The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a self-regulatory organization that assigns age and content ratings to consumer video games in North America. The ESRB was established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association, in response to criticism of controversial video games with excessively violent or sexual content, particularly after the 1993 congressional hearings following the releases of Mortal Kombat and Night Trap for home consoles and Doom for home computers. The industry, pressured with potential government oversight of video game ratings from these hearings, established both the IDSA and the ESRB within it to create a voluntary rating system based on the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system with additional considerations for video game interactivity.
SNK Corporation is a Japanese video game hardware and software company. It is the successor to the company Shin Nihon Kikaku and presently owns the SNK video game brand and the Neo Geo video game platform, and electronics. SNK's predecessor Shin Nihon Kikaku Corporation was founded in 1978 by Eikichi Kawasaki. In 1981, the name was informally shortened to SNK Corporation, which became the company's official name in 1986.
Konami Group Corporation, commonly known as Konami, is a Japanese multinational entertainment company and video game developer and publisher headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo. The company also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machines, slot machines, and arcade cabinets. It has casinos around the world and operates health and physical fitness clubs across Japan.
The video game industry is the tertiary and quaternary sectors of the entertainment industry that specialize in the development, marketing, distribution, monetization and consumer feedback of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide.
Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (SIE) is an American multinational video game and digital entertainment company of Sony. Jointly established by two subsidiaries in 2016, it primarily operates the PlayStation brand of video game consoles and products. It is also the world's largest company in the video game industry based on its equity investments.
Edge is a multi-format video game magazine published by Future plc. It is a UK-based magazine and publishes 13 issues annually. The magazine was launched by Steve Jarratt. It has also released foreign editions in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
Next Generation was a US video game magazine that was published by Imagine Media. It was affiliated to and shared editorial with the UK's Edge magazine. Next Generation ran from January 1995 until January 2002. It was published by Jonathan Simpson-Bint and edited by Neil West. Other editors included Chris Charla, Tom Russo, and Blake Fischer.
Frontier Developments plc. is a British video game developer founded by David Braben in January 1994 and based at the Cambridge Science Park in Cambridge, England. Frontier develops amusement park management simulators Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo, and has produced several games in David Braben's Elite series, including Elite Dangerous. The company takes its name from the earliest titles in the Elite series with which it was involved, a port of Frontier: Elite II and development of Frontier: First Encounters. In 2013, the company was listed on the AIM segment of the London Stock Exchange. It published third-party games under the Frontier Foundry label between 2019 and 2022.
Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a Mac OS X game engine. The engine has since been gradually extended to support a variety of desktop, mobile, console, augmented reality, and virtual reality platforms. It is particularly popular for iOS and Android mobile game development, is considered easy to use for beginner developers, and is popular for indie game development.
Pocket Gamer is a video game website and former print magazine that focuses on mobile, portable and handheld games. It was launched in 2005 by Steel Media Limited.
CD Projekt S.A. is a Polish video game developer, publisher and distributor based in Warsaw, founded in May 1994 by Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński. Iwiński and Kiciński were video game retailers before they founded the company, which initially acted as a distributor of foreign video games for the domestic market. The department responsible for developing original games, CD Projekt Red, best known for The Witcher series, was formed in 2002. In 2008, CD Projekt launched the digital distribution service Good Old Games, now known as GOG.com.
Gamer Network Limited is a British digital media company based in Brighton. Founded in 1999 by Rupert and Nick Loman, it owns brands—primarily editorial websites—relating to video game journalism and other video game businesses. Its flagship website, Eurogamer, was launched alongside the company. It began hosting video game trade show EGX in 2008. In 2018, it was acquired by ReedPop, a division of RELX.
In the video game industry, AAA (Triple-A) is an informal classification used to classify video games produced or distributed by a mid-sized or major publisher, which typically have higher development and marketing budgets than other tiers of games. In the mid-2010s, the term "AAA+" was used to describe AAA type games that generated additional revenue over time, in a similar fashion to massively multiplayer online games, by using games-as-a-service methods such as season passes and expansion packs. The similar construction "III" (Triple-I) has also been used to describe high-production-value games in the indie game industry.
Square Enix Montréal was a Canadian video game developer based in Montreal. It created the Go series of turn-based puzzle games for mobile devices based on former Eidos Interactive intellectual properties.
Bluey is an Australian animated preschool television series which premiered on ABC Kids on 1 October 2018. The program was created by Joe Brumm and is produced by Queensland-based company Ludo Studio. It was commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the British Broadcasting Corporation, with BBC Studios holding global distribution and merchandising rights. The series made its premiere on Disney Junior in the United States and is released internationally on Disney+.
League of Geeks is a video game development company founded in 2011. Based in Melbourne, Australia, the studio was most known for developing Armello, a digital board game in 2015. The studio's games include Jumplight Odyssey and Solium Infernum.
Playtika is an Israeli digital entertainment company specializing in the development and publication of mobile games. In 2021, Playtika had over 35 million monthly active users.
Stillfront Group is a Sweden-based company specialized in the acquisition and management of mobile and browser game studios.
Proletariat, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded by Seth Sivak and former Zynga industry veterans in 2012. The company was acquired by Blizzard Entertainment in 2022. Proletariat, Inc. has developed multiple independent games and launched its best-known game, Spellbreak in September, 2020.
Bluey: The Videogame is a 2023 adventure video game developed by Artax Games and published by Outright Games. It is based on the television series Bluey.
