Ascaron

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Ascaron Entertainment GmbH

logo
legal form GmbH
founding August 8, 1991
resolution September 1, 2009
Reason for dissolution insolvency
Seat Gutersloh , Germany
management
  • Holger Flöttmann
  • Heiko tom Felde
Number of employees 90 (2006)
Website [2] www.ascaron.com

Ascaron ( Ascon until October 1996 ) was a computer game developer with its headquarters in Gütersloh that existed from 1991 to July 2009 . When it went bankrupt, Ascaron was one of the most successful and oldest companies in the games industry in Germany. In addition to its own work as a developer, the studio also acted as a publisher and supported smaller development studios in their work. In addition to the headquarters, the company had a sister studio in Aachen from 2002 ("Studio II", developed the Sacred series) and from 2005 to April 2009 Quality Four GmbH in Potsdam , which was responsible for quality assurance. In addition, Ascaron had its own foreign agency ("Ascaron Entertainment Ltd.") in Birmingham , which sold games for non-German-speaking countries beyond the insolvency of the German parent company.

Ascaron games have been marketed in more than 30 countries worldwide. The football manager game series Anstoss and later the action role-playing game Sacred were particularly well-known and popular . Well-known people from the computer game industry have worked for Ascaron over the course of its existence, including Gerald Köhler , Celâl Kandemiroğlu , Daniel Dumont and Ralf Glau .

history

In the summer of 1991, Holger Flöttmann gave up his position as managing director of the Thalion developer studio he founded , which at that time was owned by the Bertelsmann software subsidiary Ariolasoft , and founded Ascon Publishing Software-Vertriebs-GmbH in Gütersloh. The name was used until 1996, but then changed to Ascaron because of the risk of confusion with Ascom AG from Switzerland. Like Thalion, the name was a fantasy term with no other meaning.

In the year it was founded, Flöttmann came across a game project by three students called Die Pfeffersäcke for the Atari ST home computer . Flöttmann acquired the rights and further developed the game with his studio, which went on sale in 1992 as The Patrician . He also came across the kicker hobby project by the business administration student Gerald Köhler , whom he convinced to join Ascaron. In 1993 the football management game Anstoss was published , which successfully established itself alongside the leading competitor product Bundesliga Manager and became one of the company's most important brands. Other important games of the Gütersloher at this time were u. a. the Formula 1 management simulation Pole Position and the business simulation Vermeer: ​​The Art of Inheriting . Vermeer in particular cemented Ascaron's reputation for creating sophisticated simulations with humor.

On August 31, 2001, the month of the company's tenth anniversary, Ascaron had to file for bankruptcy for the first time . At the beginning of 2002, however, business operations could be continued through the establishment of Ascaron Entertainment GmbH. The new company took over all rights and the name. The company received support through the entry of media entrepreneur Heino Nollmann ( Medienfabrik ) as a co-partner, a new bank loan and a state guarantee. Ascaron acquired part of the workforce and the half-finished role-playing project Armalion , a license development for the role-playing game rules Das Schwarze Auge, from the bankruptcy estate of the Ikarion developer studio , which also stumbled in 2001 . The new team changed its name to the subsidiary Studio II Software GmbH in Aachen and began converting the Armalion project into an independent product. The result, the action role-playing game Sacred , came onto the market in 2004 and became a surprising sales success for the company despite numerous bugs that required improvements.

In 2005, the former Bertelsmann manager Gunter Thielen joined with parts of his private assets as an investor and co-partner. To the end, Thielen also provided the company's offices on Verler Strasse in Gütersloh. Also in 2005, Ascaron founded the quality assurance-oriented subsidiary Quality Four GmbH in Potsdam . In 2006 Heiko tom Felde, who had previously worked at TDK and THQ , joined the company as Publishing Director. At the end of 2007 tom Felde was appointed co-managing director for finances, sales and marketing under pressure from the co-shareholders.

In 2009 Ascaron filed for insolvency proceedings for the second time at the Bielefeld District Court . The reason given was severe delays in the development of the game Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel . The development costs for the game came to € 20 million in the end, so that not even the 750,000 copies sold could save the studio. On April 17, 2009, a preliminary insolvency administrator was appointed. After no investor could be found, Ascaron was crushed. The development of the Sacred series was carried out by the Ascaron sister company Studio 2 until July 31, 2009. The publisher Deep Silver took over the trademark rights to the Sacred series as well as the support of Sacred 2 and its add-on.

Kalypso Media acquired the trademark rights to many of the remaining Ascaron games and other assets from the bankruptcy estate in June 2009, including games such as Darkstar One , Port Royale and The Patrician . Furthermore, Kalypso took over the last 15 developers of the Gütersloh headquarters around Daniel Dumont and Kay Struve and founded the Gaming Minds Studios with this team at the same location . As a first step, the patrician series was continued with a third part and Darkstar One was ported to the Xbox 360 . Ascaron Entertainment GmbH remained as a company without employees with the aim of serving the claims of its creditors.

In-house developments

Publishing activity

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Bielefeld Local Court , decision of September 1, 2009, Az. 43 IN 486/09, via Unternehmensregister.de .
  2. www.ascaron.com ( Memento from July 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ A b c Christian Schmidt: The Ascaron Files - Big hits, big failures. In: Gamestar. August 31, 2009, accessed December 30, 2018 .
  4. ^ Heise Online: Game developer Ascaron files for bankruptcy , September 8, 2001
  5. Torge Löding: Ascaron game maker saved. In: heise online. February 19, 2002, accessed December 30, 2018 .
  6. Heise Online: Spieleschmiede Ascaron files for bankruptcy again , April 18, 2009
  7. The Ascaron dragon runs out of fire. In: New Westphalian. April 20, 2009, accessed December 30, 2018 .
  8. "We want to influence". In: Cicero. Accessed December 30, 2018 .
  9. ^ Ascaron subsidiary founded in Potsdam. In: Gamestar. November 21, 2005, accessed December 30, 2018 .
  10. Christian Klaß: Ascaron wants to improve game quality. In: Golem.de. November 21, 2005, accessed December 30, 2018 (German).
  11. Golem.de: Sacred development studio Ascaron files for bankruptcy . April 17, 2009
  12. Golem.de: Sacred development studio Ascaron is smashed . June 2, 2009.
  13. Gamestar.de: Ascaron: Farewell Video and Sacred Future ( Memento of the original from August 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gamestar.de 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. , August 3, 2009
  14. ^ A b Ludger Osterkamp: Investor secures jobs at Ascaron. In: New Westphalian. June 4, 2009, accessed December 30, 2018 .
  15. Golem.de: The Patrician III comes from the new Kalypso studio . June 18, 2009
  16. Paul Kautz: DarkStar One: Broken Alliance: 360 implementation is approaching. In: 4Players. Accessed December 30, 2018 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 54 ′ 14.5 "  N , 8 ° 23 ′ 34.4"  E