Origin Systems, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. It was founded on March 3, 1983, by Richard Garriott and his brother Robert. Origin is best known for their groundbreaking work in multiple genres of video games, such as the Ultima and Wing Commander series. The company was purchased by Electronic Arts in 1992.
It's Mr. Pants is a puzzle video game developed by Rare. It was published by THQ for the Game Boy Advance (GBA) handheld game console in North America and Europe in 2004–2005. A port of the game for mobile phones was developed and published internationally by In-Fusio in 2005–2006. The game stars Mr. Pants, a crudely drawn mascot formerly featured on Rare's website who had made cameo appearances in several prior Rare games.
The Gizmondo is a handheld gaming console developed by Tiger Telematics. It was released in the UK, Sweden and the U.S. starting in March 2005. Its first-party games were developed in studios in Helsingborg, Sweden, and Manchester, England. Gizmondo Europe, Ltd. was based in London, England, and was a subsidiary of Florida-based Tiger Telematics, whose chairman Carl Freer led Gizmondo's development.
Starbreeze AB is a Swedish video game developer and publisher based in Stockholm. The studios's notable games developed include The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Payday 2 and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Founded by members of the demogroup Triton, the company was merged with O3 Games in 2002 wherein the Starbreeze name was retained. The company produced titles including Enclave and Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade. In the early 2000s, cancellations of their projects due to conflicts with publishers and a failed acquisition led to a severe financial crisis, resulting in staff lay-offs during the development of Starbreeze's fourth game, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. This game received critical acclaim and helped Starbreeze establish a reputation for producing high-quality games. The company worked on The Darkness, whose sales were considered satisfactory.
Paradox Interactive AB is a video game publisher based in Stockholm, Sweden. The company started out as the video game division of Target Games and then Paradox Entertainment before being spun out into an independent company in 2004. Through a combination of expanding internal studios, founding new studios and purchasing independent developers, the company has grown to comprise nine first-party development studios, including their flagship Paradox Development Studio, and acts as publisher for games from other developers.
Junction Point Studios (JPS) was an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas founded by Deus Ex creator, Warren Spector, in 2004. Disney Interactive Studios acquired Junction Point Studios in July 2007 to develop a property based on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character created by Walt Disney but owned by Universal Studios until the character was acquired by The Walt Disney Company from Universal in 2006. The studio was closed in 2013.
SCi Entertainment Group plc was a British video game publisher based in London. The company was founded in 1988 by Jane Cavanagh and floated on the stock exchange in 1996. In May 2005, SCi acquired Eidos plc, the parent company of publisher Eidos Interactive, and merged their operations by June 2006. In December 2008, SCi was briefly renamed Eidos and was subsequently acquired by Square Enix in March 2009.
Tiger Telematics, or Tiger, was a Swedish electronics company, best known for the failed Gizmondo handheld game console.
Conquest: Frontier Wars is a real-time strategy game released in 2001 by Ubi Soft and developed by Fever Pitch Studios. A good amount of the development was done at Digital Anvil in Austin, Texas, a startup developer originally owned by Chris Roberts, Erin Roberts, Eric Peterson, John Miles, Tony Zurovec, Marten Davies and Robert Rodriguez. Once Microsoft purchased Digital Anvil, Eric Peterson and Tom Mauer left to form Fever Pitch Studios Inc, and lead a team to complete the game as originally intended by the team. On December 9, 2013, the source code was bundled with every copy of the game purchased on GOG.com.
Richard Burns Rally is a sim racing game, published by SCi and developed by Warthog with advice of WRC champion Richard Burns (1971–2005).
Future Tactics: The Uprising is a turn based tactical shooter video game by Zed Two. Once known as Pillage, this turn based shooter was stuck in development for a number of years before being picked up by Crave for a US release, followed shortly by JoWood for a European release. It plays similarly to the Worms 3D games and has a story penned by Paul Rose. The game features a geo-mod system in which almost anything can be destroyed, leaving battlefields scarred by craters. It was released on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and Windows.
Atod AB/LG Software AB was a video game developer located in Helsingborg, Sweden.
Carl Johan Freer is a Swedish businessman and technology entrepreneur primarily known for founding the American company Tiger Telematics, which created the handheld game console Gizmondo. Freer is also the founder of Singapore-based medical-device company, Aluminaid and co-author of several patents.
Sticky Balls is an action puzzle game published by Gizmondo Studios and developed in Manchester and designed by John and Ste Pickford in 2005 for Gizmondo, and later ported to iOS in 2014.
Team17 Group plc is a British video game developer and publisher based in Wakefield, England. The venture was created in December 1990 through the merger of British publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish developer Team 7. At the time, the two companies consisted of and were led by Michael Robinson, Martyn Brown and Debbie Bestwick, and Andreas Tadic, Rico Holmes and Peter Tuleby, respectively. Bestwick later became Team17's chief executive officer until 1 January 2024. After their first game, Full Contact (1991) for the Amiga, the studio followed up with multiple number-one releases on that platform and saw major success with Andy Davidson's Worms in 1995, the resulting franchise of which still remains as the company's primary development output, having developed over 20 entries in it.
Coffee Stain Studios AB is a Swedish video game developer based in Skövde. Founded in 2010 by nine University of Skövde students, the company is best known for Goat Simulator, which was released in April 2014, and Satisfactory, released as an early access game in 2019. Their parent holding company also operates Coffee Stain Publishing, a publisher, and majority-owns developers Coffee Stain North and Lavapotion. In November 2018, the Coffee Stain group was acquired by THQ Nordic AB.
MachineGames Sweden AB is a Swedish video game developer based in Uppsala. The studio was founded in 2009 by seven former employees of Starbreeze Studios, including founder Magnus Högdahl. After unsuccessfully pitching game ideas to several publishers, MachineGames agreed with Bethesda Softworks to develop an entry in the Wolfenstein series in July 2010 and was acquired by Bethesda's parent company, ZeniMax Media, in November. In the Wolfenstein series, MachineGames developed The New Order (2014), The Old Blood (2015), The New Colossus (2017), Youngblood (2019), and Cyberpilot (2019). The studio is developing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (2024) as well as another Wolfenstein game.
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.
TT Games Limited is a British holding company and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Games. The company was established in 2005 through the merger of developer Traveller's Tales and publisher Giant Interactive. Its other branches include developer TT Fusion, animation studio TT Animation and mobile game studio TT Odyssey. The company is best known for its video games based on the Lego construction toy.
