According to Chen, the company focuses on creating video games that provoke emotional responses from players. He has stated that, while the company is not opposed to making action-oriented games, he believes that enough such titles are released by the established video game industry. When designing a game, Chen and Thatgamecompany's process is to start by mapping out what the game should make the player feel, rather than by establishing game mechanics. Chen has stated that the company does not plan to produce large, blockbuster titles, due to their belief that the pressure for high sales would stifle innovation.
History
In late 2005, Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago began thinking about creating their own video game company. The two were in their final year as master's students in the Interactive Media Program at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, and had just released a video game—Cloud—that they had developed with several other students.[1] The group intended the project as an experiment, meant to reveal whether they could create a game that "expressed something different than video games had in the past", and to determine the public's level of interest in video games of that nature.[2] Due to the game's strongly positive reception, Chen and Santiago began to consider founding their own company, so that they could continue making games like Cloud—in which the design is not based on gameplay mechanics, but on inspiring emotions in players—after they left college.[1]
At the time, digital distribution was gaining popularity. The two saw it as an opportunity to create games without the high financial risk of retail distribution, which they believed would require them to first accumulate funds by working for other video game companies.[1] Thatgamecompany was founded on May 15, 2006, as Chen and Santiago finished their master's degrees.[3][4] The company soon signed a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment, which had been impressed by Chen's Flash game Flow—a component of his master's thesis at USC. Thatgamecompany was contracted to produce three games for the upcoming PlayStation Network distribution system and was given startup funding and a location at Sony's offices in Los Angeles.[5]
Initially, Thatgamecompany consisted of Chen, Santiago, Nick Clark, who had collaborated with Chen on Flow, and John Edwards. Santiago was the president of the company and the producer for its games, Clark was the designer, and Edwards was the lead engineer.[6] Although Chen cofounded the company, he initially worked at Maxis on the game Spore.[5] The company considered adapting Cloud as their first product for Sony, but instead decided on Flow, as it was "more fleshed-out as a design". They felt that it would be easier than Cloud to develop while they built the company; no members of the team had experience with managing a business or with creating a commercial game.[1] Several contract workers assisted Thatgamecompany with Flow's development, including Austin Wintory, the game's composer.[5][6]
The company had believed that the PlayStation 3 version of Flow could be completed in four months and that it would be ready for the November 2006 launch of the PlayStation Network. However, when it was released in February 2007, it did not include "half of the original design".[7] According to Santiago, the Sony producer assigned to the team had anticipated that they would underestimate the game's development length, and was not surprised by the delay.[1] The game was well received; it became the most downloaded game on the PlayStation Network in 2007, and was nominated for the Best Downloadable Game of the Year award at the 2008 Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Interactive Achievement Awards, and for the Best Innovation award at the 2007 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards.[8][9][10] After its release, an expansion pack and a PlayStation Portable version of the game were created by SuperVillain Studios. Thatgamecompany was not involved in the development of either project beyond ensuring that they retained the same design and art direction as the original, as they were busy creating their next title, Flower.[7]
Flower was Thatgamecompany's "first game outside the safety net of academia", according to Santiago.[11] Six to nine people were involved at different stages of development. Chen returned to work full-time at the company prior to the game's development and served as the creative director.[12] The game's music was composed by Vincent Diamante, who had worked with Chen and Santiago on Cloud.[13] The game was developed for two years, but the team spent three-fourths of that time in the prototyping stage. After they decided on the game's elements, Flower was produced in only six months.[14] Like Flow, the game was well received when it was released in February 2009, selling in the top ten PlayStation Network titles of the year and garnering several awards.[14][15] After the release of Flower, Thatgamecompany moved into their own building in Los Angeles.[14]
The company's third project was Journey, which was released on March 13, 2012. It was the final game in Thatgamecompany's three-game contract with Sony and was developed by a team of fourteen.[16] This team did not include Santiago, who, in order to concentrate on her role as the company's president, was replaced as a producer by Robin Hunicke.[17] The game was in development for three years, despite having been expected to take one year, and the development team faced several problems in expanding the company from seven employees as they began the game to eighteen, and risked running out of money.[18][19] Upon release, the game achieved both critical and commercial success.[20] It became the fastest-selling game to date on PlayStation Store in North America and Europe.[21] After the game was released, as the company began work on another project, several employees left for other opportunities. Santiago left the company to pursue other ventures, designer Chris Bell left to form his own studio The Willderness, and Hunicke resigned to work at Tiny Speck.[22][23] Chen attributes the exodus to the end of Thatgamecompany's three-game contract, and to the fact that the company had run out of money, mandating an unpaid hiatus to all employees until the revenue from Journey came in.[24]
Once the money from Journey began to arrive, Thatgamecompany brought back several of the employees affected by the cash flow problems, and some new developers.[24] The company, with its contract with Sony complete, raised $5.5 million in venture capital funding, which they hope to use to develop future games for multiple platforms without influences by publishers.[25] The team then began working on what would become Sky: Children of the Light, and as of June 2013 was made up of around 12 people, only half of whom worked on Journey. Thatgamecompany hoped to release the game on "as many platforms as possible", and to include touch controls in an innovative way in the same way their previous games included tilting the controller.[24] On May 27, 2014, it was reported that the game had received $7 million in funding from Capital Today and a team of other investors.[26] While Sky was in development, Thatgamecompany re-released Flow and Flower onto both the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation Vita,[27] and released an updated port of Journey for the PlayStation 4.[28]Sky, a free-to-play multiplayer adventure game, was first released on July 18, 2019. Since its release, thatgamecompany has focused on supporting it.
In March 2020, Thatgamecompany announced plans to open a second studio in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley area in 2020, primarily to support Sky; these plans were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[29] In March 2022, it announced that it had received a $160 million investment and had taken on Pixar co-founder Edwin Catmull as an advisor.[30] Chen also announced that the studio was working on their fifth game, which he described as "like a theme park" and "the most ambitious game I have built".[31]
Philosophy
When Thatgamecompany designs a game, they begin by deciding on the emotions and feelings they wish to invoke in the player. This differs from the approach of most developers, who build from game mechanics or genre features. According to Santiago, the company creates emotional responses to demonstrate the wide range of possible experiences in video games, which she believes is larger than the few—excitement and fear, for example—that are typically presented.[32] Chen has said that the company's games are meant to evoke emotions more than a message; he specifically changed the design of Flower when early testers felt that the game promoted green energy. Chen believes that he is "too young" to make a game with a strong message, and so designs the company's products to avoid overt meanings.[33] Santiago has said that Thatgamecompany's goal is "to create games that push the boundaries of videogames as a communicative medium, and to create games that appeal to a wide variety of people". She hopes to change the video game industry with this process, so that other companies approach video games as a "creative medium" instead of a mass product.[34]
Thatgamecompany's employees are not opposed to making action titles, and, as a break from their regular projects, have internally created "exciting" games that were well received by Sony. However, Chen believes that there is no reason for the company to commercially produce such games, as they would not be creating new ideas that justified the cost of remaining an independent studio, as opposed to working for existing game developers.[7] Similarly, Chen does not intend for Thatgamecompany to make "big budget blockbuster games", as he believes that the financial pressure would stifle innovation.[35]
Games
In Flow, the player navigates a series of two-dimensional planes with an aquatic microorganism that evolves by consuming other microorganisms.[36] The game's design is based on Chen's research into dynamic difficulty adjustment at the University of Southern California, and on psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theoretical concept of mental immersion or flow.[37][38] It was released for the PlayStation 3 on February 22, 2007.[39]
Flower was intended as a spiritual successor to Flow. Using the PlayStation 3's motion-sensitive controller, the player controls wind that blows a flower petal through the air. Flying close to flowers results in the player's petal being followed by other flower petals. Approaching flowers may also have side-effects on the game world, such as bringing vibrant color to previously dead fields or activating stationary windmills. The game features no text or dialogue, forming a narrative arc primarily through visual representation and emotional cues.[40] It was released for the PlayStation 3 on February 12, 2009.[41]
In Journey, the player controls a robed figure who wakes up in a desert, with a large mountain in the distance as their destination. While traveling, the player can encounter other players over the Internet, one at a time. Players cannot communicate verbally, but may help each other or not as they wish.[32] The game was released for the PlayStation 3 on March 13, 2012. Austin Wintory was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2013 for Best Score Soundtrack for Journey, the first such nomination for a full video game score, but lost to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.[42] It was released on Windows in 2019.[43]
Sky: Children of the Light is Thatgamecompany's latest game, released for iOS on July 18, 2019, and on Android on April 7, 2020,[44] is intended as a spiritual successor to all of their previous games. In Sky, the player explores a magical kingdom using a cape that gives them the ability to fly. Players play alongside millions of other players, connected via the internet. There are seven unique realms to explore, and each one is themed around a different stage of life. In addition to these realms, there is a Home that serves as a hub between the different realms. Throughout the game, the player will encounter "spirits" that give the player cosmetic and gameplay-affecting items in return for in-game currency. Sky is a free-to-play game, with cosmetic items and in-game currency available for purchase as microtransactions. Sky was chosen as Apple's iPhone Game of the Year in 2019, and reached 100 million installations in May 2021.[45][46] It was released on the Nintendo Switch in 2021, and released to the PlayStation 4 on December 6, 2022.[47] On October 9th, 2023, the game received a full PC demo for the October Steam Next Fest event.[48]
The University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts's Interactive Media & Games Division first accepted M.F.A. students in 2002. The division currently offers both undergraduate (B.A.) and graduate (M.F.A.) programs in interactive media and game design. The programs include courses in game design, development, audio, animation, and user research as well as experimental work in gestural and immersive interfaces, transmedia design, and interactive cinema.
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.
Santa Monica Studio is an American video game developer based in Los Angeles. A first-party studio for Sony Interactive Entertainment, it is best known for developing the God of War series. The studio was founded in 1999 by Allan Becker and was located in Santa Monica, California, until relocating to Playa Vista in 2014.
Cloud is a 2005 puzzle video game developed by a team of students in the University of Southern California's (USC) Interactive Media Program. The team began development of the game for Microsoft Windows in January 2005 with a US$20,000 grant from the USC Game Innovation Lab; the game was released as a free download that October. By July 2006, the hosting website had received 6 million visits, and the game had been downloaded 600,000 times.
Xinghan Chen, known professionally as Jenova Chen, is a Chinese video game designer. He is the designer of the award-winning games Cloud, Flow, Flower, and Journey, and is co-founder of Thatgamecompany.
Flow is an independent video game created by Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark. Originally released as a free Flash game in 2006 to accompany Chen's master's thesis, it was reworked into a 2007 PlayStation 3 game by his development studio, Thatgamecompany, with assistance from Santa Monica Studio. SuperVillain Studios developed a PlayStation Portable version of the game in 2008, and PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions in 2013. In Flow, the player navigates a series of two-dimensional (2D) planes with an aquatic microorganism that evolves by consuming other microorganisms. The game's design is based on Chen's research into dynamic difficulty adjustment at the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division, and on psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theoretical concept of mental immersion or flow.
Team Ico was a Japanese video game development studio led by game designer Fumito Ueda. It was part of Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio's Product Development Department #1, and had developed the games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, both for the PlayStation 2. The team was also initially responsible for The Last Guardian before Ueda's departure in 2011 and the formation of a new company taking over development in 2014. Their games are usually characterized by minimalist storytelling and gameplay, an atmospheric use of bloom and high dynamic range rendering (HDR) lighting, and use of fictional languages. Their products are frequently cited as examples of video games as an art form.
Media Molecule Ltd. is a British video game developer based in Guildford, Surrey. Founded in 2006 by Mark Healey, Alex Evans, David Smith, and Kareem Ettouney, Sony Computer Entertainment acquired the firm in 2010. It became part of SCE Worldwide Studios. The company is best known for developing the LittleBigPlanet series, 2013's Tearaway, and 2020's Dreams for PlayStation consoles.
Game Design Workshop is a book on game design by Tracy Fullerton, originally published by CMP Books in 2004. It has been updated and released in four subsequent editions, the latest by A K Peters/CRC Press in 2023.
Flower is a video game developed by Thatgamecompany and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was designed by Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark and was released in February 2009 on the PlayStation 3, via the PlayStation Network. PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions of the game were ported by Bluepoint Games and released in November 2013. An iOS version was released in September 2017, and a Windows version was released in February 2019, both published by Annapurna Interactive. The game was intended as a "spiritual successor" to Flow, a previous title by Chen and Thatgamecompany. In Flower, the player controls the wind, blowing a flower petal through the air using the movement of the game controller. Flying close to flowers results in the player's petal being followed by other flower petals. Approaching flowers may also have side-effects on the game world, such as bringing vibrant color to previously dead fields or activating stationary wind turbines. The game features no text or dialogue, forming a narrative arc primarily through visual representation and emotional cues.
Kellee Santiago is a Venezuelan American video game designer and producer. She is the co-founder and former president of thatgamecompany. Santiago was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and raised in Richmond, Virginia, where Santiago played video games from a young age and was encouraged by her software engineer father to experiment with computers. While attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, she became active in experimental theater, planning to pursue it after earning a master's degree in the Interactive Media Program of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. However, Santiago became involved in video game design and produced Cloud, a game developed by Jenova Chen and a student team. Its success sparked her and Chen to found thatgamecompany upon graduating, and she became the president.
Journey is an indie adventure game developed by Thatgamecompany, published by Sony Computer Entertainment, and directed by Jenova Chen. It was released for the PlayStation 3 via PlayStation Network in March 2012 and ported to PlayStation 4 in July 2015. It was later ported to Windows in June 2019 and iOS in August 2019.
Robin Hunicke is an American video game designer and producer. She is a professor of game design at UC Santa Cruz and the co-founder of Funomena.
The Indie Fund is an organization created by several independent game developers to help fund budding indie video game development. The Indie Fund was created in early 2010, its purpose aimed "to encourage the next generation of game developers" by providing them funding for development of these games without the terms that would normally be associated with publication agreements.
Austin Wintory is an American composer for film and video games. He is known for scoring the video games Flow and Journey, which made history as the only video game soundtrack to be nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.
Andy Schatz is a video game designer based in San Diego. He began developing video games at a young age and graduated from Amherst College. After graduation, he worked for various video game development companies, including TKO Software, before founding his own independent video game development studio Pocketwatch Games in 2004. Attempting to expand his company, Schatz tried enrolling into business school; all applications were rejected. As a result, he began working on games he was passionate about. Schatz has released four video games under Pocketwatch Games: Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa, Venture Arctic, Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine, and Tooth and Tail. Monaco 2 is currently in development. His design philosophy revolves around taking inspiration from already existing media, such as films, and transforming it into a video game.
A microconsole is a home video game console that is typically powered by low-cost computing hardware, making the console lower-priced compared to other home consoles on the market. The majority of microconsoles, with a few exceptions such as the PlayStation TV and OnLive Game System, are Android-based digital media players that are bundled with gamepads and marketed as gaming devices. Such microconsoles can be connected to the television to play video games downloaded from an application store such as Google Play.
Loved is a browser-based platform video game developed by Alexander Ocias, an Australian graphic designer and artist. Written in Adobe Flash, the game was built over the course of about half a year in Ocias' spare time. Released online on 14 June 2010 onto various game hosting websites, it has garnered sizeable praise and scrutiny since its release, with critics finding the game to be thought-provoking while having poor controls.
The study of religion and video games is a subfield of digital religion, which the American scholar of communication, Heidi Campbell, defines as "Religion that is constituted in new ways through digital media and cultures.". Video games once struggled for legitimacy as a cultural product, today, however, they are both business and art. Video games increasingly turn to religion not just as ornament but as core elements of their video game design and play. Games involve moral decision, rely on invented religions, and allow users to create and experience virtual religious spaces. As one of the newest forms of entertainment, however, there is often controversy and moral panic when video games engage religion, for instance, in Insomniac Games' use of the Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man. Concepts and elements of contemporary and ancient religions appear in video games in various ways: places of worship are a part of the gameplay of real-time strategy games like Age of Empires; narratively, games sometimes borrow themes from religious traditions like in Mass Effect 2.
Sky: Children of the Light is an open world social indie adventure game developed and published by thatgamecompany. It was first released for iOS on July 18, 2019. An Android version was later released on April 7, 2020, and a Nintendo Switch version was released on June 29, 2021, followed by a PlayStation 4 release on December 6, 2022.
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