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Origin Systems

Origin Systems was a video game developer company located in Austin, Texas. The company was an American company and was active from 1983 to 2004. In addition, they are also best known for the Wing Commander and Ultima series. It’s founded by Robert Garriott and Richard Garriott, who are brothers, Owen Garriott their father and Bueche Chuck back in 1983. Originally, Origin was located in the Garriott’s garage in Houston, Texas. Moreover, their first game was Ultima 3: Exodus and because of the game’s created reputation, the company survived the video game crash that took place that year. In addition, the company released several non-Ultima games and Richard claimed that he got the same royalty amount as the other game creators. By the time 1988 rolled by, the company had 15 game developers in Austin, Texas and 35 other workers in New Hampshire.

It was officially announced that in September 1992, EA bought Origin for around $35 million in stock. The company, with around $13 million in yearly revenue, stated that it had considered an IPO before signing the contract. In 1996, according to a report, the company had more than 300 employees. The next year, the company had developed one of the first graphical MMORPGs named Ultima Online. Over the years the company had developed many notable in which the Crusader series, Strike Commander, Wings of Glory and System Shock are included.

Wing Commander

Wing Commander is one of the more popular games they’ve created. Since the first game was such a success, Origin decided to turn the games into series. In addition, the game is a media franchise involving space fighting simulation video games. This franchise started back in 1990 with the release of Wing Commander. Originally, the game was officially published for MS-DOS on September 26, 1990. Sometime later, the game was ported to the CD32, Sega CD, Super Nintendo and Amiga. 4 years later, the game re-published for PC under the name Wing Commander I. In addition, an improved remake called Super Wing Commander was created for the 3DO in 1994.

It was earlier bought by Electronic Arts for around $35 million. In February 2004, the studio was officially shutdown by EA.

#ultima #games #gaming #electronic arts #video games

NovaLogic

NovaLogic was a software publisher and developer formed back in 1985 and was located in Calabasas, California. Nova was founded by John A. Garcia. John’s history in software began in the early 1980s in Southern California when he was working for DataSoft. At first, the company worked on new versions of already released games. A major client of the company was Taito America and almost every of the earliest games were PC transformations of Taito’s arcade games. Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds was in the development stages by Nova which was supposed to be a sequel to Super Mario World. However, the game was meant for the Phillips CD-I and was cancelled. In 1994, the company set up its European office and was located in London, UK. However, the office was subsequently closed down. In 1997, the company launched the first free online matchmaking service called NovaWorld.

This service was built in order to allow bid online stat and battles tracking. After Nova’s releasement of some popular military-based games, the company began NovaLogic System that created training simulations for the US military. In addition, Nova’s 2004 introduction of Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising appealed to have set a world record for the biggest FPS game. However, it was quickly disproved by Sony because of their game Planetside. That game regularly hosted hundreds of players on just one server. The company is best-known for their popular series, Delta Force and Comanche.

Delta Force

Delta force is a FPS tactical computer game that’s developed by no other than, Nova Logic. The game was officially published by Electronic Arts in 1998 for Microsoft Windows. In addition, the game was officially re-released on Steam in 2009. This game was created in order to be a military simulation that’s based on the United States’ Delta Force. In the game each player takes a role of one operative of Delta Force and takes part of army operations in different scenarios. Tasks generally include the removal of hostile presence in a specified region, destroying army gear or eliminating a high-profile objective.

The Delta Force series, along with the Comanche series are the most popular games that are developed by NovaLogic. In 2016, the company was officially acquired by THQ Nordic.

#delta force #comanche #NovaLogic #games #gaming #video games #pc games

Nival Company

Nival is a video game developer company located in Limassol, Cyprus. The company is a Russian video game company and the development offices are in Moscow, Russia and St. Petersburg, Russia. The company’s history goes back to 1996 when it was founded by a Russian game veteran, Sergey Orlovskiy. Originally, the company was founded as Nival Interactive and became popular as the creator of some successful strategy and role-playing games in which Etherlords, Blitzkrieg and Rage of Mages are included. In addition, the company also created Heroes of Might and Magic V and also 2 add-ons, all of which are published by Ubisoft. Moreover, the company started to publish their own games in 2005. In addition, Nival publishes and finances other external game creators in which Bytex and KranX Productions are included.

In the start of 2005, a section of Nival that worked under the name Nival Interactive was officially acquired by Ener1 Group which is a holdings company located in Florida. However, Sergey Orlovsky reclaimed complete control of Nival Interactive on November 30, 2007. In addition, another part of Nival, called Astrum Nival, in the start of 2010 was acquired by the biggest Russian portal, mail.ru, for more than $100 million.

Heroes of Might and Magic V

One of the more popular games developed from the company is the game Heroes of Might and Magic V. The game is the 5th chapter of the fantasy turn-based strategy video game, Heroes of Might and Magic. The 5th version was officially published by Ubisoft originally in Europe on May 16, 2006. 8 days later, it was officially published in Canada and the United States. Because of the defunct of the 3DO Company, Ubisoft had the opportunity to buy all rights to the Might and Magic franchise, which they did. In addition, they used Heroes V as a means to re-start the series with a new setting named Ashan. Just like the rest of the games in the series, each player takes a control of the heroes. The heroes are the leaders that come with magical abilities. After that they need to recruit army, build strong castle and then go into war with other armies and heroes.

#Nival #Heroes of Might and Magic #games #gaming #video games #pc games #pc gaming

Obsidian Entertainment

Obsidian Entertainment is a company dedicated in the video game industry. The company is a video game developer and is located in Irvine, California. The company’s history goes back to 2003 when it was founded by former employees of Black Isle Studios. Moreover, Obsidian Entertainment is founded short time after the official shutdown of Black Isle Studios. Even though the founders have created their own original intellectual property, most of the games they produce are sequels that are based on licensed possessions. First projects by them were the Neverwinter Nights 2 and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords. Both of the games were sequels to already developed games by BioWare. However, in 2010, the team after that had created their first original game called Alpha Protocol.

Some other noteworthy works that are done by the company are South Park: The Stick of Truth, Dungeon Siege 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, all of which are licensed properties. In addition, the company had many project cancelled in which Dwarfs, Stormlands, and Futureblight are included. Obsidian Entertainment entered in some financial problems in 2012 because they had many cancelled projects. Moreover, the company then decided to crowdfund Pillars of Eternity which was their next game. That’s a role-playing video game that’s played from an isometric perspective and eventually became a big hit that saved the studio from defunct.

Pillars of Eternity

For those who don’t know, the game is a RP-game that’s created by Obsidian Entertainment and is officially published by Paradox Interactive. It was originally published for OS X, Linux and of course, Microsoft Windows back in March 2015. Moreover, Pillars of Eternity is a spiritual successor to the Icewind Dale and Baldur’s Game series. The developers began a crowdfunding project in September 2012 on Kickstarter for the game. As a matter of fact, the campaign was a success that raised more than $4 million and was the highest funded game back then. In addition, the game uses the Unity engine and the story takes place in a fantasy world called Eora.

As many of you know, this game was the game that saved Obsidian Entertainment from defunct.

#Pillars of Eternity #Obsidian Entertainment #games #gaming #video games