 |
 | |
| Industry | Video games |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2007 |
| Defunct | August 22, 2023 |
| Headquarters | Utrecht, Netherlands |
Key people | Fabian Akker, Joost van Dongen, Gijs Hermans, Jasper Koning, Ralph Rademakers, Martijn Thieme, Olivier Thijssen |
| Products | Swords & Soldiers Awesomenauts |
Number of employees | 17 (2015) [1] |
| Website | ronimo-games.com |
Ronimo Games was a Dutch video game developer founded in 2007 by former students of the Utrecht School of the Arts.
The team that formed Ronimo Games initially came together under the name of Banana Games, [2] and created the original freeware PC version of de Blob . [3] Publisher THQ noticed the game, was very impressed with the team's work, and acquired the rights to the game. THQ subsequently handed over further development to Blue Tongue Entertainment (Nintendo DS, Wii) and Universomo (mobile/iPhone/iPod).
With the money earned from selling the rights to de Blob the team founded Ronimo Games. [1] The name "Ronimo" came from a brainstorming session in which the team decided to combine the first letters of the words "Robot Ninja Monkey".
In May 2009, the studio released the WiiWare title Swords & Soldiers . In September 2010 the game was released for PlayStation Network with publisher Sony Online Entertainment and in December the Windows and Mac version on Steam. In June 2011 the game was ported by Two Tribes and published by Chillingo for iOS.
The studio developed Awesomenauts , a multiplayer online battle arena for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC. Despite the publisher's financial problems, the game was released on PC at May 2, 2012. The studio went to Kickstarter to fund Awesomenauts: Starstorm, the game's first expansion. A second expansion, Awesomenauts: Overdrive, was released on March 2, 2016. Ronimo Games released updates for the PC version, adding new characters, addressing balancing, connectivity, and bug-fixes until development on the game was discontinued [4] with the last update released in July 2018.
Swords & Soldiers II was released on Wii U on May 21, 2015, to generally favorable reviews according to Metacritic. [5] [6] [7] Renamed as Swords & Soldiers 2 Shawarmageddon, it was released for PC and PlayStation 4 in November 2018. It was released for Nintendo Switch on March 1, 2019. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
Blightbound launched on Steam Early Access on 29th July 2020. After a year in early access, Blightbound fully launched on Steam, PS4, and Xbox One on 27th July 2021. Blightbound's development concluded after Update 1.1.2 in March 2022. Although the developers delivered all promised features from Blightbound's development roadmap, there are still unfixed issues in the game. Reasons for not fixing some of the bugs include: "We are not able to fix this because we don't have next gen dev kits. Without PS5 or Xbox Series X dev kits, we are not able to find the issue causing this problem, so any fix we would want to implement would essentially be guesswork, as there are no debug settings or error logs on commercial consoles. Furthermore, any fix would also need to be tested in a live build of the game, which is not an option.". [13]
Ronimo games was declared bankrupt on 22nd August 2023. [14] An unofficial statement on the company Discord server states that 'We got hit by a series of unfortunate events while working on our latest project, and weren't able to recover despite our best efforts.'.
Atari SA acquired most of Romino's intellectual properties, including Awesomenauts and Swords & Soldiers, in October 2023. [15]
Xseed Games is an American video game company founded by former members of Square Enix USA. It later became a subsidiary of the Japanese game company Marvelous, providing the localization and publishing services for video games and related materials.
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Two Tribes B.V. is an independent video game developer based in Harderwijk, Netherlands. Founded in 2001 by Martijn Reuvers and Collin van Ginkel, it develops its own intellectual property and games for franchises. The office closed in September 2016, after the release of Rive, but Two Tribes continues development of the Nintendo Switch version of Rive, as well as supporting older games.
Swords & Soldiers is a 2D sidescrolling real-time strategy video game by Ronimo Games. It was released in Europe on May 15, 2009, and in North America on June 8. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android, Wii, PlayStation 3, iOS, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, and Nintendo Switch. Two Tribes released Swords & Soldiers on the Wii U eShop, which was released in North America and Europe on May 22, 2014.
Platform exclusivity refers to the status of a video game being developed for and released only on certain platforms. Most commonly, it refers to only being released on a specific video game console or through a specific vendor's platforms—either permanently, or for a definite period of time.
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Awesomenauts was a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed by Dutch video game development company Ronimo Games. The game was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles in May 2012, and for Microsoft Windows systems in August 2012. It was later ported to OS X and Linux. Another version of the game, Awesomenauts Assemble!, incorporating all the changes and additions available on Windows, OS X and Linux, was released for the PlayStation 4 in March 2014 and for the Xbox One in September 2016. In May 2017, the PC version of the game transitioned to a free-to-play title, incorporating an in-game currency and reward system to allow players to gain access to new characters and other customization aspects. In September 2019, Ronimo Games announced that development on the game has stopped indefinitely. Despite this, Awesomenauts was still available to play, until the servers went offline on September 15, 2023 due to Ronimo's bankruptcy.
2017 saw the release of numerous video games as well as other developments in the video game industry. The Nintendo Switch console was released in 2017, which sold more than 14 million units by the end of the year, exceeding the under-performing Wii U lifetime sales. This has helped to revitalize Nintendo, with the "retro" Super NES Classic Edition console, the refreshed New Nintendo 2DS XL handheld and a strategy for mobile gaming. Microsoft also released the higher-powered Xbox One X targeted for 4K resolutions and virtual reality support.
Numerous video games were released in 2018. Best-selling games included Madden NFL 19, NBA 2K19, NBA Live 19, WWE 2K19, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Marvel's Spider-Man, Red Dead Redemption 2, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Far Cry 5, God of War, Monster Hunter: World, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, and Dragon Ball FighterZ. Games highly regarded by video game critics released in 2018 included Red Dead Redemption 2, God of War, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Marvel's Spider-Man, Forza Horizon 4, Monster Hunter: World, Dead Cells, Return of the Obra Dinn, and Celeste. The year's highest-grossing games included Fortnite, Honor of Kings/Arena of Valor, Dungeon Fighter Online, League of Legends, and Pokémon Go.
Majesco Entertainment Company is an American video game publisher and distributor based in Hazlet, New Jersey. The company was founded as Majesco Sales in Edison, New Jersey in 1986, and was a privately held company until acquiring operation-less company ConnectivCorp in a reverse merger takeover, becoming its subsidiary and thus a public company on December 5, 2003. ConnectivCorp later changed its name to Majesco Holdings Inc. on April 13, 2004.
In video games with online gaming functionality, also called cross-compatible play, cross-platform play, crossplay, or cross-play describes the ability of players using different video game hardware to play with each other simultaneously. It is commonly applied to the ability for players using a game on a specific video game console to play alongside a player on a different hardware platform such as another console or a computer. A related concept is cross-save, where the player's progress in a game is stored in separate servers, and can be continued in the game but on a different hardware platform.
In the video game industry during 2019, both Sony and Microsoft announced their intent to reveal their next-generation consoles in 2020, while Nintendo introduced a smaller Nintendo Switch Lite, and Google announced its streaming game platform Stadia. The controversy over loot boxes as a potential gambling route continued into 2019, with some governments like Belgium and the Netherlands banning games with them under their gambling laws, while the United Kingdom acknowledging their current laws prevent enforcing these as if they were games of chance. The first video cards to support real-time ray tracing were put onto the consumer market, including the first set of games that would take advantage of the new technology. The Epic Games Store continued its growth in challenging the largest digital PC game distribution service Steam, leading to concern and debate about Epic Games' methods to seek games for its service. Dota Auto Chess, a community-created mod for Dota 2, introduced a new subgenre of strategy games called auto battlers, which saw several games in the genre released throughout the year. Blizzard Entertainment faced criticism due to their involvement in the Blitzchung controversy, which began after they had banned a Hearthstone player for making comments during a tournament regarding the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.
BlitWorks is a Spanish video game developer based in Barcelona, Spain. Founded in 2012, the company is best known for porting several games such as Fez, Sonic CD, Jet Set Radio, Super Meat Boy, Bastion, Spelunky and Don't Starve to a wide range of platforms such as PlayStation 5, PS4, PS3, PS Vita, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Steam, Stadia, Nintendo Switch, Wii U, iOS and Android.
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