 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2023) |
| Industry | Video games |
|---|---|
| Founded | April 1997 [1] |
| Defunct | September 2004 |
| Successor | Gamezlab |
| Headquarters | |
Number of employees | 200 (2001) [3] |
| Parent | BBC Multimedia (2002-2004) |
| Website | runecraft.co.uk (archived) |
Runecraft (later renamed Gamezlab) was a British video game developer based in the United Kingdom. The company was founded in April 1997 and mostly developed games based on licensed properties.
In 2002, the company was commissioned by the BBC to develop a fighting game engine for the company's upcoming FightBox game show project. However, various financial issues, mismanagement, and other problems caused Runecraft to go bust at the end of December 2002. To keep the show alive, BBC Worldwide acquired the developer and a small number of its staff, and renamed the developer under BBC's core-publishing brand "Gamezlab". [2]
Following the failure of FightBox and the completion of the tie-in games, In February 2004, Gamezlab were commissioned to develop a video game based on BBC's Spooks TV series for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Microsoft Windows. [4] The game was planned to use a new internal game engine, but at the end of September 2004, BBC Multimedia closed down Gamezlab as part of a restructuring to focus on licensing and ceasing development and publication.
| Year | Game | Platform(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Risk | Windows, PlayStation |
| Caesars' Palace II | Game Boy Color, PlayStation | |
| 1999 | Barbie: Race & Ride | PlayStation |
| Y2K: The Game | Windows | |
| Barbie Super Sports | Windows, PlayStation | |
| 2000 | Spec Ops: Stealth Patrol | PlayStation |
| Arthur! Ready to Race | PlayStation | |
| Caesars Palace 2000 | Dreamcast, Windows, PlayStation | |
| Evo's Space Adventures | PlayStation | |
| Spec Ops II: Omega Squad | Dreamcast | |
| Detective Barbie: The Mystery Cruise | PlayStation | |
| 2001 | Barbie: Explorer | |
| Spec Ops: Covert Assault | ||
| Soldier of Fortune | Dreamcast | |
| Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX | ||
| Tintin: Destination Adventure | Windows, PlayStation | |
| Rescue Heroes: Molten Menace | PlayStation | |
| Men in Black: The Series – Crashdown | ||
| Pajama Sam 3: You Are What You Eat from Your Head to Your Feet | ||
| Backyard Soccer | ||
| Scrabble | Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, PlayStation | |
| 2002 | Jim Henson's The Hoobs | PlayStation |
| Westlife: Fan-o-Mania | Windows, PlayStation | |
| Butt Ugly Martians: B.K.M. Battles | Game Boy Advance | |
| Monopoly Party | GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox | |
| Shadow of Memories | Windows | |
| Super Bubble Pop | Game Boy Advance, GameCube, PlayStation, Xbox | |
| Butt-Ugly Martians: Zoom or Doom | GameCube, PlayStation 2 | |
| 2004 | FightBox | Game Boy Advance, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2 |
| Cancelled | Spooks | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox |
| Barbie Treasures in Time | PlayStation 2, GameCube | |
| Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends | PlayStation | |
| Star Trek: New Worlds [5] | Dreamcast |
Capcom Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Street Fighter, Mega Man, Devil May Cry, Dead Rising, Ace Attorney, and Marvel vs. Capcom. Established in 1979, it has become an international enterprise with subsidiaries in East Asia, Europe, and North America.
Tomb Raider, known as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider from 2001 to 2008, is a media franchise that originated with an action-adventure video game series created by British video game developer Core Design. The franchise is currently owned by CDE Entertainment; it was formerly owned by Eidos Interactive, then by Square Enix Europe after Square Enix's acquisition of Eidos in 2009 until Embracer Group purchased the intellectual property alongside Eidos in 2022. The franchise focuses on the fictional British archaeologist Lara Croft, who travels around the world searching for lost artefacts and infiltrating dangerous tombs and ruins. Gameplay generally focuses on exploration, solving puzzles, navigating hostile environments filled with traps, and fighting enemies. Additional media has been developed for the franchise in the form of film adaptations, comics and novels.
Westwood Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in 1985 as Brelous Software, but got changed after 2 months into Westwood Associates and was renamed to Westwood Studios when Virgin Games bought the company in 1992. The company was bought by Electronic Arts alongside Virgin Interactive's North American operations in 1998. In January 2003, it was announced that Westwood, alongside Westwood Pacific, would be merged into EA Los Angeles. The main studio location closed in March of that year.
BioWare is a Canadian video game developer based in Edmonton, Alberta. It was founded in 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip, alongside Trent Oster, Brent Oster, and Marcel Zeschuk. Since 2007, the company has been owned by American publisher Electronic Arts.
Interplay Entertainment Corp. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions by developers Brian Fargo, Jay Patel, Troy Worrell, and Rebecca Heineman, as well as investor Chris Wells. As a developer, Interplay is best known as the creator of the Fallout series and as a publisher for the Baldur's Gate and Descent series.
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.
FightBox is a game show that aired on BBC Three from 13 October to 10 November 2003 and is hosted by Lisa Snowdon and Trevor Nelson with Paul Dickenson as commentator.
Spooks is a British television spy drama series that originally aired on BBC One from 13 May 2002 to 23 October 2011, consisting of 10 series. The title is a colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid. In the United States, the show is broadcast under the title MI-5. In Canada, the programme originally aired as MI-5, but later aired on BBC Canada as Spooks.
Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland. Following its first commercial video game release, ZZT (1991), the company became Epic MegaGames, Inc. in early 1992 and brought on Mark Rein, who has been its vice president since. After moving the headquarters to Cary in 1999, the studio changed its name to Epic Games.
Insomniac Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Burbank, California and part of PlayStation Studios. It was founded in 1994 by Ted Price as Xtreme Software, and was renamed Insomniac Games a year later. The company is most known for developing several early PlayStation mascots, Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet and Clank, as well as the Resistance franchise, 2014's Sunset Overdrive and the Marvel's Spider-Man series with Marvel Games. In 2019, the studio was acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment, becoming a part of SIE Worldwide Studios.
Warthog Games Limited, or Warthog plc, was a British video game developer, located in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, with studios in Sweden and the United States.
Guerrilla B.V. is a Dutch first-party video game developer based in Amsterdam and part of PlayStation Studios. The company was founded as Lost Boys Games in January 2000 through the merger of three smaller development studios as a subsidiary of multimedia conglomerate company Lost Boys. Lost Boys Games became independent the following year and was acquired by Media Republic in 2003, renaming the studio to Guerrilla Games before being purchased by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2005. As of June 2021, the company employs 360 people under the leadership of joint studio directors Jan-Bart van Beek, Joel Eschler and Hella Schmidt. It is best known for the Killzone and Horizon game series.
Entertainment Rights PLC was a British multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that specialized in TV shows and cartoons, children's media, films, and distribution. In May 2009, the company was acquired by Boomerang Media and merged into its own subsidiary Classic Media.
Kuju Entertainment Ltd. is a British video game developer. The original company was Simis, formed in 1989 and purchased by Eidos Interactive in 1995. Kuju was formed in 1998 in Shalford, Surrey, England, after a management buyout of Simis from Eidos.
BBC Multimedia was a division of the BBC which dealt with the publishing of computer-game versions of well-known BBC television programmes.
Bigpoint GmbH is a German video game developer. The company develops stand-alone browser-based games as well as social network games. Bigpoint has over 200 million registered users. Bigpoint.com states that 337,104,419 players are registered in the top right corner, as of 10/10/13. NBCU has featured some of Bigpoint's games on the websites of some of its cable channels.
The United Kingdom has the largest video game sector in Europe. By revenue, the UK had the second-largest video game market in Europe in 2022 after Germany, and the sixth-largest globally. By sales, it is Europe's largest market, having overtaken Germany in 2022. The UK video game market was worth £7.16 billion in 2021, a 2% increase over the previous year.
Robot Wars: Extreme Destruction is an action game developed by Climax Development and published by BBC Multimedia under their game development label Gamezlab in 2002 for the Game Boy Advance, Microsoft Windows and Xbox. It was given a release in the run-up to Christmas to build on the success of the three previous games, which had sold over 250,000 copies.
Video gaming in the United States is one of the fastest-growing entertainment industries in the country. The American video game industry is the largest video game industry in the world. According to a 2020 study released by the Entertainment Software Association, the yearly economic output of the American video game industry in 2019 was $90.3 billion, supporting over 429,000 American jobs. With an average yearly salary of about $121,000, the latter figure includes over 143,000 individuals who are directly employed by the video game business. Additionally, activities connected to the video game business generate $12.6 billion in federal, state, and local taxes each year. World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025 the American gaming industry will reach $42.3 billion while worldwide gaming industry will possibly reach US$270 billion. The United States is one of the nations with the largest influence in the video game industry, with video games representing a significant part of its economy.
The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment (Ukie) is a non-profit trade association for the video game industry in the United Kingdom (UK). Ukie was founded in 1989 as the European Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), then changed to Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) in 2002, and to its current name in 2010.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
 | This United Kingdom video game corporation or company article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
