Valve Corporation is an American video game developer, publisher, and digital distribution company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. It is the developer of the software distribution platform Steam and the franchises Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead and Dota.
Funcom Oslo AS is a Norwegian video game developer that specializes in online games. It is best known for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) titles Age of Conan, Anarchy Online, and The Secret World – and The Longest Journey series of adventure games. The company has offices in Oslo, Norway, and North Carolina, US. It also had offices in Beijing, Dublin, and Montreal previously. It is now owned by the Chinese media conglomerate Tencent.
Jagex Limited is a British video game developer and publisher based at the Cambridge Science Park in Cambridge, England. It is best known for RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, collectively known as the world's largest free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The company's name is derived from the company's original slogan, "Java Gaming Experts". In addition to RuneScape, Jagex has released multiple casual games on its FunOrb portal, as well as other titles. Jagex was owned by U.S. investors between 2012 and 2016, by Chinese investors from 2016–2020, by Macarthur Fortune Holding LLC for about a year in 2020, and is presently owned by The Carlyle Group.
Daybreak Game Company LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. The company was founded in December 1997 as Sony Online Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, but was spun off to an independent investor in February 2015 and renamed Daybreak Game Company. On December 1, 2020, Daybreak Game Company entered into an agreement to be acquired by Enad Global 7.
Steam is a video game digital distribution service and storefront by Valve. It was launched as a software client in September 2003 as a way for Valve to provide automatic updates for their games, and expanded to distributing and offering third-party game publishers' titles in late 2005. Steam offers various features, like digital rights management (DRM), game server matchmaking and anti-cheat measures, and social networking and game streaming services. It provides the user with automatic game updating, saved game cloud synchronization, and community features such as friends messaging, in-game chat and a community market.
A personal computer game, also known as a PC game or computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer (PC) rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-determined gaming hardware and software; and generally greater capacity in input, processing, video and audio output. The uncoordinated nature of the PC game market, and now its lack of physical media, make precisely assessing its size difficult. In 2018, the global PC games market was valued at about $27.7 billion.
ijji was a free multiplayer game portal website. Games hosted at ijji ranged from traditional shooters and MMORPGs to more accessible casual games, all of which were free to download and play, and with the majority featuring competitive multiplayer gameplay. The ijji website opened on July 7, 2006. The American-based game portal has published some well known worldwide titles that include Alliance of Valiant Arms, GunZ, and Soldier Front.
Origin is a digital distribution platform developed by Electronic Arts for purchasing and playing video games. The platform's software client is available for personal computer and mobile platforms.
In video gaming parlance, an achievement, also sometimes known as a trophy, badge, advancement, award, stamp, medal, challenge, cheevo or in game achievement, is a meta-goal defined outside a game's parameters. Unlike the in-game systems of quests, tasks, and/or levels that usually define the goals of a video game and have a direct effect on further gameplay, the management of achievements usually takes place outside the confines of the game environment and architecture. Meeting the fulfillment conditions, and receiving recognition of fulfillment by the game, is referred to as unlocking the achievement.
Darkspore was a video game that borrowed creature editing technology from Spore. It was described as "a fast-paced, science fiction action role-playing game in which the player battled across alien worlds to save the galaxy from the mutated forces of Darkspore". In addition to the creature editor, the game features a unique squad-based mechanic, various multiplayer options, and a player versus player arena. The game was released in North America on April 26, 2011, for Microsoft Windows, and in Europe on April 28, 2011.
Kabam is an interactive entertainment company founded in 2006 and headquartered in Vancouver, BC. with offices in San Francisco, CA and Austin, Texas. The company creates, develops and publishes massively multiplayer social games (MMSG’s) such as Marvel Contest of Champions and Transformers: Forged to Fight for mobile devices. Before expanding into gaming, Kabam established itself as a social applications' developer with entertainment and sports communities totaling more than 60 million users. Kabam markets freemium games for mobile devices, and social networking services. The company's previous investors included Alibaba, Canaan Partners, Google, MGM, Intel, Pinnacle Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Warner Bros. and others.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the fifth main installment in the Elder Scrolls series, following 2006's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 on November 11, 2011.
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.
Terraria is an action-adventure sandbox game developed by Re-Logic. The game was first released for Microsoft Windows on May 16, 2011, and has since been ported to several other platforms. The game features exploration, crafting, building, painting, and combat with a variety of creatures in a procedurally generated 2D world. Terraria received generally positive reviews, with praise given to its sandbox elements. The game is one of the best-selling of all time, having sold over 44 million copies by 2022.
Bless Online was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Neowiz Games. The release date was May 28, 2018, for Founder's Pack purchasers and May 30 for Early Access on Steam. Bless Online uses a free-to-play business model.
Xsyon is a Sandbox MMORPG massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by the independent company, Notorious Games. Xsyon is set in an apocalyptic fantasy environment, closely modeled on the real world area of Lake Tahoe which spans the California and Nevada border, west of Carson City using US Geological Survey data. Xsyon is a persistent world crafting sandbox game. It has been designed to have a completely player-driven economy and player-created questing system. This is unusual among MMORPGs, which often rely upon Non-player character vendors and quest givers to perform these functions. Xsyon can be found on many sandbox MMORPG game lists. The game world is currently both Player versus Environment (PvE) and open Player versus Player (PvP), with players being safe from other players only in the starter area and on their own tribe land.
Masthead Studios is a Bulgarian video game developer, founded in 2005, specializing in massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Their latest PC game developed and published was Soul Grabber, released on Steam in 2019.
En Masse Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game publisher. Founded in June 2008, the company was based in Seattle, Washington and is best-known for publishing massively multiplayer online role-playing game TERA, which was developed by parent company Bluehole. The original En Masse leadership team had extensive experience in the video game industry at leading companies, including Blizzard Entertainment, Microsoft, NCsoft, ArenaNet, and Electronic Arts. In January 2013, Chris Lee and Soo Min Park became chief executive officer and chief operating officer, respectively. On November 5, 2018, Bluehole and its subsidiaries, which include En Masse, were rearranged horizontally under a new parent company, Krafton Game Union. En Masse announced on August 17, 2020, that it had begun ceasing operations.
Amazon Games is an American video game company and division of the online retailing company Amazon that primarily focuses on publishing video games developed within the company's development divisions.
