 | |
| Company type | GmbH |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software, radio plays, audio books |
| Founded | 1994 |
| Headquarters | Munich |
Key people | Kurt Tomaszewski |
| Revenue | 3 million euros (2007) [1] |
| Website | https://www.usm.de/ |
United Soft Media Verlag GmbH (USM) is a Munich-based publishing house focused on multimedia products for PC, Mac, Nintendo DS, Wii, iOS and Android. Radio plays and audio books, mainly for children and young people, are also produced. In 2013, Kosmos-Verlag became the main shareholder.
Founded in 1994, the publisher established itself on the market after the turn of the millennium and published the PC and console games for Die Drei ??? in 2007, and the children's radio plays for the series Sternenpfad and Pumuckl. The company has major cooperation partners such as Computer Bild and Cinema. [2]
In 2000 USM bought Systema Verlag. [3]
On February 4, 2013, USM announced that Kosmos had become the majority shareholder of USM retroactively to January 1, 2013. USM was thus taken over by the previous majority owner Langen Müller Herbig nymphenburger terra magica. [4]
In 2022, USM joined Games Bavaria Munich eV, making it now 20 studios. [5]
On January 1, 2023, it was announced that USM was taking over the recording studio Headroom Sound Production. USM announced that nothing would change for the employees and that production of headroom and hearthroom would continue as usual. [6]
Hudson Soft Co., Ltd. was a Japanese video game company that released numerous games for video game consoles, home computers and mobile phones, mainly from the 1980s to the 2000s. It was headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo, with an additional office in the Hudson Building in Sapporo.
RTL Group S.A. is a Luxembourg-based international media conglomerate, with another corporate office in Cologne, Germany. The company operates 56 television channels and 36 radio stations in Germany, France and other European countries. It also offers national streaming platforms, content productions and a range of digital services. Important segments of RTL Group are RTL Deutschland, Groupe M6 and Fremantle.
Monolith Software Inc., trading as Monolith Soft, is a Japanese video game development studio originally owned by Namco until being bought out by Nintendo in 2007, best known for the Xenoblade Chronicles series of games. The company was founded in 1999 by Tetsuya Takahashi with the support and cooperation of Masaya Nakamura, the founder of Namco. Their first project was the Xenosaga series, a spiritual successor to the Square-developed Xenogears. Multiple Square staff would join Takahashi at Monolith Soft including Hirohide Sugiura and Yasuyuki Honne.
The Three Investigators is an American juvenile detective book series first published as "Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators". It was created by Robert Arthur Jr., who believed involving a famous person such as movie director Alfred Hitchcock would attract attention. Random House is the U.S. publisher and still has some of the rights to the books. Other rights are possessed by the heirs of Robert Arthur, Jr. and the German publisher Kosmos. The characters known as the "Three Investigators" are three boys named Jupiter Jones, Peter Crenshaw and Bob Andrews. As the series has become very popular in Germany, several stories have been produced directly for the German market.
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Catan, previously known as The Settlers of Catan or simply Settlers, is a multiplayer board game designed by Klaus Teuber. It was first published in 1995 in Germany by Franckh-Kosmos Verlag (Kosmos) as Die Siedler von Catan. Players take on the roles of settlers, each attempting to build and develop holdings while trading and acquiring resources. Players gain victory points as their settlements grow and the first to reach a set number of victory points, typically 10, wins. The game and its many expansions are also published by Catan Studio, Filosofia, GP, Inc., 999 Games, Κάισσα (Káissa), and Devir. Upon its release, The Settlers of Catan became one of the first Eurogames to achieve popularity outside Europe. As of 2020, more than 32 million copies in 40 languages had been sold.
Prestel Publishing is an art book publisher, with books on art, architecture, photography, design, fashion, craft, culture, history and ethnography. Lists range from museum guides, to encyclopaedias, art and architecture monographs to facsimile volumes and books for children.
The Deutscher Computerspielpreis is a prize mainly aimed at the German games industry and has been awarded since 2009. The DCP is awarded by the Cabinet of Germany and the German Games Industry Association game. In addition to awards, chosen categories receive various amounts of prize money donated by supporters of the award ceremony.
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The Süddeutscher Verlag (SV) is a corporate group that has emerged from the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Paragon Partners is a European private equity company based in Munich, Germany. It was founded in 2004 and is owner-managed. Paragon focuses on medium-sized companies with an established business model. Investors comprise institutional investors such as life insurance companies and pension funds.
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