in 2006 and became part of Sega Europe. In addition to its work on Football Manager, the studio has also created a number of other sports-management simulations, including NHL Eastside Hockey Manager and Championship Manager Quiz, and is the former developer of Championship Manager.
Microsoft Train Simulator is a 2001 train simulator game developed by UK-based Kuju Entertainment and published by Microsoft Games for Windows. It was released on June 18, 2001.
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Eidos Interactive Limited was a British video game publisher based in Wimbledon, London. Among its notable franchises were Championship Manager, Deus Ex, Hitman, Thief, and Tomb Raider. Domark was founded by Mark Strachan and Dominic Wheatley in 1984. In 1995, it was acquired by software company Eidos. Ian Livingstone, who held a stake in Domark, became executive chairman of Eidos and held various roles including creative director. Eidos took over U.S. Gold in 1996, which included developer Core Design, and merged its operations including Domark, which created publishing subsidiary Eidos Interactive. The company acquired Crystal Dynamics in 1998, and owned numerous other assets. In 2005, parent Eidos was taken over by games publisher SCi. The combined company, SCi Entertainment Group, which was briefly renamed Eidos, was itself taken over by Square Enix in 2009.
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Zoë Mode was a subsidiary studio of Kuju Entertainment based in Brighton, England. Zoë Mode's games portfolio covered a variety of genres and comprised big-brand entertainment, original social games and innovative gameplay use of motion capture technologies such as the PlayStation EyeToy and Xbox 360 Kinect. They developed EyeToy: Play, SingStar, Disney Sing It and Zumba franchises in music and party games. Zoë Mode was also known for creating Crush, Chime and Haunt.
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Headstrong Games was a subsidiary of Kuju Entertainment based in London that developed video games.
The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest is an action-adventure video game released in 2010 by WB Games on various Nintendo and Sony platforms, with Headstrong Games developing a Wii version and TT Fusion developing the game on other platforms.
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Aces Game Studio (ACES) was an American video game developer based in Redmond, Washington, owned by Microsoft Game Studios. It was founded in 1988 under the name Bruce Artwick Organization Limited at Champaign, Illinois, by Bruce Artwick, creator of Microsoft Flight Simulator, Microsoft Space Simulator and also co-founder of Sublogic.
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Zumba Fitness Core is the third video game in the installment of the Fitness series, based on the Zumba program. It is also the sequel Zumba Fitness 2 (2011), later followed by Zumba Fitness: World Party (2013). It is developed by Zoë Mode and published by Majesco Entertainment. It was released on 16 October 2012. Unlike previous games, the game mainly focus on the abdomen.
Majesco Entertainment Company is an American video game publisher and distributor based in Hazlet, New Jersey. The company was founded as Majesco Sales in Edison, New Jersey in 1986, and was a privately held company until acquiring operation-less company ConnectivCorp in a reverse merger takeover, becoming its subsidiary and thus a public company on December 5, 2003. ConnectivCorp later changed its name to Majesco Holdings Inc. on April 13, 2004.
Dovetail Games (DTG), a trading name of RailSimulator.com Ltd (RSC), is a British simulation video game developer and publisher established in 2008 by former Electronic Arts executive Paul Jackson, Fund4Games backers Tim Gatland and Charlie McMicking, and a development team from Kuju Entertainment.
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