Cinemaware

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Cinemaware

logo
legal form Incorporated
founding 1986, 2000, 2012
resolution 1991, 2005
Reason for dissolution 1991 bankruptcy, 2005 takeover by eGames
Seat Burlingame (California) , USA
management Phyllis and Bob Jacobs (1986–2000), Lars Fuhrken-Batista and Sean Vesce (2000–2005)
Number of employees 50 (1989)
Branch Software development
Website http://www.cinemaware.com/

Cinemaware is a publisher and developer of computer and video games who released several film- based titles in the 1980s and early 1990s . The company was revived in 2000 until it was acquired by eGames in 2005 . In 2012, Cinemaware returned with a new homepage and some announcements and trailers.

Cinemaware Corp. (1986-1991)

Cinemaware was founded in 1986 by Phyllis and Bob Jacob . The first title is Defender of the Crown , an adventure game about a "good" rebel from the Middle Ages. Back then, the game set new standards with its graphics and became the manufacturer's flagship.

Cinemaware created a number of successful games based on scenarios in classic films. These games all had remarkable graphics quality in their respective times. The games were primarily created for the Amiga , but were also ported to other systems such as Apple II GS , Atari ST , Commodore 64 , PC (under DOS ) and the Nintendo Entertainment System . The game Defender of the Crown was the game with the most ports.

From 1989 Cinemaware published games in the USA under the label Spotlight Software .

Cinemaware later entered the sports game genre with the "TV Sports" series. There were games to basketball and American football published, some of these "TV Sports" titles such. B. TV Sports: Boxing and TV Sports: Baseball were only released in Europe .

In 1991 the company went bankrupt. During the porting of the game SDI to other systems, one of the managing directors asked for additional features to be integrated, which made programming significantly more complex and further delayed publication. The company also suffered from falling sales during the economic downturn. In addition, the company countered the increasing numbers of pirated copies by no longer releasing games for the Amiga (making pirated copies was easiest on the system). Many of the games, u. a. Wings , were distributed among players as pirated copies even before they were officially sold.

Publications

Cinemawares games in chronological order:

Cinemaware Inc. (2000-2005)

Lars Fuhrken-Batista founded Cinemaware Inc. in 2000 from the brand name Cinemaware and the ideas that went with it. Cinemaware immediately created new releases of the successful old titles for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh . The editions called "Digitally Remastered" presented the same gameplay as the outdated originals, but with revised graphics. In addition, games have now also been ported to portable systems such as the Game Boy Advance .

Disk images of the original games were also offered on the website so that they could be played using an emulator or directly online using Shockwave .

The new Cinemaware also developed new versions of the classic games. The first of these games was Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown which is now on a 3D - engine running. The game was released in September 2003 for Windows, PlayStation 2 and Xbox . The game had poor sales due to poor marketing and few announcements.

The last Cinemaware release was the 1.02 patch for Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown in December 2003. A developer reported on the website forum in October 2004 that further titles were being worked on, but so far there has been no further evidence to confirm this.

Acquisition

On 6 October 2005 Cinema Goods from was eGames, Inc. adopted. Lars Furken-Batista became Vice President of Development. Shortly after the takeover, eGames announced the launch of Cinemaware Marquee, a gaming label for the US market. The first game released was Space Rangers: Rise of the Dominators , a critically acclaimed space adventure game. There were also retail versions of the games Darwinia from Introversion Software , Moscow to Berlin from Monte Cristo , Bad Neighbors 2: Holidays with Obstacles from Jowood and the games collection Buccanneer's Bounty with the titles Port Royale 2 , Pirates: Rulers of the Caribbean and Patrician 3 by the German publisher Ascaron .

In 2007, eGames released a Flash version of Defender of the Crown as a website download under the name Defender of the Crown: Heroes Live Forever . This download could be found on the eGames website and a demo version could be played free of charge for 60 minutes or optionally purchased.

Return of Cinemaware (since 2012)

On July 22nd, 2012, Cinemaware returned with a changed homepage and a so-called Summer 2012 trailer. On August 13th the Amiga version of Defender of the Crown was released for the IPhone, IPad and IPad Touch. The Amiga version of The King of Chicago is also to be released for mobile devices. On August 12, 2012 it was announced that a remake of Wings was being worked on. The game, which is to appear under the title Wings - Director's Cut , is to be financed through crowdfunding. The Italian company Raylight, which was responsible for the Game Boy Advance port of Wings , is involved in the development of the remake .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b http://www.allgame.com/company.php?id=27772
  2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 19, 2007 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cinemawaremarquee.com
  3. ↑ http://www.egames.com/game/defender+of+the+crown+heroes+live+forever.html ( Memento from December 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ http://www.cinemaware.com/cinemaware-summer-2012-trailer/
  5. ↑ http://www.cinemaware.com/cinemaware-announces-defender-of-the-crown-for-ios-devices-now-available-on-app-store-celebrating-25-years-since-the-original -classics-release /
  6. ↑ http://www.cinemaware.com/the-king-of-chicago-bringing-1930s-gangster-drama-to-iphone-and-ipad/
  7. ↑ http://www.gamestar.de/news/branche/3003878/wings.html
  8. ↑ http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/850516062/wings-directors-cut