Category:Stormfront Studios

Stormfront Studios is a video game developer based in San Rafael, California, and has one of the longest creative histories in the industry. The company has approximately 70 developers working on two teams, and owns all its proprietary engines, tools and technology. As of the beginning of 2005 over ten million copies of Stormfront-developed games had been sold.

The company has received major awards and award nominations from The Academy of Interactive Arts Sciences, BAFTA, The EMMA Awards, the Software Publishers Association and many magazines.

History
Stormfront was founded in 1988 by Don Daglow, who had worked as a game programmer and then as Director of Game Development at Mattel Intellivision, as a producer at Electronic Arts, and as a production executive at Broderbund. Stormfront's management includes veterans of Blizzard Entertainment, CNET, Walt Disney Studios, Electronic Arts, Industrial Light and Magic, Lionhead Studios, LucasArts, Origin Systems, Warner Bros. and Weta Digital.

Stormfront was originally founded as Beyond Software, but changed its name in 1991 when the trademark for Beyond proved difficult to enforce.

Upon its founding in 1988 Stormfront's first project was a baseball title, which over the following eight years was to become the Tony La Russa Baseball series of games, working closely with baseball manager Tony La Russa. La Russa remains a member of the company's Board of Directors today. Daglow had previously designed or co-designed a number of baseball games, including Baseball, Intellivision World Series Baseball and Earl Weaver Baseball, the latter two with programmer Eddie Dombrower.

Daglow had worked on game projects with Kathi McHugh and Steve Case of AOL (then called Quantum Computer Services) since early in AOL's history. Apart from baseball, Stormfront's initial projects were a series of online titles for AOL, including the first original Play-by-email game, Quantum Space (1989) and later the first graphical MMORPG, the original Neverwinter Nights (1991-1997). Neverwinter Nights held the all-time record as the top revenue-producing online RPG for almost ten years until the success of Ultima Online in the late 1990s. BioWare subsequently purchased the rights to the name, and built a new generation of award-winning multiplayer RPG's set in the Neverwinter universe.

In 1990 the company began working with SSI on a series of Gold Box Dungeons and Dragons RPG games. This led to the company's first #1 hit, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, which in turn led to Stormfront's design of an early RTS, Stronghold (1993). Stronghold was the first RTS to use a 3D perspective.

In 1994-1995 the company self-published two baseball games, Tony La Russa Baseball 3 and Old Time Baseball, both distributed by EA. The baseball strike of 1994 severely hampered sales, and Stormfront returned to being solely a developer.

Stormfront was the first video game developer to use motion control photography in a video game, in the Electronic Arts game Eagle Eye Mysteries, (1993).

Eagle Eye Mysteries was directed by John Madden Football game designer Scott Orr, who produced a long series of games with Stormfront over the following several years. These included Andretti Racing and the original versions of the top-selling American auto racing game series of all time, NASCAR Racing (later NASCAR Thunder), which remains part of the EA Sports lineup today. Stormfront also did versions of John Madden Football and Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf  with Orr for EA Sports.

Although the game earned limited distribution in the United States, Stormfront's 1997 Discovery Channel game Byzantine swept the European Emma Awards at the Frankfurt Book Fair, winning honors as Best Adventure Game, Game of the Year, and CD of the Year.

Stormfront has had an ongoing commitment to the development of games for Interactive TV, and has produced demos for companies including OpenTV.

Recent Notable Games
In the last five years Stormfront has evolved to produce fewer, larger console games. The company's most notable titles during this time have been:


 * Blood Wake for Xbox (2001). A featured title in Microsoft’s launch of the Xbox, Blood Wake is a fast-action naval combat game with real wakes and waves and the most striking water effects created on a video game console.  Players battle enemy gunboats in 28 single-player missions and several multi-player modes. A wide variety of boats, weapons, environments, weather and waves generate a wide variety of play experiences.  The game later became part of the Xbox Platinum line of older hits.


 * The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 2002. Published by Electronic Arts for PS2 and Xbox and based on the Peter Jackson film from New Line Cinema. One of the top-selling games of both 2002 and 2003, The Two Towers allows players to join Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring in their quest to save Middle-earth from Sauron. Players can fight as Aragorn, Legolas or Gimli in this epic adventure that features scenes and music from the first two Lord of the Rings movies, battling Orcs, the Uruk-Hai, Ringwraiths and more. Characters can be upgraded with new moves and weapons as players prepare to play a pivotal role in the defense of Helm’s Deep. The game features extensive unlockable content, including a secret character and level and exclusive interviews with the stars of the films. Winner, Academy of Interactive Arts Sciences Award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering.


 * Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone (2004). Published by Atari for PS2, Xbox and PC. A lone fighter, a brash sorcerer, a beautiful hot-tempered rogue.  Players can switch which of the three characters they control “on the fly” at any moment to battle an onslaught of enemies.  Based on Stormfront’s sophisticated game engine used in The Lord of the Rings, advanced AI consistently guides the characters you don’t control, allowing the player to jump from hero to hero to pick the ideal character to play in order to defeat large and dangerous enemies.  The game was nominated for several major industry awards in both North America and Europe.

List of Stormfront Titles
The first years of Stormfront's history occurred during a time when typical game development teams had two to four members. Its most recent projects have required teams of 60 people or more. This change is typical for game developers during this period.


 * Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone (2004) for PS2 and Xbox, published by Atari
 * The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) for PS2 and Xbox, published by EA, based on the Peter Jackson film from New Line Cinema.
 * Blood Wake (2001) for Xbox, published by Microsoft Games
 * Legend of Alon D’ar (2001) for PS2, published by UbiSoft
 * Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (2001) for PC, published by SSI
 * Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf 2001 (2000) for PlayStation, published by EA Sports
 * My Style / My World: Kindergarten (2000) for PC and Macintosh, published by Lego
 * My Style / My World: Pre-K (2000) for PC and Macintosh, published by Lego
 * NASCAR 2000 (1999) for PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and PC, published by EA Sports
 * Hot Wheels Turbo Racing (1999) for PlayStation and Nintendo 64, published by EA
 * Starfire Soccer Challenge (1998) for PC and Macintosh, published by Purple Moon
 * NASCAR '99 (1998) for PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and PC, published by EA Sports
 * Madden NFL ’98 (1997) for PC, published by EA Sports
 * Byzantine: The Betrayal (1997) for PC, published by Discovery Channel
 * La Russa Baseball 4 (1997) for PC, published by Maxis
 * Andretti Racing ’98 (1997) for PC, published by EA Sports
 * NASCAR ’98 (1997) for PC, published by EA Sports
 * Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1996) for PC and Macintosh, published by Viacom New Media
 * Andretti Racing (1996) for PlayStation and PC, published by EA Sports
 * Madden NFL ’97 (1996) for PC, published by EA Sports
 * La Russa Baseball ’96 (1996) for PC, self-published by Stormfront
 * Old Time Baseball (1995) for PC, self-published by Stormfront
 * La Russa Baseball 3 (1995) for PC, self-published by Stormfront
 * ESPN National Hockey Night (1995) for PC, published by Sony
 * Mario Andretti Racing (1994) for Sega Genesis, published by EA Sports
 * ESPN Baseball Tonight (1994) for PC, published by Sony
 * Eagle Eye Mysteries in London (1994) for PC and Macintosh, published by Creative Wonders (EA Kids)
 * La Russa Baseball ‘95 (1994) for Sega Genesis, published by EA Sports
 * La Russa Baseball II (1994) for PC, published by SSI
 * Rebel Space (Online Play-by-email) (1993-95) for PC and Macintosh, available on the Prodigy online service
 * Tony La Russa Ultimate Baseball (1993) for Sega Genesis, published by EA Sports
 * Stronghold (1993) for PC, published by SSI
 * Eagle Eye Mysteries (1993) for PC and Macintosh, published by Creative Wonders (EA Kids)
 * Treasures of the Savage Frontier (1992) for PC and Amiga, published by SSI in the Gold Box DD series
 * Neverwinter Nights (Online) (1991-97) for PC, available on AOL, boxed set also published by SSI in the Gold Box series
 * Tony La Russa Ultimate Baseball (1991) for PC, published by SSI
 * Gateway to the Savage Frontier (1991) for PC, C64 and Amiga, published by SSI in the Gold Box series
 * Quantum Space (Online Play-by-email) (1989-1992) for PC, Macintosh, Apple II, C64, available on AOL
 * The QuantumLink Serial (Online) (1988-1989) for PC, Macintosh, Apple II, C64, available on AOL