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'''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.   
'''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]], [[G4]] Television, [[BAFTA]], The [[Frankfurt Book Fair|EMMA Awards]], the [[Software Publishers Association]] and many magazines.
The company has received major awards and award nominations from [[The Academy of Interactive Arts  Sciences]], [[G4]] Television, [[BAFTA]], The [[Frankfurt Book Fair|EMMA Awards]], the [[Software Publishers Association]] and many magazines and websites.


==History==
==History==

Revision as of 01:29, 7 October 2005

Template:Infobox Company 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, G4 Television, BAFTA, The EMMA Awards, the Software Publishers Association and many magazines and websites.

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 (1991), and the first game where an AI character might fall in love with the player (depending on how they reacted to situations in the game), Treasures of the Savage Frontier (1992). These two games 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.
  • 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.

References

External Links

Pages in category "Stormfront Studios"

The following 3 pages are in this category, out of 3 total.

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