Sir tech

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Sir tech

logo
legal form Incorporated
founding 1979
resolution 1998/2001 dissolved
Seat Sir-Tech Software, Inc. Ogdensburg , New York United States (Publishing)United StatesUnited States 

Sirtech Canada Ltd. Ottawa , Ontario , Canada (software development) CanadaCanada 
management Norman and Robert Sirotek
Branch Software development
Website sir-tech.com ( Memento from December 18, 1996 in the Internet Archive )

Sir-Tech was an American publisher and developer of computer games . The company became known with the Wizardry and Jagged Alliance series. The company consisted of two locations with different partners, the original American publishing arm in Ogdensburg and the Canadian developer studio in Ottawa . In 1998 the American branch was dissolved, and in 2001 the Canadian development studio was also dissolved.

history

Was founded Sir-Tech Software, Inc. in the early 1980s by Norman and Robert Sirotek in Ogdensburg , New York, near the Canadian border. The occasion was, together with Robert Woodhead, to take the marketing of his Dungeons & Dragons- inspired computer role-playing game Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord and his arcade title Galactic Attack into their own hands. Her father, the entrepreneur Frederick Sirotek Jr., had a business relationship with Woodhead's mother. Woodhead had developed a program for calculating freight costs for the joint business on Sirotek's Apple II . In return, Sirotek had allowed Woodhead to use the computer for his own programming experiments. When Woodhead and Norman Sirotek presented the resulting Wizardry - at that time still called Dungeons of Despair - and Galactic Attack at a trade fair in Trenton (New Jersey) , Norman recognized the possibilities and convinced his brother and father to start their own company.

Galactic Attack initially appeared in 1980 under the company name Siro-Tech. From Wizardry onwards it became Sir-Tech, which no longer just alluded to the family name and the term technology, but now also referred to the medieval address " Sir " based on the fantasy scenario of the game . Wizardry was one of the earliest and most successful series of its genre (including Origins Award 1982 for Wizardry 2 ), which brought it to eight titles and numerous offshoots. With the exception of Nemesis: The Wizardry Adventure , the offshoots came from Asian companies, most of which were not published in the western market.

The Jagged Alliance series, which appeared from 1995 onwards , also became very famous . In 1990, Sir-Tech released Freakin 'Funky Fuzzballs , a development by Canadian Ian Currie. Currie later founded the MadLab Games studio in Montreal and developed the Jagged Alliance , which he offered to Sir-Tech for publication. Sir-Tech signed the game and also decided to set up their own development studio. The location should be the Canadian capital Ottawa, not far from Ogdensburg . Together with Linda Sirotek, the sister of the company founder, Ian Currie built Sir-Tech Canada Ltd. up and the two married. Although both locations shared the same company name, they were operationally separate and had different ownership structures. Ottawa took over the development of games, while Ogdensburg published this and the titles of external developers (including the Nordland trilogy , under the title Realms of Arkania ). The publishing arm discontinued its business activities in 1998 and Sir-Tech US was dissolved.

The development studio initially continued to operate. In 1999 the sequel Jagged Alliance 2 appeared , and in 2000 the associated add-on Unfinished Business . 2001 Sir-Tech Canada had to lay off its development teams for the planned games Jagged Alliance 3 and Wizardry 9 , because the company could not secure sufficient funding. After the release of Wizardry 8 , the Canadian part of Sir-Tech finally stopped its work. The trademark rights for Jagged Alliance went in 2002 to the Canadian publisher Strategy First, who also took over part of the development team around Ian Currie.

The company logo was supplemented with a longer kite in the profile for some Wizardry episodes. Later there was also a logo that represented an eye.

Publications

Sir-Tech's self-produced titles include:

In addition, Sir-Tech sold the titles of other studios on the American market, such as Attics Nordland trilogy for Das Schwarze Auge (under the series title Realms of Arkania 1993-1997) or The Druid Circle (1995).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Forgotten ruins: The roots of computer role-playing games: Sir-tech ( Memento from March 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
  2. ↑ a b Kazemi 2014
  3. ^ Johnny L. Wilson: A History of Computer Games . In: Computer Gaming World . November 1991, p. 20. Retrieved November 18, 2013.
  4. ↑ IGN staff: Sir-tech's Last Words - We speak with Robert Sirotek as Sir-tech Software shuts its doors, and an era ends. ( English ) IGN. October 15, 1998. Retrieved April 20, 2011.
  5. ↑ Sirtech Canada layoffs ( Memento from July 15, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  6. ↑ Garrett: 4 Questions to Robert Sirotek about Sir-Tech & Wizardry ( English ) rpgdot.com. October 19, 2001. Archived from the original on June 7, 2008. Retrieved on April 21, 2011.
  7. ↑ Bodo Naser: Strategy First buys Jagged Alliance. In: 4Players. June 6, 2002, accessed July 10, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Jagged Alliance: Sirtech team over / plans. In: PC Games. June 13, 2002, accessed July 10, 2019 .