Core design

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Core Design Limited

logo
legal form Limited
founding 1988 (from Gremlin Derby )
resolution 2006 (taken over by Rebellion Developments )
Seat Derby , England , UKUnited KingdomUnited Kingdom 
management Kev Norburn, Greg Holmes, Jeremy Heath-Smith (Founders)
Branch Software development , publisher

Core Design Limited was a British computer game - developers and temporary publisher based in Derby , England .

In its history the company has developed over 50 titles. She published many of her early titles herself and others through major publishers. Your most successful and famous development was the Tomb Raider series, parts of which have been sold over 25 million times.

After the license for the Tomb Raider series was withdrawn , the studio lost a large part of its employees and after being taken over by " Rebellion Developments " in 2006 its name "Core Design". Today Core Design is called "Rebellion Derby".

Company history

Former Core Design company building: a villa in Derby

Core Design emerged from the development company Gremlin Graphics , which was based in Sheffield . Four developers from the Derby area convinced Gremlins boss Ian Steward to open a branch in Derby to save the daily commute to Sheffield. Gremlin Derby was opened and soon other developers were added.

1988 turned out to be a difficult year for many software companies. The market turned increasingly from the Spectrum and C64 games to the 16-bit computers. Gremlin was forced to rationalize away Gremlin Derby due to financial difficulties. Programmers Kev Norburn, Greg Holmes and software businessman Jeremy Heath-Smith (previously employed in marketing at Gremlin) took over Gremlin Derby from Gremlin. In July 1988, with a total of £ 16,000 and a team of eight from the Gremlin Derby development studio, they founded Core Design.

First game developments

Core continued to develop games for the old 8-bit platforms, but it quickly became clear that the company's focus would be on the new Amiga and Atari ST . Her first title was the adventure game Rick Dangerous , which was distributed by Firebird. It immediately climbed to the top of the English charts and won, among other things, the European Game of the Year award.

In the course of further internal restructuring, Jeremy Smith bought the shares of Kev Norburn and Greg Holmes. Shortly thereafter, Norburn left Core Design.

As the Amiga's market share continued to shrink, Core began to concentrate on converting for the PC and Sega's Mega Drive . The company policy of the Japanese Sega group meant that Core had to make some changes to the content of some of their games. Despite these restrictions, the share of Mega-Drive games in the company's total sales grew more and more and Core developed a close relationship with Sega. Cores Thunderhawk was one of the few good games for Sega's mega-CD .

They produced a slew of successful titles that were released by various publishers including Virgin and Activision . In addition, Core began to appear as a publisher himself from 1990 and published successful titles for various computers such as the PC, Amiga and ST. However, since the publisher's activity was very complex, game development tended to take a back seat at times. So it was finally decided to stop the publisher business again.

In 1993 and 1994 the name Core Design was consistently in the upper regions of the software charts around the world with titles such as Thunderhawk, Soulstar, Battlecorps and BC Racers . Her games have received numerous awards from the European and US trade press. In 1994 Sony introduced the new PlayStation game console . Core received a development license from Sony for its excellent mega-CD implementation from Thunderhawk .

At the end of 1994, Core Design was bought by the CentreGold plc group, which consisted of the publisher US Gold and the distributor CentreSoft. CentreGold decided that Core should continue to operate independently as a standalone developer. The year 1995 showed that this decision was correct. Core released four new titles this year, including Thunderhawk 2: Firestorm, an arcade / action game that has sold over 200,000 copies in Europe to date. The distribution of the games was taken over by CentreGold, so that one could now concentrate fully on the game development.

Tomb Raider

In April 1996 , CentreGold was bought by Eidos Interactive . And just like CentreGold, Eidos decided to keep Core Design independent. Core Design benefited from the purchase as they now had the financial and technical support from industry giant Eidos. Core continued to be led by Heath-Smith and his brother Adrian Smith.

1996 ended with the release of their most successful game to date, Tomb Raider . The game finally made Core Design and Eidos famous. It has received countless awards from the trade press and has sold over 6 million copies to date. The heroine Lara Croft became famous all over the world.

After the release of the first part of the Tomb Raider series, Toby Gard , the designer of the game and the character Lara Croft, left the company. He opened his own company to devote himself to the development of the action adventure Galleon . After his departure, the rest of the development team under Level designers Neal Boyd and Heather Gibson began work on the sequel Tomb Raider II - Starring Lara Croft , which was released in 1997 . This was followed by Tomb Raider III - Adventures of Lara Croft (1998), Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation (1999) and Tomb Raider: Die Chronik (2000).

In 2000 , Core Design was able to pay its employees a total of £ 5.6 million in bonuses , although parent company Eidos had previously reported a loss of £ 27 million. Heath-Smith received a £ 4 million bonus. The trade press attributed this to the fact that with Tomb Raider , Core Design produced the most economically successful product series for Eidos.

The Angel of Darkness

The title Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness turned out to be of poor quality, which had an impact on sales. According to a report by a former core employee, Eidos is said to have informed the developer studio in the summer of 2002 that the game should be released in time for Christmas business by the end of the year. The development team had always planned the 2003 Christmas business, that is, a whole year later. Since it was not possible for Core Design to be released so drastically, Eidos put pressure on the development team with the threat of dismissing the entire workforce.

After a few more months in the development phase, it was realized that the game could not possibly be released by Christmas 2002. An agreement was reached with the publisher on the publication in mid-2003. The fact is that the title fell through quality control in June 2003 and the development studio was given another month to "bend" the game accordingly. This is how The Angel of Darkness managed to hit the shelves in July 2003. Despite several program patches that were published after the release, the game is burdened with more programming errors than almost any other.

Due to the massive criticism of the game, Jeremy Heath-Smith, Head of Development at Core Design, resigned from his positions at Core and Eidos in July 2003. Publisher Eidos, who owns the rights to Tomb Raider , decided that the development of the next installment in the series should no longer be done by Core Design, but by Crystal Dynamics . Eidos shrunk the development studio from what was previously three to a single development team. Andy Norman took over the management and 47 employees remained.

The time after Tomb Raider

In February 2004 it was announced that it would work on four projects as part of a three-year strategy, three of which were in the pre-production stage and one in development. In the following time it was quiet around the development studio until it was announced in February 2005 that a puzzle game for Sony's handheld console PlayStation Portable would be developed.

On May 10, 2005, the puzzle game Smart Bomb, developed under the direction of Clint Nembhard, was published for the PlayStation Portable game console . Another game for the PlayStation Portable called Free Running, which would center around parkour , was announced for early 2006.

Sale and successor

After Heath-Smith left Core, he and his brother Adrian Smith founded a new development studio called Circle Studio, which now has more than 35 former employees of Core Design, mainly from the Tomb Raider development team. The studio developed several DVD games before closing in February 2007.

In May 2005, Core Design's parent company Eidos Interactive was taken over by SCi Entertainment . SCi and Eidos decided to sell the development studio to Rebellion Developments a year later . Until then, another Tomb Raider game had been developed at Core Design . It should be an anniversary edition that should appear in 2006 and should be a remake of the first game from 1996 in a new engine. With the sale of the development studio, however, the project was discontinued and Crystal Dynamics was commissioned with the new development. The game, titled Tomb Raider: Anniversary , was released on June 1, 2007.

Rebellion integrated Core Design into its company, the name Core Design was retained by the former publisher Eidos. The title Free Running was published in May 2007 by the former Core Design development team, but under the developer title Rebellion and the publisher Reef Entertainment .

Ludography

Developer of

Publisher for

  • Car-Vup (1990, in-house development)
  • Corporation (1990, in-house development)
  • Chuck Rock (1991, in-house development)
  • Heimdall (1991, in-house development)
  • Thunderhawk AH-73M (1991, in-house development)
  • Warzone (1991, in-house development)
  • Curse of Enchantia (1992, in-house development)
  • Doodlebug: Bug Bash II (1992, developed by Mutation Software)
  • Jaguar XJ220 (1992, in-house development)
  • Premiere (1992, developed by The 8th Day)
  • Wolfchild (1992, in-house development)
  • Wonder Dog (1992, in-house development)
  • Blastar (1993, in-house development)
  • Blob (1993, in-house development)
  • Chuck Rock II: Son of Chuck (1993, in-house development)
  • CyberPunks (1993, developed by Mutation Software)
  • Darkmere: The Nightmare's Begun (1994, developed by Zero Hour)
  • Banshee (1994, in-house development)
  • Battlecorps (1994, in-house development)
  • Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds (1994, developed by The 8th Day)
  • Soulstar (1994, in-house development)
  • Universe (1994, in-house development)
  • BC Racers (1995, in-house development)
  • The Big Red Adventure (1995, developed by Dynabyte)
  • The Scottish Open: Carnoustie Virtual Golf (1995, in-house development)
  • Thunderhawk 2 (1995, in-house development)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Moss: "It felt like robbery": Tomb Raider and the fall of core design. March 31, 2015, accessed on August 13, 2019 .