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111-598: Interplay Entertainment Corp. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Los Angeles . The company was founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions by developers Brian Fargo , Jay Patel, Troy Worrell, and Rebecca Heineman , as well as investor Chris Wells. As a developer, Interplay is best known as the creator of the Fallout series and as a publisher for the Baldur's Gate and Descent series. Prior to Interplay,

222-429: A US $ 100,000 contract to produce three illustrated text adventures for them. Published in 1984, Mindshadow is loosely based on Robert Ludlum 's Bourne Identity while The Tracer Sanction puts the player in the role of an interplanetary secret agent. Borrowed Time which features a script by Arnie Katz's Subway Software followed in 1985. These adventures built upon work previously done by Fargo; his first game

333-588: A database , Voice over IP , or add-in interface software; this is also known as middleware . Examples of this include SpeedTree and Havoc . Independents are software developers which are not owned by (or dependent on) a single publisher. Some of these developers self-publish their games, relying on the Internet and word of mouth for publicity. Without the large marketing budgets of mainstream publishers, their products may receive less recognition than those of larger publishers such as Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo. With

444-452: A culture of "toxic geek masculinity" within the workplace. In addition, the conditions behind crunch time are far more discriminating towards women as this requires them to commit time exclusively to the company or to more personal activities like raising a family. These factors established conditions within some larger development studios where female developers have found themselves discriminated in workplace hiring and promotion, as well as

555-648: A dispute regarding the Dark Alliance Engine for Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel , Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II , and the GameCube version of the original Dark Alliance . The resolution allowed Interplay to retain the work they had already done using that engine, but not to use it in new work. Bethesda Softworks sued Interplay in 2009, seeking an injunction to stop Interplay from developing Fallout Online and from selling Fallout Trilogy . After several trials spanning almost three years, Interplay gave Bethesda

666-571: A first-party company. As a balance to not being able to release their game for other platforms, second-party developers are usually offered higher royalty rates than third-party developers. These studios may have exclusive publishing agreements (or other business relationships) with the platform holder, but maintain independence so that upon completion or termination of their contracts, they are able to continue developing games for other publishers if they choose to. For example, while HAL Laboratory initially began developing games on personal computers like

777-410: A fixed period and generally work similar hours as full-time staff members, assisting across all areas of video game development, but as contractors, do not get any benefits such as paid time-off or health care from the employer; they also are typically not credited on games that they work on for this reason. The practice itself is legal and common in other engineering and technology areas, and generally it

888-403: A game on schedule. The complexity of workflow, reliance on third-party deliverables, and the intangibles of artistic and aesthetic demands in video game creation create difficulty in predicting milestones. The use of crunch time is also seen to be exploitative of the younger male-dominated workforce in video games, who have not had the time to establish a family and who were eager to advance within

999-406: A game's profits. Current examples of first-party studios include PlayStation Studios for Sony, and Xbox Game Studios for Microsoft Gaming . Second-party developer is a colloquial term often used by gaming enthusiasts and media to describe game studios that take development contracts from platform holders and develop games exclusive to that platform, i.e. a non-owned developer making games for

1110-457: A grid moved the player to the other side of the grid. Much of the long production was a result of correcting this lack of symmetry. The other questionable decision was to not include Oliphant in the production of the motion graphics (Oliphant had an extensive Hollywood background before becoming a game developer). One consequence was that the original combat graphics had been captured from the waist up only, as Quarles had reasoned one must be close to

1221-404: A monster to fight it. Peter Oliphant, upon being delivered these graphics and seeing them for the first time, pointed out that the player could back away during a fight, which would result in seeing their legs. The legs therefore had to be drawn in by hand frame-by-frame to fix this, until these graphics were scrapped for a professional green-screen treatment used later on. The original skeleton in

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1332-502: A name for itself as a quality developer of role-playing video games with the three-part series The Bard's Tale (1985–1988), critically acclaimed Wasteland (1988) and Dragon Wars (1989). All of them were published by Electronic Arts . Interplay started publishing its own games, beginning with Neuromancer and Battle Chess , in 1988, and then moved on to publish and distribute games from other companies, while continuing internal game development. In 1995, Interplay published

1443-425: A novel set in the world of Stonekeep , was written by Troy Denning and published 1999 by Berkley Boulevard Books. Interplay's Black Isle Studios worked on a sequel, Stonekeep 2: Godmaker , for roughly five years, before eventually cancelling it in 2001 in order to work on Icewind Dale II and Baldur's Gate III: The Black Hound . The game and its novelization would remain the only entry in its series until

1554-437: A position in a medium to large video game company. An experienced game-development employee, depending on their expertise and experience, averaged roughly $ 73,000 in 2007. Indie game developers may only earn between $ 10,000 and $ 50,000 a year depending on how financially successful their titles are. In addition to being part of the software industry, game development is also within the entertainment industry; most sectors of

1665-419: A range of several unpopular but arguably necessary decisions to cancel various projects, in order to save the company. In April 2002, the company sold Shiny Entertainment to Infogrames for $ 47 million, which at turn also included a then-upcoming video game based on The Matrix as well as the video game rights to the property transferring over. Due to a low share price, Interplay's shares were delisted from

1776-624: A roundtable discussion with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), the professional association for developers. Statements made by the IGDA's current executive director Jen MacLean relating to IGDA's activities had been seen by as anti-union, and Game Workers Unite desired to start a conversation to lay out the need for developers to unionize. In the wake of the sudden near-closure of Telltale Games in September 2018,

1887-462: A single firebolt in two. To use a spellcaster, it must contain adequate mana, and runes must be inscribed onto its shaft. To inscribe runes on the spellcaster, the player needs to equip the spellcaster on either one of Drake's hands, open the journal onto the Runes section, take out the spellcaster, and copy the runes onto the spell slots of the spellcaster. Then the runecaster can be taken out at any time and

1998-407: A single publisher; one canceled game may devastate a small developer. Because of this, many small development companies are short-lived. A common exit strategy for a successful video game developer is to sell the company to a publisher, becoming an in-house developer. In-house development teams tend to have more freedom in game design and content than third-party developers. One reason is that since

2109-420: A spread-out hand when the player can pick up items. Other tasks performed with the mouse pointers include opening and closing chests, opening and closing panels, pulling levers and switches, pressing buttons, drinking water, and giving items. The protagonist Drake has two starting possessions: the magic scroll and the magic mirror. The magic scroll allows the player to pick up an infinite number of items. Items of

2220-403: A strong STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) background for women at the secondary education level, but there are issues with tertiary education such as at colleges and universities, where game development programs tend to reflect the male-dominated demographics of the industry, a factor that may lead women with strong STEM backgrounds to choose other career goals. There

2331-499: A successful and critically acclaimed role-playing video game set in a retro-futuristic post-apocalyptic setting. Black Isle Studios , a newly created in-house developer, followed with the sequel, Fallout 2 , in 1998. Another successful subsequent Interplay franchise was Baldur's Gate , a Dungeons & Dragons game that was developed by BioWare and which spawned a successful expansion, sequel and spin-off series. The spin-off series started with Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance ;

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2442-682: A unique case where nearly all parts of its labor force, including white-collar jobs such as video game development, may engage with labor unions under the Employment Protection Act often through collective bargaining agreements. Developer DICE had reached its union agreements in 2004. Paradox Interactive became one of the first major publishers to support unionization efforts in June 2020 with its own agreements to cover its Swedish employees within two labor unions Unionen and SACO . In Australia, video game developers could join other unions, but

2553-571: A white hardback novella Thera Awakening , coauthored by Steve Jackson and David L. Pulver (all rights of the novel went to Interplay). The CD-ROM also included a file called "muffins.txt" which contained a recipe for " Tim Cain 's Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins". Years later, Stonekeep was later made available for purchase through GOG.com 's digital distribution system for Windows XP and Windows Vista . In preparation for Stonekeep ' s launch, Interplay shipped 175,000 units to retailers. This

2664-534: Is a dated first-person RPG that suffers from a poor interface, little depth, and few frills." In Fusion , Arnie Katz called Stonekeep "a good antidote to the idiosyncratic complexities that pass for depth" among role-playing games, and praised its interface and audiovisual presentation. He summarized it as "an exciting quest that doesn't concede much to rival RPG releases." Paul Presley of PC Zone called Stonekeep "a case of gloss but no substance", which failed to offer "something over and above that which Eye of

2775-473: Is also a significant gap in racial minorities within the video game industry; a 2019 IGDA survey found only 2% of developers considered themselves to be of African descent and 7% Hispanic, while 81% were Caucasian; in contrast, 2018 estimates from the United States Census estimate the U.S. population to be 13% of African descent and 18% Hispanic. In a 2014 and 2015 survey of job positions and salaries,

2886-449: Is expected that this is meant to lead into a full-time position, or otherwise the end of the contract. But more recently, its use in the video game industry has been compared to Microsoft 's past use of " permatemp ", contract workers that were continually renewed and treated for all purposes as employees but received no benefits. While Microsoft has waned from the practice, the video game industry has adapted it more frequently. Around 10% of

2997-533: Is generally illegal, companies often target their oldest workers first during layoffs or other periods of reduction. Older developers with experience may find themselves too qualified for the types of positions that other game development companies seek given the salaries and compensations offered. Some of the larger video game developers and publishers have also engaged contract workers through agencies to help add manpower in game development in part to alleviate crunch time from employees. Contractors are brought on for

3108-494: Is still their primary activity they are generally described as "publishers" rather than "developers". Developers may be private as well. In the video game industry , a first-party developer is part of a company that manufactures a video game console and develops mainly for it. First-party developers may use the name of the company itself (such as Nintendo ), have a specific division name (such as Sony's Polyphony Digital ) or have been an independent studio before being acquired by

3219-434: Is the journal, which the player must procure. The journal is divided into six sections. The first section records the statistics of Drake, shows the status of his current equipped weapons, and describes the characteristics of his partners. Drake's statistics are strength, agility, and health, and his weaponry skills include polearm, sword, magick, missiles, and others. The second section of the journal records any clues and hints

3330-474: Is usually conducted in a casual business environment, with t-shirts and sandals as common work attire. Many workers find this type of environment rewarding and pleasant professionally and personally. However, the industry also requires long working hours from its employees (sometimes to an extent seen as unsustainable). Employee burnout is not uncommon. An entry-level programmer can make, on average, over $ 66,000 annually only if they are successful in obtaining

3441-505: The Redneck Rampage franchise to Vivendi Universal Games for $ 300,000, and in October, licensed the rights to the Fallout franchise to Bethesda Softworks under a three-game deal, while Interplay would retain ownership of the franchise as well as full rights to an MMO title – Fallout Online . By then, Interplay's financial issues began to worsen. In January 2005, Titus Interactive

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3552-639: The AFL–CIO writing an open letter to video game developers encouraging them to unionize. In January 2020, Game Workers Unite and the Communications Workers of America established a new campaign to push for unionization of video game developers, the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE), in January 2020. Initial efforts for CODE were aimed to determine what approach to unionization would be best suited for

3663-456: The International Game Developers Association (IGDA), are conducting increasing discussions about the problem; they are concerned that working conditions in the industry cause a significant deterioration in employees' quality of life. Some video game developers and publishers have been accused of the excessive invocation of "crunch time". "Crunch time" is the point at which the team is thought to be failing to achieve milestones needed to launch

3774-508: The MSX , they became one of the earliest second-party developers for Nintendo, developing exclusively for Nintendo's consoles starting with the Famicom, though they would self-publish their mobile games. A third-party developer may also publish games, or work for a video game publisher to develop a title. Both publisher and developer have considerable input in the game's design and content. However,

3885-517: The Me Too movement and have tried to address the symptoms of these problems industry-wide, the video game industry has yet to have its Me Too-moment, even as late as 2021. There also tends to be pay-related discrimination against women in the industry. According to Gamasutra 's Game Developer Salary Survey 2014, women in the United States made 86 cents for every dollar men made. Game designing women had

3996-504: The Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) union doing work for video games struck several major publishers, demanding better royalty payments and provisions related to the safety of their vocal performances, when their union's standard contract was up for renewal. The voice actor strike lasted for over 300 days into 2017 before a new deal was made between SAG-AFTRA and

4107-464: The video game industry . He told the Los Angeles Times : "Someone who was part of the co-creation of that world and those characters isn't getting a credit or a nickel for the work they put into it. Maybe we need unions in the video game industry to be able to protect creators." Stonekeep Stonekeep is a role-playing video game developed and released by Interplay Productions for

4218-468: The Beholder was delivering all that time ago." Andy Butcher reviewed Stonekeep for Arcane , rating it a seven out of ten overall. Butcher comments: "Although the 'plot' as such is somewhat weak, and the game quickly falls into an 'explore the level, kill the monsters, solve the puzzles' affair, Stonekeep is engaging and surprisingly addictive." In 1996, editors of Computer Gaming World ranked it as

4329-512: The CD. This prohibited the use of the CD for music, so the developers used chip music for the soundtrack. The game features the voice of Arthur Burghardt —well known as the character Destro in the 1985 G.I. Joe cartoon series—in the role of Khull-Khuum. Stonekeep was originally released for the PC DOS and Windows 95 in 1995, packaged in an elaborate gravestone-style illustrated box, and came with

4440-576: The Fallout IP to them. In September 2008, several games from Interplay's catalog were re-released on the digital distribution service GOG.com after being unavailable in retail distribution for years. In August 2013, Interplay acquired the remaining rights to the FreeSpace franchise for $ 7,500 after THQ went to bankruptcy court. Interplay is co-publishing, with 3D Realms , a remaster of Xatrix Entertainment's 1999 game Kingpin: Life of Crime , which

4551-446: The IGDA found that people of color were both underrepresented in senior management roles as well as underpaid in comparison to white developers. Further, because video game developers typically draw from personal experiences in building game characters, this diversity gap has led to few characters of racial minority to be featured as main characters within video games. Minority developers have also been harassed from external groups due to

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4662-514: The Master of Magick, and Kor-Soggoth ( Pluto ) the Brother to Magick. These gods were captured and imprisoned in nine orbs by the dark god Khull-Khuum 1000 years before the events of the game, during a cataclysm referred to as "The Devastation". Stonekeep is centered on a hero, Drake. Ten years before the events of the game, Drake's home, the castle of Stonekeep, was destroyed by the insane god Khull-Khuum,

4773-594: The NASDAQ in 2002 and now trade on the over the counter (OTC) market. The company continued to struggle throughout 2003 following an assortment of poorly-selling console titles. On September 29, 2003, the company was entered into a lawsuit with Vivendi Universal over alleged breaches of their partnership and a failure of payment. This led to Interplay ending their North American distribution deal with Vivendi Universal Games . On December 8, 2003, Interplay closed down Black Isle Studios and laid off their entire staff. The company

4884-532: The PC in 1995 . It is a first-person dungeon crawler game with pre-rendered environments, digitized characters and live-action cinematic sequences. Repeatedly delayed, the game that was supposed to be finished in nine months took five years to make. Stonekeep is a first-person role-playing game in the style of Eye of the Beholder and Dungeon Master . The game is set in a series of underground labyrinths, filled with monsters, treasures and traps. The player uses

4995-463: The Shadowking. Drake, at this time just a boy, was saved from the castle by a mysterious figure. Returning to the ruins of Stonekeep, Drake is visited by the goddess Thera, who sends his spirit out of his body into the ruins itself to explore, find the mystical orbs containing the other gods, and reclaim the land. Along the way, Drake makes many friends, including Farli, Karzak, and Dombur the dwarves ;

5106-544: The Vivendi Universal deal. On September 27, Interplay announced that Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Giants: Citizen Kabuto would become the first titles under the new agreement. On November 29, 2001, BioWare announced that they had ended their partnership with Interplay, citing unpaid royalties and Titus sublicensing distribution to third-parties for the reason. BioWare took Neverwinter Nights with them, with Infogrames purchasing worldwide publishing rights to

5217-549: The Year award. The editors praised it as "a milestone in computer role-playing games", with "beautiful SGI rendered characters and fascinating story development", but noted that it was held back by bugs. It won the magazine's readers' choice award in its genre. PC Gamer US ' s Mike Wolf called it "a decent offering for roleplaying novices [... but] far from the magnum opus you'd expect". A review by Bernard Yee of GameSpot did not offer similar praises, concluding that " Stonekeep

5328-521: The acquisition of Activision Blizzard , stated it supported these unionization efforts. After this acquisition, the employees of Bethesda Game Studios , part of Zenimax under Microsoft, unionized under the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in July 2024. Over 500 employees within Blizzard Entertainment 's World of Warcraft division also unionized with CWA that same month. Sweden presents

5439-572: The advent of digital distribution of inexpensive games on game consoles, it is now possible for indie game developers to forge agreements with console manufacturers for broad distribution of their games. Other indie game developers create game software for a number of video-game publishers on several gaming platforms. In recent years this model has been in decline; larger publishers, such as Electronic Arts and Activision, increasingly turn to internal studios (usually former independent developers acquired for their development needs). Video game development

5550-452: The best computer role-playing game of 1995. Petra Schlunk of Computer Gaming World called Stonekeep "successful on many levels; both hard-core and newcomers to role-playing should enjoy this." She wrote that "a lot of thought and heart went into the game's design and production", and she singled out its writing, characters and storyline for praise. The game was later nominated for Computer Gaming World ' s 1995 Role-Playing Game of

5661-994: The case by default, and a settlement for $ 200,000 plus interest was agreed upon on November 15, 2012. This is a program in which Interplay publishes video games for indie developers. Five games have been released under the program and each is either a platformer or a puzzle video game and is released under digital distribution . Video game developer A developer may specialize in specific game engines or specific video game consoles , or may develop for several systems (including personal computers and mobile devices ). Some focus on porting games from one system to another, or translating games from one language to another. Less commonly, some do software development work in addition to games. Most video game publishers maintain development studios (such as Electronic Arts 's EA Canada , Square Enix 's studios, Activision 's Radical Entertainment , Nintendo EPD and Sony's Polyphony Digital and Naughty Dog ). However, since publishing

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5772-431: The closest equity, making 96 cents for every dollar men made in the same job, while audio professional women had the largest gap, making 68% of what men in the same position made. Increasing the representation of women in the video game industry required breaking a feedback loop of the apparent lack of female representation in the production of video games and in the content of video games. Efforts have been made to provide

5883-410: The company in 1990 and 1991, respectively. The game development was planned for a minimum period of nine months and a minimum budget of $ 50,000. However, because the initial stages of the game looked good, it exceeded nine months, lasting a total of five years. Stonekeep ' s final cost was $ 5 million; its production crew had grown to 200 members by the time of the game's release. The intro sequence

5994-594: The company's founding developers— Brian Fargo , Troy Worrell, Jay Patel, and Rebecca Heineman —worked for Boone Corporation, a video game developer based in California . When Boone eventually folded, the four got together with investor Chris Wells and, believing they could create a company that was better than Boone, founded Interplay in October 1983. The first projects were non-original and consisted of software conversions and even some military work for Loral Corporation . After negotiations with Activision , Interplay entered

6105-627: The company's shares and allow for Interplay to distribute Titus' products in North America. By May, $ 25 million was invested by Titus, which within a few months was increased by another $ 10 million. By August, Titus owned 57% of Interplay's shares. On 16 April 2001, Titus announced they had expanded their control shares in Interplay to 72.5%. On the same day, they announced they had purchased Interplay's stake in Virgin Interactive, effectively making

6216-416: The console manufacturer (such as Rare or Naughty Dog ). Whether by purchasing an independent studio or by founding a new team, the acquisition of a first-party developer involves a huge financial investment on the part of the console manufacturer, which is wasted if the developer fails to produce a hit game on time. However, using first-party developers saves the cost of having to make royalty payments on

6327-503: The console. This established the use of licensing fees as a model for third-party development that persists into the present. The licensing fee approach was further enforced by Nintendo when it decided to allow other third-party developers to make games for the Famicom console, setting a 30% licensing fee that covered game cartridge manufacturing costs and development fees. The 30% licensing fee for third-party developers has also persisted to

6438-444: The developer if the game is not meeting expectations. When each milestone is completed (and accepted), the publisher pays the developer an advance on royalties . Successful developers may maintain several teams working on different games for different publishers. Generally, however, third-party developers tend to be small, close-knit teams. Third-party game development is a volatile sector, since small developers may depend on income from

6549-417: The developers are the publisher's employees, their interests align with those of the publisher; the publisher may spend less effort ensuring that the developer's decisions do not enrich the developer at the publisher's expense. Activision in 1979 became the first third-party video game developer. When four Atari, Inc. programmers left the company following its sale to Warner Communications , partially over

6660-399: The end. The initial specification for the game included that it could not require a hard drive or a mouse, run on an 80286 CPU, use 640K, and run off floppy disks . At the project's end, the game had been upgraded to requiring a mouse, a hard drive, a 386 CPU, and ran off CD-ROM . As a result, the engine had to be extensively modified throughout the production. About three years into

6771-467: The entertainment industry (such as films and television ) require long working hours and dedication from their employees, such as willingness to relocate and/or required to develop games that do not appeal to their personal taste. The creative rewards of work in the entertainment business attracts labor to the industry, creating a competitive labor market that demands a high level of commitment and performance from employees. Industry communities, such as

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6882-500: The fastest selling game in the company's twelve-year history." Upon its release, the game placed fourth on PC Data 's monthly computer game sales chart for November 1995, but was absent on the following month's chart. According to Interplay, its global sales surpassed 300,000 copies by June 1998. Author Erik Bethke later described Stonekeep ' s commercial performance as "weak", which he blamed on its five-year development cycle. A Next Generation critic deemed it "well worth

6993-557: The first video game-specific union, Game Workers Unite Australia, was formed in December 2021 under Professionals Australia to become active in 2022. In Canada, in a historic move, video game workers in Edmonton unanimously voted to unionize for the first time in June 2022. In January 2023, after not being credited in The Last of Us HBO adaptation, Bruce Straley called for unionization of

7104-414: The full rights for Fallout Online for $ 2 million. Interplay's rights to sell and merchandise Fallout , Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel expired on December 31, 2013. In 2010, TopWare Interactive revealed that they were developing Battle vs. Chess to be published by SouthPeak Games . Interplay sued them and won an injunction to stop sales in the United States. Interplay won

7215-424: The game as the project passed its fourth year in development. He felt his continued presence was resulting in the constant addition of feature creep and changes (he was a contractor, and had initially only signed up for a nine-month project). After he left, the design became finalized and the product was shipped one year later. Quarles, who was an Interplay employee, stayed as the game's producer and saw it through to

7326-445: The game was an actual skeleton being worn by one of the artists, and was filmed against a green screen. Because of this, there were no images or animations of the skeleton walking away from the player during game play. A few months before the game's release the skeleton was replaced with the 3D model which was used on the packaging. Due to the complexity of the graphics, during play the computer would have to constantly load graphics from

7437-621: The game's success forged a sequel as well. Aside from Dark Alliance , Interplay published a few notable console series such as Loaded and the fighting game series ClayFighter and the games by Shiny Entertainment , MDK and Wild 9 . In 1998, Interplay's financial issues became dire. To avert bankruptcy, Interplay went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the name Interplay Entertainment. By 1999, Interplay continued to endure losses under Brian Fargo due to increased competition, less-than-stellar returns on Interplay's sports division, and

7548-404: The gaming industry, while a 2017 IGDA survey found that the female demographic in game development had risen to about 20%. Taking into account that a 2017 ESA survey found 41% of video game players were female, this represented a significant gender gap in game development. The male-dominated industry, most who have grown up playing video games and are part of the video game culture , can create

7659-524: The great dragon Vermatrix; the elf Enigma; and the mysterious Wahooka, the King of goblins . Together, they embark on a quest of ridding the world of Khull-Khuum and his consort the Ice Queen. The earliest development of Stonekeep dated back in October 1988, discussed between Brian Fargo and Todd Camasta with the simple title "Dungeon Game". Producer Peter Oliphant and lead programmer Michael Quarles joined

7770-566: The hit game Descent , developed by startup Parallax Software . Interplay published several Star Trek video games, including Star Trek: 25th Anniversary for computers and for Nintendo Entertainment System and Star Trek: Judgment Rites . These games had later CD-ROM editions released with the original Star Trek cast providing voices. Interplay also published Starfleet Academy and Klingon Academy games, and Starfleet Command series, beginning with Star Trek: Starfleet Command . Another game, Star Trek: Secret of Vulcan Fury ,

7881-452: The industry by working long hours. Because crunch time tends to come from a combination of corporate practices as well as peer influence, the term "crunch culture" is often used to discuss video game development settings where crunch time may be seen as the norm rather than the exception. The use of crunch time as a workplace standard gained attention first in 2004, when Erin Hoffman exposed

7992-440: The keyboard for movement and typing in notes in the journal, and the mouse to interact with objects and characters. The mouse pointer is usually a target indicator for aiming attacks and weapons wherever it is clicked. When the mouse pointer is moved onto a particular something it changes to another icon to indicate a different action. For example, the mouse pointer changes to an eye when the player can examine things (often signs), or

8103-561: The lack of console titles. Because of this, the company forced itself to seek additional funding from an outside third party. On February 17, 1999, the company entered into a distribution agreement with British game publisher Virgin Interactive , where Interplay would acquire a 43.9% stake (initially a 49.9% stake) in the company and allow Virgin to exclusively distribute their titles in Europe, effectively replacing Interplay's own distribution arm in

8214-431: The lack of respect that the new management gave to programmers, they used their knowledge of how Atari VCS game cartridges were programmed to create their own games for the system, founding Activision in 1979 to sell these. Atari took legal action to try to block the sale of these games, but the companies ultimately settled, with Activision agreeing to pay a portion of their sales as a license fee to Atari for developing for

8325-483: The latter a fully-owned subsidiary of Titus, which was to allow the three companies to simplify their European distribution arms under the singular Virgin Interactive umbrella. On August 28, Titus announced that they had appointed Vivendi Universal Publishing as Interplay's North American distributor in order for Interplay to focus more on development. Prior to this, Titus resecured full distribution rights to its titles in North America, which were not counted for as part of

8436-408: The map can be clicked and notes referring to them can be written. Stonekeep features an elaborate "magick" system where four types of runes are inscribed onto a spellcaster (wand): Mannish, Fae, Throggish, and Meta. The first three runes are used for offensive, defensive and special interaction purposes. The Meta runes enhance the effectiveness of the base runes—for example, double power multiplies

8547-424: The monsters in the game were captured by using a blue screen outside with the sunlight. This resulted in uneven lighting from take to take, so eventually all that work was scrapped. Later, a professional studio with controlled lighting was used. The earliest film footage was taken with a standard film camera and Macintosh computer for editing. This technology proved to be inadequate. After two years of failed filming,

8658-551: The movement again called out for the industry to unionize. The movement argued that Telltale had not given any warning to its 250 employees let go, having hired additional staff as recently as a week prior, and left them without pensions or health-care options; it was further argued that the studio considered this a closure rather than layoffs, as to get around failure to notify required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 preceding layoffs. The situation

8769-448: The nature of the video game culture. The industry also is recognized to have an ageism issue, discriminating against the hiring and retention of older developers. A 2016 IGDA survey found only 3% of developers were over 50 years old, while at least two-thirds were between 20 and 34; these numbers show a far lower average age compared to the U.S. national average of about 41.9 that same year. While discrimination by age in hiring practices

8880-529: The news, there have typically been followup discussions towards the potential to form a union. A survey performed by the International Game Developers Association in 2014 found that more than half of the 2,200 developers surveyed favored unionization. A similar survey of over 4,000 game developers run by the Game Developers Conference in early 2019 found that 47% of respondents felt the video game industry should unionize. In 2016, voice actors in

8991-408: The player may come across. The third section is used for writing notes. The fourth section records items each time the player picks up a new type. The fifth section records runes each time the player comes across a new one. Unlike the items section, the runes do not have their own respective name recorded. The sixth section of the journal records the level maps that the players journeys through. Spots on

9102-694: The present, being a de facto rate used for most digital storefronts for third-party developers to offer their games on the platform. In recent years, larger publishers have acquired several third-party developers. While these development teams are now technically "in-house", they often continue to operate in an autonomous manner (with their own culture and work practices). For example, Activision acquired Raven (1997); Neversoft (1999), which merged with Infinity Ward in 2014; Z-Axis (2001); Treyarch (2001); Luxoflux (2002); Shaba (2002); Infinity Ward (2003) and Vicarious Visions (2005). All these developers continue operating much as they did before acquisition,

9213-418: The president of Interplay Entertainment at the time). Fargo came up with the final name, Stonekeep . The production took much longer than expected because of the rapid advancement of personal computer hardware at the time; specifically, PC CPUs advancing from 80386 , to 80486 , to Pentiums in the years the game was being developed. Oliphant, who originally designed the game and was lead programmer, left

9324-414: The primary differences being exclusivity and financial details. Publishers tend to be more forgiving of their own development teams going over budget (or missing deadlines) than third-party developers. A developer may not be the primary entity creating a piece of software, usually providing an external software tool which helps organize (or use) information for the primary software product. Such tools may be

9435-406: The project was taken over by Quarles, two questionable decisions were made. The game was always designed to be grid-based, where the player moved from grid to grid (in contrast to today's full freedom of motion 3D environments). Oliphant wanted the movement from center of grid to center of grid, but Quarles changed this to edge of grid to edge of grid. This resulted in the problem that turning within

9546-445: The project, Oliphant suggested to Fargo that the product be delivered on CD-ROM. Fargo rejected this idea at the time, citing the failure of previous Interplay CD-ROM projects that had gone this route. Oliphant suggested this after Fargo requested him to drop his percentage of royalties by half due to the high cost of production and goods to create the product, as it was at that time to be shipped on eight floppy disks. The cost of one CD

9657-429: The publisher's wishes generally override those of the developer. Work for hire studios solely execute the publishers vision. The business arrangement between the developer and publisher is governed by a contract, which specifies a list of milestones intended to be delivered over a period of time. By updating its milestones, the publisher verifies that work is progressing quickly enough to meet its deadline and can direct

9768-463: The publishers. While this had some effects on a few games within the industry, it brought to the forefront the question of whether video game developers should unionize. A grassroots movement, Game Workers Unite , was established around 2017 to discuss and debate issues related to unionization of game developers. The group came to the forefront during the March 2018 Game Developers Conference by holding

9879-483: The region. Interplay also announced that they would distribute Virgin Interactive's titles in North America and several other territories including South America and Japan. On March 23, 1999, it was announced that the Paris-based Titus Interactive had invested $ 10 million in the publisher with a considered chance of purchasing Universal Pictures ' stake in Interplay, which would allow Titus to own 34% of

9990-852: The same type can be combined up to a maximum quantity of 99; other items can be combined such as a quiver which can hold 99 arrows. The magic mirror allows the player to equip Drake and other characters with weapons, armor, and accessories, and to consume items to affect their status, such as healing potions or bad smelling Throg food. Drake can also read scrolls used on him. Although Drake can wield any weapon, other characters like Farli and Karzak can only wield hammers, axes, and shields. Certain weapons like polearms and heavy swords require Drake to have two free hands to wield. Some armor can be worn by certain characters. For instance, only dwarves can wear dwarven platemail, and only Drake can wear knight armor. Exceptional characters like Sparkle and Wahooka cannot be outfitted, but can still consume items. The third possession

10101-494: The spell that can be used has the spell slot highlighted and launched on the indicated target point. Using the magic mirror, some spells can be aimed at the characters, especially healing and quickness spells. Stonekeep' s mythology revolves around a variety of gods associated with planets of the solar system. In order, they are Helion ( Mercury ), Aquila ( Venus ), Thera ( Earth ), Azrael ( Mars ), Marif ( Jupiter ), Afri ( Saturn ), Saffrini ( Uranus ), Yoth-Soggoth ( Neptune )

10212-545: The target of sexual harassment. This can be coupled from similar harassment from external groups, such as during the 2014 Gamergate controversy . Major investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct that went unchecked by management, as well as discrimination by employers, have been brought up against Riot Games , Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard in the late 2010s and early 2020s, alongside smaller studios and individual developers. However, while other entertainment industries have had similar exposure through

10323-487: The team turned their attention to Hollywood. Aided by the production company Dia Quest and new digitizing technology, successful filming was finally implemented into the project. The entire five months of successful filming was soon met with several setbacks including toning, lighting, and digitization problems. When the team finally obtained the Betacam technology, the development was back on track. According to Oliphant, when

10434-550: The tenth top vaporware title in computer game history (due 1991, delivered 1996), stating that "after seeing the same basic demo for years, the game finally shipped, as an anti-climax." Stonekeep was also ranked at number six on GameSpot's top ten vaporware hall of shame. In 2009, GamesRadar also included Stonekeep among the games "with untapped franchise potential", due to the cancellation of Stonekeep 2: Godmaker . In 1996, GamesMaster ranked Stonekeep 56th on their "Top 100 Games of All Time." The Oath of Stonekeep ,

10545-400: The title in January 2002, while BioWare eventually reconsidered with Interplay. On January 24, 2002, Interplay founder and CEO Brian Fargo resigned from the company, following Interplay's failed move to expand to console gaming as well as conflictions with Titus Interactive. He later went on to found InXile Entertainment . Titus' co-founder Hervé Caen took over as Interplay's new CEO and began

10656-484: The toxic nature of the video game culture. This racial diversity issue has similar ties to the gender one, and similar methods to result both have been suggested, such as improving grade school education, developing games that appeal beyond the white, male gamer stereotype, and identifying toxic behavior in both video game workplaces and online communities that perpetuate discrimination against gender and race. In regards to LGBT and other gender or sexual orientations,

10767-487: The use of crunch time at Electronic Arts , a situation known as the "EA Spouses" case. A similar "Rockstar Spouses" case gained further attention in 2010 over working conditions at Rockstar San Diego . Since then, there has generally been negative perception of crunch time from most of the industry as well as from its consumers and other media. Game development had generally been a predominately male workforce. In 1989, according to Variety , women constituted only 3% of

10878-504: The video game industry typically shares the same demographics as with the larger population based on a 2005 IGDA survey. Those in the LGBT community do not find workplace issues with their identity, though work to improve the representation of LGBT themes within video games in the same manner as with racial minorities. However, LGBT developers have also come under the same type of harassment from external groups like women and racial minorities due to

10989-678: The video game industry. Whereas some video game employees believe they should follow the craft-based model used by SAG-AFTRA which would unionize based on job function, others feel an industry-wide union, regardless of job position, would be better. Starting in 2021, several smaller game studios in the United States began efforts to unionize. These mostly involved teams doing quality assurance rather than developers. These studios included three QA studios under Blizzard Entertainment : Raven Software , Blizzard Albany , and Proletariat; and Zenimax Media 's QA team. Microsoft , which had previously acquired Zenimax and announced plans to acquire Blizzard via

11100-442: The wait. The graphics are stunning, the music is eerie, and the interface is a pleasure to use". He made particular note of the automap, strong puzzle element and original visual designs for the monsters. Maximum praised the game's "atmospheric 3D rendered world" and sound effects, but criticized the lack of challenging puzzles, low amount of gore and "sluggish" combat. The editors of Computer Games Strategy Plus named Stonekeep

11211-504: The workforce in video games is estimated to be from contract labor. Similar to other tech industries, video game developers are typically not unionized . This is a result of the industry being driven more by creativity and innovation rather than production, the lack of distinction between management and employees in the white-collar area, and the pace at which the industry moves that makes union actions difficult to plan out. However, when situations related to crunch time become prevalent in

11322-466: Was about the cost of one floppy disk, and the possibilities for eight floppy disks having problems is much greater than a single CD, so the solution seemed obvious to Oliphant. And, in fact, six months later Fargo changed his mind and made the same decision. The 3D rendering was accomplished by using the Strata Vision application to create the room layouts, monsters, and objects. The initial motions of

11433-435: Was also involved in issues including debt. Feargus Urquhart later left Black Isle Studios and Interplay suffered a loss of US$ 20 million in that year. By June 2004, Interplay's fate was appearing to show, once employees were showing up locked out of the company's offices and other events ensuring, although Titus' co-founder Eric Caen denied that Interplay was closing, deeming them as being "Still There". However, by June 7, it

11544-711: Was argued to be "exploitive", as Telltale had been known to force its employees to frequently work under "crunch time" to deliver its games. By the end of 2018, a United Kingdom trade union, Game Workers Unite UK, an affiliate of the Game Workers Unite movement, had been legally established. Following Activision Blizzard 's financial report for the previous quarter in February 2019, the company said that they would be laying off around 775 employees (about 8% of their workforce) despite having record profits for that quarter. Further calls for unionization came from this news, including

11655-445: Was in development in the late 1990s but was never completed and much of its staff laid off due to budgetary cuts prompted by various factors. In 1995, after several years of delays, Interplay finally published its role-playing game Stonekeep . Other PC games released during the mid- to late 1990s included Carmageddon , Fragile Allegiance , Hardwar and Redneck Rampage . In 1997, Interplay developed and released Fallout ,

11766-431: Was officially declared bankrupt and closed down all its French operations effectively. Interplay soon purchased Titus' former assets and led to the company being burdened with debt. In 2006, Interplay was brought up to the bankruptcy court once again in order to avoid the company going out of business. In April 2007, in order to pay off creditors, the company altered its licensing agreement with Bethesda Softworks and sold

11877-411: Was originally published by Interplay. Known as Kingpin: Reloaded , the game will be developed by Slipgate Ironworks . This was announced on January 17, 2020. In 2021, Interplay, via Black Isle Studios, re-released Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on modern consoles, and later that year also released a port of it on PC for the first time. In 2003 and 2004 Snowblind Studios and Interplay Entertainment had

11988-461: Was reported that several California labor investigators had forcefully shut down Interplay's offices over unpaid royalties to developers, unpaid employees and not issuing any health insurance to them. By June 9, Interplay's offices had reopened after Herve Caen secured the funds to pay the insurance for Interplay's staff. On the same day, Titus Interactive announced they were declaring bankruptcy, which made Interplay's future uncertain. In July, they sold

12099-727: Was the 1981-published Demon's Forge . The same year, Interplay Productions, then contracted out by Electronic Arts, ported EA's Racing Destruction Set to the Atari 8-bit computers . The conversion, entirely coded by Rebecca Heineman , was released in 1986 via Electronic Arts for the United States and Ariolasoft for the European market. Interplay's parser was developed by Fargo and an associate and in one version understands about 250 nouns and 200 verbs as well as prepositions and indirect objects. In 1986, Tass Times in Tonetown followed. Interplay made

12210-516: Was the company's biggest shipment ever, according to Greg Miller of the Los Angeles Times . Interplay dedicated $ 1.5 million to the game's marketing budget, also the largest for any of its games by that point. In response to public reception of Stonekeep ' s pre-release demo, the company "stepped up the initial release forecast to 200,000 units". In the days before Stonekeep ' s release, Next Generation reported: "With store orders already topping 90,000, Interplay says it's set to become

12321-399: Was the most expensive part of the production, costing nearly half a million dollars to produce, which was ten times more than the initial budget for the entire project. The initial story line was written by Oliphant, who also designed and programmed the graphics and artificial intelligence engine for the game. The project started out being called Brian's Dungeon (named after Brian Fargo ,

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