Raven software

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Raven software

logo
legal form Part of Activision
founding 1990
Seat Madison , Wisconsin United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
management Brian and Steve Raffel (Founders)
Number of employees 239
Branch Software development
Website www.ravensoftware.com

Raven Software is a 1990 Madison based (Wisconsin, USA) development studio for computer games .

history

1990s: Heretic and Witches

Raven Software was founded in 1990 by brothers Brian and Steve Raffel. Neither of the two had any programming knowledge at first. Brian Raffel was a high school art teacher in the 1980s and Steve Raffel was a screen-printing graphic artist . In their free time they were enthusiastic fans of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons and were also interested in the new medium of computer games. According to her own statement, in 1986 a new Amiga computer game with inadequate artistic design gave her the idea of ​​becoming a computer game developer herself; here they saw promising opportunities to bring their own artistic talent to use. They made numerous concept drawings and looked for experts who could help them with the technical implementation of a computer game. This is how they met Ben Gokey, who was only 19 at the time and who had acquired programming skills as an autodidact . Gokey and two other employees were accepted into the newly founded development studio in 1990.

In 1992, Raven Software released its first title, Black Crypt , a Dungeon Master- style computer role-playing game . A collaboration with the Texan development studio id Software developed early on . Their successful title Doom (1993), which was groundbreaking for the first person shooter genre, was used as the basis for Raven Software's game Heretic , published in 1994 . Heretic took over the basic gameplay from Doom , but put the scenario in a medieval fantasy world. In the thematically subsequent game series Hexen (1995, 1997), elements from the genres of first-person shooter and role-playing game were mixed together and a non-linear level design was developed in which the player can move between different levels using central nodes (referred to as hubs ) . and had to move around to solve puzzles.

During the 1990s, a dark fantasy scenario was typical for the games by Raven Software, fighting against demons and mythical creatures with medieval weapons and magic ( Black Crypt , Shadow Caster , Heretic and Witches series, Mageslayer ). Similar to id Software's games, they also contain the depiction of bloody violence, which is why many of the Raven titles from the 1990s in Germany are indexed or censored in the German version ( Heretic 2 , 1998).

In 1997 the company was bought by the publisher Activision . Several long-term employees left the company after this change and jointly founded the development studio Human Head Studios .

2000s: Soldier of Fortune and commissioned work

With the Soldier of Fortune released in 2000 , Raven made a departure from the previously preferred fantasy theme. The game, told from the perspective of a modern mercenary, should be primarily about "action, intrigue and political turmoil". Because of the detailed and relatively realistically depicted injuries to human opponents, the game was indexed in Germany and the successor published in 2002 in the German version was heavily modified and censored. Raven had achieved a good reputation as a game developer in the computer game industry and was now also commissioned with the development of licensed titles, including computer games for the Star Trek franchises ( Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force , 2000), Star Wars ( Star Wars: Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast , 2002) and X-Men ( X-Men: Legends , 2004, and other titles). The company increased its workforce considerably during this time. Raven developed the games Quake 4 (2005) and Wolfenstein (2009) for id Software .

present

After commissioned work in the 2000s, Singularity, another game designed by Raven himself, was released for a long time in 2010 . The first-person shooter received quite positive reviews overall. Activision was, however, dissatisfied with the sales figures, but had not advertised the game much in advance. Following the completion of Singularity , it was announced in September 2010 that Activision is cutting 40 jobs at Raven Software. The downsized studio developed an expansion for Call of Duty: Black Ops and the multiplayer part for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 . On May 2, 2016, Activision announced that Raven Software was developing a remastered version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare .

censorship

Many of the manufacturer's games were only censored in Germany. The first person shooters Soldier of Fortune 2 , Quake 4, and Wolfenstein have been severely shortened for USK approval, with the uncut Xbox version of Soldier of Fortune 2 being given an age rating. The original version of Wolfenstein was indexed on List B in Germany and confiscated nationwide because, among other things, swastikas were shown in the World War II scenario, which in Germany is legally classified as the use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations . It is therefore subject to the distribution ban. The game is no longer available in Germany because the German version was also confiscated and confiscated on January 19, 2010 by the Detmold District Court for violating Paragraphs 86a and 131 of the Criminal Code .

Games

Own and co-productions

Commissioned work

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Birth of Raven ( Memento of the original from May 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) 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. Company website Ravensoftware.com @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ravensoftware.com
  2. ↑ http://investor.activision.com/timeline.cfm
  3. ^ Postmortem: Raven Software's Soldier of Fortune , article on Gamasutra , Sept. 27, 2000
  4. ↑ Metascore for the PC version of Singularity: 76%
  5. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) 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.mcvuk.com
  6. ↑ Interview with Dan Vondrak on Gamasutra, July 7, 2010.
  7. ↑ http://www.gamezone.de/news_detail.asp?nid=90956
  8. ↑ Infinity Ward clarifies Raven's involvement with CoD franchise ( Memento of the original from August 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) 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. . Gamerzines.com, July 20, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gamerzines.com
  9. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) 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 / idsoftware.com
  10. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) 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 / idsoftware.com
  11. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) 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 / idsoftware.com