Secret level

Secret level
legal form	Sega subsidiary
founding	1999
resolution	2006
Seat	San Francisco , USA
management	Constantine Hantzopolous (Studio Director)
Number of employees	150+
Branch	Software development
Website	www.secretlevel.com

Secret Level was a computer game company based in San Francisco . It was bought by Sega America in 2006 because of its technological and technical success , but was initially restructured to Sega Studios San Francisco and later closed due to the commercial failures of the subsequently developed products .

history

Origins and business area

The company was founded in late 1999 in San Francisco and was originally located in close proximity to Powell and Market Street, but later moved to the vicinity of AT&T Park. His greatest number of employees (after the integration in Sega) was 200 employees.

Before the purchase by Sega , Secret Level was a small independent studio that developed its own video games such as Magic: The Gathering - Battlegrounds , ported foreign titles such as Star Wars: Starfighter , America's Army: Rise of a Soldier and Unreal Tournament . Secret Level also worked on a port of Final Fight: Streetwise and Karaoke Revolution to Xbox.

Secret Level also created numerous tools and technologies for the console game industry in collaboration with LucasArts , Sony , and others.

Takeover by Sega

Secret Level was purchased by Sega in early 2006 during the development of Golden Ax: Beast Rider for Sega . Simon Jeffery , the former CEO of Sega of America, was enthusiastic about Secret Level's project progress and technology and directed Sega America to buy the studio.

After the takeover, Secret Level developed from a small start-up company to a large studio with almost 200 employees. Within two years of growth, Iron Man (computer game) and Golden Ax: Beast Rider were developed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 . Some experts judged this to be too early.

Iron Man & Golden Ax

According to Metacritic , a website that compiles video game reviews , the PlayStation 3 version of Iron Man received an average review rating of 42 (out of 100) and the Xbox 360 version scored 45. On the Metacritic rating scale, mean mean scores below 50 "generally unfavorable reviews." Secret Level did not develop Iron Man's cinema re-release games for Nintendo DS , Wii , PlayStation 2 , PlayStation Portable, and Windows . These developments were instead awarded to the Artificial Mind studio .

The secret-level port of Beast Rider received a 3.2 out of 10 rating from IGN with the final comment, "This game deserves to be avoided like the plague, even if we have fond memories of the classic." GamePro called it "poorly engineered and extremely mediocre," "a terrible game that feels like a slap in the face to fans of the original." TeamXbox gave the game 6.8 points. High School Ben, the publisher of ScrewAttack.com , the sister website of Gametrailers , wrote "Throw it in the trash" because of "strange" controls, lack of music, and high difficulty level. X-Play by G4tv gave the game a review on Jan. October 2008 only 2 out of 5 stars.

The game was rated 9 out of 10 by Play Magazine . Play also wrote that "certain online critics" were "unable" to play through the game in the set timeframe and "deliver a decent review".

Sega Studios San Francisco

After both games failed both critically and in the marketplace, Sega Secret Level wound up and retained a few hand-picked staff to re-establish the studio under the new name Sega Studios San Francisco . The new studio did not have the independence of the old one, as Sega steered all of its business decisions directly.

Sega wanted to achieve the success expected from the original games by restructuring with Iron Man 2 and the successor to Beast Rider. However, on April 2, 2010, Sega announced that it would close Sega Studios San Francisco with the release of Iron Man 2. Sega made no announcement about the successor to Beast Rider, which led various websites to believe that the quality of the game was not up to expectations.

The managing director of Sega West, Mike Hayes, spoke in an interview at 1UP.com about the handling of the studio: 1UP: Has Secret Level been closed because of the trend towards digital?

MH : The decision was based on a broader basis. We're happy with Iron Man 2 they worked on, but the truth is we couldn't find another suitable project for them. You may remember that we did the same thing with our racing [game] studio here in London three years ago. It was a good team, but we couldn't find a new project for them.