Lionhead Studios Limited was a British video game developer founded in July 1997 by Peter Molyneux, Mark Webley, Tim Rance, and Steve Jackson. The company is best known for the Black & White and Fable series. Lionhead started as a breakaway from developer Bullfrog Productions, which was also founded by Molyneux. Lionhead's first game was Black & White, a god game with elements of artificial life and strategy games. Black & White was published by Electronic Arts in 2001. Lionhead Studios is named after Webley's hamster, which died not long after the naming of the studio, as a result of which the studio was very briefly renamed to Redeye Studios.
Bethesda Softworks LLC is an American video game publisher based in Rockville, Maryland. The company was founded by Christopher Weaver in 1986 as a division of Media Technology Limited. In 1999, it became a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media. In its first 15 years, it was a video game developer and self-published its titles. In 2001, Bethesda spun off its in-house development team into Bethesda Game Studios, leaving Bethesda Softworks to focus on publishing operations.
Peter Douglas Molyneux is an English video game designer and programmer. He created the god games Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and Black & White, as well as Theme Park, the Fable series, Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube?, and Godus. He currently works at 22cans.
Black & White is a god video game developed by Lionhead Studios and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows in 2001 and by Feral Interactive in 2002 for Mac OS. Black & White combines elements of artificial life and strategy. The player acts as a god whose goal is to defeat Nemesis, another god who wants to take over the world. A primary theme is the concept of good and evil, with the atmosphere being affected by the player's moral choices. The core gameplay mechanic of Black & White is the interaction between the player and an avatar creature, who carries out the player's instructions and whose personality and behaviour change in reaction to how they are treated. Multiplayer is supported over a local network or online.
Ensemble Studios was an American video game developer. It was founded by Tony Goodman in 1994 and incorporated the following year. It borrowed the name of Ensemble Corporation, a consulting firm founded by Goodman in 1990. It was acquired by Microsoft in 2001 and operated as an internal studio until 2009, when its development capabilities were officially disbanded. Ensemble developed many real-time strategy games, including the Age of Empires game series, Age of Mythology, and Halo Wars. In addition to game development, Ensemble Studios also made the Genie Game Engine used in Age of Empires, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. The studio sold 20 million games and was worth an estimated $500 million.
Xbox Game Studios is an American video game publisher based in Redmond, Washington. It was established in March 2000, spun out from an internal Games Group, for the development and publishing of video games for Microsoft Windows. It has since expanded to include games and other interactive entertainment for the namesake Xbox platforms, other desktop operating systems, Windows Mobile and other mobile platforms, and web-based portals.
Rebellion Developments Limited is a British video game developer based in Oxford, England. Founded by Jason and Chris Kingsley in December 1992, the company is best known for its Sniper Elite series and multiple games in the Alien vs. Predator series. Sister company Rebellion Publishing has published comic books since 2000, when it purchased 2000 AD, the publisher of characters such as Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper.
Remedy Entertainment Oyj, trading internationally as Remedy Entertainment Plc, is a Finnish video game developer based in Espoo. Notable games the studio has developed include the first two entries in the Max Payne franchise, Alan Wake, Quantum Break and Control. Sam Lake, Remedy's creative director, has represented the company on numerous occasions.
Access Software, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Founded in November 1982 by Bruce Carver and Chris Jones, the company created the Beach Head, Links and Tex Murphy series, as well as Raid over Moscow. Access Software was acquired by Microsoft in April 1999, transitioning in name twice before being acquired by Take-Two Interactive in October 2004, receiving the name Indie Built. In January 2005, Access Software became part of Take-Two's 2K label. Following a poor financial performance at Take-Two, Indie Built was closed down in May 2006.
Warner Bros. Games is an American video game publisher based in Burbank, California, and part of the Global Streaming and Interactive Entertainment unit of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). The publisher was founded as Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment on January 14, 2004, under Warner Bros. Entertainment and transferred to its Home Entertainment division when that company was formed in October 2005. Warner Bros. Games manages the wholly owned game development studios TT Games, Rocksteady Studios, NetherRealm Studios, Monolith Productions, WB Games Boston, Avalanche Software, and WB Games Montréal, among others.
ZeniMax Media Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Rockville, Maryland, and founded in 1999.
Bethesda Game Studios is an American video game developer and a studio of ZeniMax Media based in Rockville, Maryland. It is best known for its action role-playing franchises, including The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Starfield. Bethesda Game Studios was established in 2001 as the development unit of Bethesda Softworks, separating from publishing operations. Todd Howard serves as the studio's executive producer, leading it with managing director Ashley Cheng and studio director Angela Browder. As of November 2023, Bethesda Game Studios had 450 employees.
Runic Games was an American computer game developer based in Seattle. It was formed by former Flagship Studios developers in August 2008. In 2009, the company released Torchlight, a single-player action role-playing game. It was acquired by Perfect World in May 2010. They released a sequel, Torchlight II, in 2012. It was at this time the developers revealed they were no longer pursuing plans to create an MMO in the Torchlight universe.
Fable is a series of action role-playing video games for Xbox, Microsoft Windows, macOS, Xbox 360 and Xbox One platforms. The series was developed by Lionhead Studios until the studio was closed in 2016, and is published by Xbox Game Studios.
THQ Nordic GmbH is an Austrian video game publisher based in Vienna. Formed in 2011, it is a publishing subsidiary of Embracer Group. Originally named Nordic Games, as was the parent company, both companies were renamed THQ Nordic in August 2016 after the parent company had acquired the "THQ" trademark in 2014.
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is a puzzle-platform video game developed by Press Play for Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch and later on PlayStation 4. The game was announced during Microsoft's E3 2013 press event. It is a sequel to Press Play's previous work, the 2010 game Max & the Magic Marker.
Project: Knoxville is a cancelled video game developed by Press Play and published by Microsoft Studios exclusively for the Xbox One. The game puts emphasis on survival and lets players co-operate with each other to achieve success. The game adapts an open development and allows the community to give input regarding the game's development. As Press Play was closed in March 2016, the game was no longer in development.
Gary Carr is an English video game developer. His career began at Palace Software, where he worked on titles such as Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior and Barbarian II: The Dungeon of Drax. In 1989, he joined Bullfrog Productions and worked as lead artist on Powermonger and Populous II. He also worked on Theme Park, but, after a disagreement with Peter Molyneux, he left the company to work for The Bitmap Brothers, where he worked on The Chaos Engine 2. He returned to Bullfrog in 1995 hoping to work on Dungeon Keeper, but worked on Theme Hospital instead. He left Bullfrog again in 1998 to join Mucky Foot Productions.
