Louis Castle | |
|---|---|
 Castle at a BAFTA event in Los Angeles in 2011 | |
| Occupation | Game designer |
| Known for | Co-founding Westwood Studios Blade Runner |
Louis Castle is an American video games designer. He is known for co-founding Westwood Studios, designing the PC game Blade Runner , and collaborating with Steven Spielberg on the Boom Blox and Boom Blox Bash Party video games for the Wii console based on Spielberg's design ideas.
Castle co-founded Westwood Studios with Brett Sperry in 1985. [1] [2] [3] Castle has multiple credits on Westwood games, including executive producer, technical director, and art director for the 1997 video game Blade Runner . Castle is also known for his contributions to multiple Command & Conquer games. [4]
Westwood was acquired by EA in 1998, and Castle continued on with EA in a number of executive and creative roles. [4] He was executive producer of Boom Blox and Boom Blox Bash Party , developed for the Wii in a collaboration with Steven Spielberg. [5] [6] From 2003 to June 2009, Castle was Vice President of Creative Development at the Los Angeles studio of Electronic Arts (EA Los Angeles). [7]
On July 15, 2009, Castle joined InstantAction as the new CEO of GarageGames. [8] After InstantAction was shut down in November 2010, Castle went on to become Senior Advisor for Premium FanPage in January 2011, [9] and later joined Zynga as VP of Studios. [10]
Castle took a detour out of the video gaming industry to serve as Chief Strategy Officer for Shufflemaster (which became SHFL entertainment) in late 2011. [11] He returned to video games as Creative Director for Kixeye's War Commander: Rogue Assault which launched worldwide in 2016. [12]
On March 9, 2017, Castle became the head of the newly formed Amazon Game Studios Seattle. [13]
| Name | Year | Credited With | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fraction Action | 1986 | artist | Unicorn Software Company |
| Mars Saga | 1988 | designer, artist, programmer | Infocom, Electronic Arts |
| Donald's Alphabet Chase | 1988 | designer, artist | Disney Software |
| California Games (Amiga port) | 1988 | artist, programmer | Epyx |
| BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception | 1988 | programmer | Infocom |
| A Nightmare on Elm Street | 1989 | art director | Monarch Software |
| DragonStrike | 1990 | designer, artist, programmer | Strategic Simulations |
| Goofy's Railway Express | 1990 | production design | Walt Disney Computer Software |
| Circuit's Edge | 1990 | art director | Infocom |
| Mickey's Runaway Zoo | 1991 | designer | Walt Disney Computer Software |
| Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun | 1992 | designer, programmer | Sega |
| The Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate | 1993 | art management | Virgin Games |
| Young Merlin | 1993 | producer, designer | Virgin Games |
| The Lion King | 1994 | creative director, producer | Virgin Interactive |
| Monopoly | 1995 | producer, designer | Hasbro Interactive |
| Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny | 1997 | producer | Virgin Interactive |
| Blade Runner | 1997 | executive producer, technical director, art director | Virgin Interactive |
| Lands of Lore III | 1999 | executive producer | Electronic Arts |
| Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun | 1999 | voice actor | Electronic Arts |
| Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat | 2002 | executive producer | Electronic Arts |
| Command & Conquer: Renegade | 2002 | executive producer, designer | Electronic Arts |
| Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars | 2007 | studio creative director | Electronic Arts |
| Boom Blox | 2008 | executive producer | Electronic Arts |
| Boom Blox Bash Party | 2009 | executive producer | Electronic Arts |
| War Commander | 2010 | creative director | Kixeye |
| War Commander: Rogue Assault | 2016 | creative director | Kixeye |
Castle was given the second annual Lifetime Achievement Award by the Computer Game Developers Association at the Spotlight Awards in 1999. [14] Castle was also given a BAFTA award (along with Steven Spielberg and Amir Rahimi) for his work on Boom Blox in 2009. [15] [16]
Castle lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with his family.
Castle was the Grand Master of Masons in Nevada in 2020. [17]
Westwood Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in 1985 as Brelous Software, but got changed after 2 months into Westwood Associates and was renamed to Westwood Studios when Virgin Games bought the company in 1992. The company was bought by Electronic Arts alongside Virgin Interactive's North American operations in 1998. In January 2003, it was announced that Westwood, alongside Westwood Pacific, would be merged into EA Los Angeles. The main studio location closed in March of that year.
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is a real-time strategy game (RTS) developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment, and published by Interplay Productions in Europe. It was released for MS-DOS in North America on 15 November 1994, and for Mac OS in early 1996. The MS-DOS version was re-released by Sold-Out Software in 2002.
Command & Conquer (C&C) is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game franchise, first developed by Westwood Studios. The first game was one of the earliest of the RTS genre, itself based on Westwood Studios' influential strategy game Dune II and introducing trademarks followed in the rest of the series. This includes full-motion video cutscenes with an ensemble cast to progress the story, as opposed to digitally in-game rendered cutscenes. Westwood Studios was taken over by Electronic Arts in 1998 and closed down in 2003. The studio and some of its members were absorbed into EA Los Angeles, which continued development on the series.
Petroglyph Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Las Vegas. It was founded in 2003 by Joe Bostic, Michael Legg and Steve Tall, programmers formerly of Westwood Studios, after that company was closed down earlier that year.
GarageGames was a game technology and software developer. GarageGames was the parent company of GG Interactive, developers of educational technology in the areas of computer science, video game development and programming. In addition, the company has been a video game developer and publisher. GarageGames created several game engines targeted for indie development. Founded in Eugene, Oregon, the company had offices in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States and its headquarters in Vancouver, Washington. In 2007, GarageGames was acquired by IAC and the company was renamed TorquePowered. In 2011, the company was purchased by Graham Software Development and reverted to the original name GarageGames.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert is a real-time strategy video game in the Command & Conquer franchise, developed and published by Westwood Studios in 1996. The second game to bear the Command & Conquer title, Red Alert is the prequel to the original Command & Conquer of 1995, and takes place in the alternate early history of Command & Conquer when Allied Forces battle an aggressive Soviet Union for control over the European mainland.
Command & Conquer is a real-time strategy video game developed and published by Westwood Studios in 1995. Set in an alternate history, the game tells the story of a world war between two globalized factions: the Global Defense Initiative of the United Nations and a cult-like militant organization called the Brotherhood of Nod, led by the mysterious Kane. The groups compete for control of Tiberium, a mysterious substance that slowly spreads across the world.
Command & Conquer: Renegade is a first- and third-person shooter video game developed by Westwood Studios and is part of the Command & Conquer series. It is the only Command & Conquer game that uses the first-person view. It was released on February 26, 2002 by EA Games. The game received generally favorable reviews from critics.
Brett Sperry is an American video game designer, a fine arts gallerist, and a professional photographer. He is also a leading developer of the Las Vegas arts community where he's made significant investments in property and infrastructure, primarily in the Downtown Las Vegas area.
Joseph David Kucan is an American video game developer, director, actor, screenwriter, and casting director for various gaming companies and films. He is a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada. He is well known for his role as Kane from the Command & Conquer series.
Donald Allan Mattrick is a Canadian businessman who previously was the CEO of social gaming company Zynga and the president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. Before joining Microsoft in 2007, Mattrick worked at Electronic Arts for 15 years as the president of Worldwide Studios. In 1982, he founded Distinctive Software, which was later acquired by Electronic Arts in 1991 and renamed to EA Vancouver.
Boom Blox is a 2008 puzzle video game by Electronic Arts for the Wii and N-Gage. It was developed by EA Los Angeles and directed by filmmaker Steven Spielberg.
Boom Blox Bash Party, called Boom Blox Smash Party in non-English territories, is a puzzle video game by Electronic Arts for the Wii. The sequel to Boom Blox (2008), it was developed by EA Los Angeles and directed by filmmaker Steven Spielberg. The game features more than 400 levels, and players are able to download new levels and upload their own custom-created levels to share online.
Zynga Inc. is an American developer running social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its mission as "connecting the world through games".
Robin Hunicke is an American video game designer and producer. She is a professor of game design at UC Santa Cruz and the co-founder of Funomena.
Kixeye is a video game company founded in July 2007 and headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The company creates, develops and publishes massively multiplayer online real-time strategy games (MMORTS) for PC and mobile devices. Kixeye gained popularity as a pioneer in midcore action games featuring real-time combat on the social networking website Facebook. Following their initial launch, Kixeye's games generated twenty times more revenue per daily active user than other social games, retaining active users five times longer on average.
Danger Close Games was an American video game developer based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in March 1995 as joint venture between DreamWorks SKG and Microsoft under the name DreamWorks Interactive, with studios in Redmond, Washington, and Los Angeles.
Mark Skaggs is an American video game producer and executive. Skaggs is known for leading the team that created the Facebook game FarmVille for Zynga, leading the team that created CityVille. He served as Executive Producer and product lead for the PC real-time strategy games Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer: Generals, and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth.
