In computing, cross-platform software is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software requires a separate build for each platform, but some can be directly run on any platform without special preparation, being written in an interpreted language or compiled to portable bytecode for which the interpreters or run-time packages are common or standard components of all supported platforms.
A computing platform, digital platform, or software platform is an environment in which a piece of software is executed. It may be the hardware or the operating system (OS), even a web browser and associated application programming interfaces, or other underlying software, as long as the program code is executed with it. Computing platforms have different abstraction levels, including a computer architecture, an OS, or runtime libraries. A computing platform is the stage on which computer programs can run.
Revolution Software Limited is a British video game developer based in York, founded in 1989 by Charles Cecil, Tony Warriner, David Sykes, and Noirin Carmody.
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.
VisualBoyAdvance is a free emulator of the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance handheld game consoles as well as of Super Game Boy and Super Game Boy 2.
A mobile game, or smartphone game, is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone, tablet, PDA to handheld game console, portable media player or graphing calculator, with and without network availability. The earliest known game on a mobile phone was a Tetris variant on the Hagenuk MT-2000 device from 1994.
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga is a Lego-themed action-adventure video game based on the Lego Star Wars line of construction toys. It is a combination of the game Lego Star Wars: The Video Game (2005) and its sequel in 2006, which span the first six episodes of the Skywalker Saga. The game was announced by LucasArts on 25 May 2007 at Celebration IV and was released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Nintendo DS on 6 November 2007 in North America. The game was later released on Microsoft Windows on 13 October 2009, macOS on 12 November 2010, iOS on 11 December 2013, and for Android on 1 January 2015.
Exient Entertainment is an independent video game developer and publisher based in the United Kingdom and Malta. Developing for handheld, mobile, console, VR and PC platforms, Exient grew a name for designing and developing popular series' games to portable systems. It is known for its ports of various games in the Madden NFL, FIFA, Need for Speed, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour series for Electronic Arts and for developing numerous titles in the Angry Birds series. The company was incorporated in 2000 and began operations in January 2001.
Super Meat Boy is a 2010 platform game designed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes under the collective name of "Team Meat". It was self-published as the successor to Meat Boy, a 2008 Flash game designed by McMillen and Jonathan McEntee. In the game, the player controls Meat Boy, a red, cube-shaped character, as he attempts to rescue his girlfriend, Bandage Girl, from the game's antagonist Dr. Fetus. The gameplay is characterized by fine control and split-second timing, as the player runs and jumps through over 300 hazardous levels while avoiding obstacles. The game also supports the creation of player-created levels. Super Meat Boy was first released on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade in October 2010, and was later ported to Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, and the Nintendo Switch. A Wii version was in development but was ultimately cancelled.
Ludia is a Canadian video game developer based in Montreal, Quebec that creates and distributes cross-platform digital games with mass consumer appeal. Ludia produces original and branded properties based on game shows, television series, movies, books and board games. In addition to developing games for Facebook, iOS, Android and Amazon, Ludia has created games for Nintendo DS, Microsoft Windows, Mac, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, with Kinect, and Wii in the past.
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.
Spacetime Studios (STS) is a games development studio, based in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2005 by a small group of PC MMO game developers. The start-up was created with the aim to create Sci-Fi MMOs for the PC market.
Hi-Rez Studios is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was established in 2005 by Erez Goren and Todd Harris. Hi-Rez Studios' games include the squad-based shooter Global Agenda, the critically acclaimed Tribes: Ascend, the third-person MOBA Smite, the hero shooter Paladins, and the third-person shooter Rogue Company. In 2012, Hi-Rez Studios was recognized as a Top 30 Video-Game Developer by Game Developer Magazine and Gamasutra. Hi-Rez are the current owners of the Metaltech license, including Battledrome, Earthsiege, Starsiege, the CyberStorm series, and the Tribes series. With the exception of Battledrome and CyberStorm, the games were released as freeware by Hi-Rez on October 30, 2015.
Straandlooper is an animation studio and video game developer based in Donaghadee, Northern Ireland. They developed the episodic video game for iPhone, Hector: Badge of Carnage which is based on their character Hector: Fat Arse of the Law. Straandlooper is notable for being Northern Ireland's first animation studio to produce a television series for the international market. As a video game developer, they are notable for being the first company where Telltale Games took on a publishing role, rather than a directing role. Telltale funded the development of the final two episodes of Hector: Badge of Carnage and published all three episodes on additional platforms, in addition to iOS.
Zojoi is a video game software development company based in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was founded by former ICOM Simulations developers David Marsh and Karl Roelofs in 2012. Zojoi currently has the rights to many of the intellectual properties that once belonged to ICOM Simulations, including Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective and Shadowgate.
Wizorb is a video game created and published by Tribute Games. It was released on the Xbox 360 Xbox Live Marketplace on September 29, 2011. The gameplay is a cross between a Breakout clone and a role-playing video game. Wizorb was ported to Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It was released for Windows through Steam on March 14, 2012, with added achievements and cloud storage. Upon release, Wizorb saw favorable reviews from critics, with VentureBeat's Jacob Siegal listing it as one of the top 10 independent video games of 2011.
SteamOS is a Linux distribution developed by Valve. It incorporates Valve's popular namesake Steam video game storefront and is the primary operating system for Steam Machines and the Steam Deck. SteamOS is open source with some closed source components.
Chucklefish Limited is a British video game developer and publisher based in London. Founded in 2011 by Finn Brice, the company specialises in retro-styled games. Chucklefish is best known for developing Starbound and Wargroove, as well as publishing Risk of Rain and formerly Stardew Valley.
Universal Windows Platform (UWP) is a computing platform created by Microsoft and introduced in Windows 10. The purpose of this platform is to help develop universal apps that run on Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile (discontinued), Windows 11, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and HoloLens without the need to be rewritten for each. It supports Windows app development using C++, C#, VB.NET, and XAML. The API is implemented in C++, and supported in C++, VB.NET, C#, F# and JavaScript. Designed as an extension to the Windows Runtime (WinRT) platform introduced in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8, UWP allows developers to create apps that will potentially run on multiple types of devices.
Apple Arcade is a video game subscription service offered by Apple Inc. It is available through a dedicated tab of the App Store on devices running iOS 13, tvOS 13, iPadOS 13, and macOS Catalina or later. The service launched on September 19, 2019.
