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The company began operations in France in August 2001. By the time they expanded to the United Kingdom in July 2005, Metaboli already had some 15,000 subscribers.[1] Since then, the service has expanded from 45 titles to over 300. Metaboli has spread its catalogue to majors ISP portals (Orange, SFR, Virgin Media, T-Online), web portals (MSN, AOL) multimedia stores (Fnac, Game, Micromania).
In March 2007, Metaboli launched Gamesplanet, which sells digital copies of PC games through a separate site from the main Metaboli one.
In September 2008 the company expanded and purchased GameTap from Turner Broadcasting System.[2] US operations were closed in 2010.[3] By January 2011, the service had expanded to include access to over 600 games via the UK mirror.
The TurboGrafx-16, known as the PC Engine outside North America, is a home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation, commonly known as the 16-bit era, though the console has an 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) coupled with a 16-bit graphics processor. It was released in Japan in 1987 and in North America in 1989. In Europe the Japanese model was unofficially imported and distributed in the United Kingdom and France from 1988. In Japan, the system was launched as a competitor to the Famicom, but the delayed United States release meant that it ended up competing with the Sega Genesis and later the Super NES.
Konami Group Corporation, commonly known as Konami, is a Japanese multinational entertainment company and video game developer and publisher headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo. The company also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machines, slot machines, and arcade cabinets. It has casinos around the world, and operates health and physical fitness clubs across Japan.
Koei Co., Ltd. was a Japanese video game publisher, developer, and distributor founded in 1978. The company is known for its historical simulation games based on the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, as well as simulation games based on pseudo-historical events.
NEC Corporation is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered at the NEC Supertower in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It provides IT and network solutions, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) platform, and telecommunications equipment and software to business enterprises, communications services providers and to government agencies, and has also been the biggest PC vendor in Japan since the 1980s when it launched the PC-8000 series.
Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (SIE) is a Japanese-American multinational video game and digital entertainment company of Sony. Jointly established by two subsidiaries in 2016, it primarily operates the PlayStation brand of video game consoles and products. It is also the world's largest company in the video game industry based on its equity investments.
The Manhole is an adventure video game in which the player opens a manhole and reveals a gigantic beanstalk, leading to fantastic worlds.
Currys is a British electrical retailer and aftercare service provider operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland, specialising in white goods, consumer electronics, computers and mobile phones.
GameTap was an online video game service established by Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) in 2006. It provided users with classic arcade video games and game-related video content. The service was acquired by French online video game service Metaboli in 2008 as a wholly owned subsidiary; Metaboli aiming to create a global games service. The service remained active until October 2015, when it was shut down by Metaboli.
Portal is a 2007 puzzle-platform game developed and published by Valve. It was released in a bundle, The Orange Box, for Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and has been since ported to other systems, including Mac OS X, Linux, Android, and Nintendo Switch.
Imagine Publishing was a UK-based magazine publisher, which published a number of video games, computing, creative and lifestyle magazines.
The video game industry in Mainland China currently is one of the major markets for the global video game industry, where more than half a billion people play video games. Revenues from China make up around 25% of the nearly US$100 billion global video game industry as of 2018, and since 2015 has exceeded the contribution to the global market from the United States. Because of its market size, China has been described as the "Games Industry Capital of the World" and is home to some of the largest video game companies. China has also been a major factor in the growth of esports, both in player talent and in revenue.
American McGee's Grimm is a 23-part episodic video game series based upon Grimm's Fairy Tales, designed by American McGee, developed by Spicy Horse and distributed online initially by GameTap starting July 31, 2008. Grimm was originally thought to resemble the warped fairy tale style of American McGee's Alice, but the art style appears to be much more child-friendly and simplistic. Grimm is written and executive-produced by the same person as American McGee's Alice, R. J. Berg. The original announcement was made in the June 2007 issue of PC Gamer.
Insecticide is a story-driven action-adventure game by Crackpot Entertainment and published by Gamecock Media Group for the Nintendo DS and Microsoft Windows.
Amazon Music is a music streaming platform and digital music store operated by Amazon. As of January 2020, the service had 55 million subscribers.
Spicy Horse was a Shanghai-based independent video game developer started by American McGee, Anthony Jacobson, and Adam Lang in 2007. It was announced on July 23, 2016, that the company is closing its doors to focus on smaller indie development. The studio is best known for Alice: Madness Returns, the sequel to American McGee's Alice.
Galactic Command is the third series of space exploration video games developed by 3000AD, Inc.
GamersGate AB is a Sweden-based online video game store offering electronic strategy guides and games for Windows, macOS, and Linux via direct download. It is a competitor to online video game services such as Steam, GOG.com, and Direct2Drive.
Alawar Entertainment is an international developer and publisher of video games for PC, consoles, mobile platforms, and other devices. Founded in Novosibirsk, Russia, it is based in Lewes, Delaware, United States. Its main areas of activity are mid-core games for experienced players, as well as casual downloadable and F2P games for PC, MacOS, IOS, Android, PlayStation (console), Xbox, social networks, and other platforms.
Atari SA is a French video game holding company headquartered in Paris. Once one of the largest video game companies in the world through an acquisition policy under Infogrames, Atari SA dealt with continuing pressures and difficulty finding investors which led to the company seeking bankruptcy protection under French law in January 2013 while subsidiaries in the United States sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as well. Since 2020, the company has seen a turnaround with a new focus on dealing with re-releases of older titles and the acquisition of companies that deal with the re-release of mainly abandonware video games.
In the video game industry, digital distribution is the process of delivering video game content as digital information, without the exchange or purchase of new physical media such as ROM cartridges, magnetic storage, optical discs and flash memory cards. This process has existed since the early 1980s, but it was only with network advancements in bandwidth capabilities in the early 2000s that digital distribution became more prominent as a method of selling games. Currently, the process is dominated by online distribution over broadband Internet.
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