Stormfront_Studios

Stormfront Studios

Stormfront Studios

Defunct American software company


Stormfront Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer based in San Rafael, California. In 2007, the company had over 50 developers working on two teams, and owned all its proprietary engines, tools, and technology. As of the end of 2007, over fourteen million copies of Stormfront-developed games had been sold. Stormfront closed on March 31, 2008, due to the closure of their publisher at the time, Sierra Entertainment.[1][2]

Quick Facts Formerly, Company type ...

The company received major awards and award nominations from The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, G4 Television, BAFTA, The IGDA Game Developers Choice Awards, The EMMA Awards, SCEA, the Software Publishers Association and many magazines and websites.

In 2008, Neverwinter Nights was honored (along with EverQuest and World of Warcraft) at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the art form of MMORPG games. Don Daglow accepted the award for project partners Stormfront Studios, AOL and Wizards of the Coast.

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 Disney, Electronic Arts, Ensemble Studios, LucasArts, Origin Systems, THX, Vivendi Universal and Warner Bros.

Stormfront was founded as Beyond Software, but changed its name in 1993 when the trademark for Beyond proved difficult to enforce.

Highlights 1988–1993

  • Neverwinter Nights. 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 RPGs set in the Neverwinter universe.
  • Tony La Russa Baseball. 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.
  • Gold Box D&D Games. In 1990 the company began working with SSI on a series of Gold Box Dungeons & 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).
  • Stronghold (1993). The first RTS game to use a 3D perspective, Stronghold also featured a GUI interface in an era when most games continued to use text menus.

Highlights 1993–1999

Highlights 2000–2005

Highlights 2006–2008

Interactive television

Stormfront had an ongoing involvement in the development of games for Interactive television since its first experiments on Florida cable systems in 1990, and produced demos for companies including OpenTV.

Games developed

More information Year, Title ...

References

  1. "Stormfront Studios shutting down".
  2. "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (GBA)". Metacritic. Archived from the original on September 13, 2008. Retrieved November 5, 2014.

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