Thatgamecompany

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Thatgamecompany

logo
legal form LLC
founding May 15, 2006
Seat Los Angeles , USA
management Jenova Chen , creative director
Number of employees 24 (February 2018)
Branch Computer and video games
Website thatgamecompany.com

Thatgamecompany ( spelling thatgamecompany ) is an American developer studio for computer games . It was founded by students Kellee Santiago and Jenova Chen from the University of Southern California and developed for Sony Computer Entertainment until 2012 . It had a contract for three downloadable games for the PlayStation Network : the first is a remake of Chen's award-winning flash game flOw with improved graphics and sound, plus a multiplayer mode and compatibility with the console's motion-sensitive controllers. The title was released on PlayStation Store in 2007. The company's second PlayStation 3 game, Flower , was released on the PlayStation Store in 2009. The most recently published game Journey was released in March 2012.

The company's focus is on developing computer games that evoke emotional feedback from players. Thatgamecompany is not fundamentally against action-oriented games, but the founders believe that there are enough of them already. When designing a game, the employees work out what they want the player to feel at the beginning, rather than the usual industry-standard creation of game rules . The company has no plans to create big box office games as it believes that pushing for high sales would hurt innovation.

history

Jenova Chen, 2007
Kellee Santiago, 2011

In the fall of 2005, Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago began thinking about starting their own computer game development company. Both were in their senior year as Masters students in the Interactive Media Program at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts and had recently published the computer game Cloud , which they had developed with other students. The project was intended as an experiment to find out whether a game could “express something different from video games in the past” and to determine the public's interest in such games. Due to the very positive reviews, Santiago and Chen began to think about starting their own company so that after graduating from college they could continue to develop games like Cloud , in which the design is not based on the rules of the game but on evoking emotions.

At that time, digital distribution was gaining popularity. Both saw this as an opportunity to develop games without the high financial risk of retail sales. Thatgamecompany was founded on May 15, 2006, the same day that Chen and Santiago received their Masters degrees. Shortly thereafter, they signed a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment, who were impressed by Chen's flash game flOw - part of his master's thesis at USC. Thatgamecompany was supposed to develop three games for the upcoming PlayStation Network and received a start-up grant and office space in Sony's building in Los Angeles .

Thatgamecompany originally consisted of Chen, Santiago, John Edwards and Nick Clarke. Clarke had already worked with Chen on flOw . Santiago was the company's chairman and producer of the games, while Chen was the lead designer , Edwards was the lead engineer, and Clarke was the additional designer. Although she thought about Cloud to as the first title for Sony adapt , they decided ultimately flOw , as it was elaborated by design. They felt it was easier to develop than cloud while they started the company; none of the team had any experience running a company or creating a commercial game. During development, Chen worked briefly on Spore for Maxis . Some contract workers assisted Thatgamecompany with the work on flOw , including Austin Wintory , the game's composer .

At the beginning, the company assumed that the PlayStation 3 version of flOw would be completed within four months, just in time for the release of the PlayStation Network in November 2006. When the game finally appeared on the market in February 2007, it did not include it Once again, “half of the original design.” According to Santiago, the Sony producer in charge suspected that they were underestimating the development time and was not surprised by the postponement. The game was received positively; it was the best-selling game on PlayStation Network in 2007 and was nominated for Best Downloadable Game of the Year award at the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Interactive Achievement Awards 2008, and Best Innovation Award of the year at the British Academy Video Games Awards (BAFTA). After the release, an expansion and a PlayStation-Portable version of the game were developed by SuperVillain Studios . Thatgamecompany was not involved in the creation of either project, other than ensuring the same design and art direction from the original as they were developing their next title, Flower .

After Santiago Thatgamecompany, Flower was “the first game outside the safety net of the academic world.” Six to nine people were employed at different stages of development and Chen stayed with the studio throughout the project. The music for the game was composed by Vincent Diamante , who worked on Cloud with Chen and Santiago . The development time was two years, but three quarters of that time the team was in the prototyping phase. After agreeing on the elements of the game, Flower was developed in just six months. Just like flOw , the game received positive reviews when it was released in February 2009. It was one of the ten best-selling games on PlayStation Network of the year and received several awards. After Flower was released , Thatgamecompany moved into its own building in Los Angeles.

The company's most recently completed project is Journey , which appeared on March 13, 2012. It is the last game from Thatgamecompany's three-game contract with Sony and was developed by twelve employees. The team did not include Santiago, who was replaced by Robin Hunicke as producer so that she could concentrate more on the role of managing director.

In late March 2012, shortly after the release of Journey , Santiago announced that she was leaving the company to take on new challenges. Thatgamecompany is working on a new game. It is titled Sky and is due to appear on Apple's iOS first in 2018 .

Company philosophy

When Thatgamecompany designs a game, they start to decide which emotions and feelings should be evoked in the player. This sets them apart from other developers who focus on rules of the game or genre features. According to Santiago, the company creates emotional responses to show the breadth of possible experiences in video games that are more than just tension and fear. Chen said the company's games are designed to evoke emotion rather than convey a message; in particular, he changed the design of Flower when early testers suggested the game was promoting renewable energy . Chen believes he is "too young" to play a game with a strong message. Santiago said Thatgamecompany's goal is to "create games that push the boundaries of video games as a communicative medium, and games that appeal to a wide range of people." With this process, she hopes to transform the video game industry so that it can change others Companies see video games as a "creative medium" rather than a mass product. According to Chen, the company is therefore not pursuing the goal of “ blockbuster games on a large budget”, as he assumes that the financial pressure and an expansion of the team would stifle innovation.

Games

flOw

In flOw , the player navigates in a series of two-dimensional levels an aquatic microorganism that develops through the consumption of other microorganisms. The game design is based on Chen's research into dynamic difficulty settings at the University of Southern California and Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's theoretical concept of mental immersion or flow . It was released for the PlayStation 3 on February 22, 2007. On November 29, 2012, the Museum of Modern Art announced the purchase of 14 computer games, including flOw , for a new permanent design exhibition in the Philip Johnson Galleries from March 2013. The announcement identified the titles as outstanding representatives in the field of interaction design. In addition to the visual quality and the aesthetic experience, criteria were therefore all aspects that contribute to the design of the interaction, such as the elegance of the program code or the design of the player behavior.

Flower

Flower was to become the "spiritual successor" of flOw . By using the PlayStation 3's motion-sensitive controller, the player controls the wind that carries a petal through the air. Flying close to flowers will cause more petals to join the player's. The approach to flowers can also have other side effects on the environment, such as the coloring of a previously dead field or the activation of wind turbines. The game contains no text or dialogue and forms the narrative arc only through visual representation and emotional cues. The game was also released only for the PlayStation 3 on February 12, 2009.

Journey

Journey is another video game from the company. The player takes control of a clothed figure who wakes up in a desert with a large mountain in the distance as a target. During the journey the player can meet other players via the Internet, but only one at a time per level area. The players cannot communicate with each other directly, they can only draw attention to themselves with a ping noise and cannot see the name of their game partner, but can help each other if desired. The game was released on March 13, 2012 for the PlayStation 3 and was by then the fastest-selling game on the American PlayStation Network of all time.

Web links

Commons : Thatgamecompany  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ team. Our team. In: thatgamecompany.com. thatgamecompany, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e Phil Elliott: thatgamecompany's Kellee Santiago. GamesIndustry.biz, July 2, 2010, accessed on March 6, 2012 (English, registration required).
  3. ^ Alana Herro: Fellows Friday with Kellee Santiago. TED , October 8, 2010, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  4. ↑ Happy 4th Birthday, TGC. (No longer available online.) Thatgamecompany, May 15, 2010, archived from the original on May 3, 2011 ; accessed on March 6, 2012 (English). 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 / thatgamecompany.com
  5. ↑ Heather Chaplin: Video Game Grad Programs Open Up The Industry. NPR , March 23, 2009, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  6. ↑ a b Aaron Rutkoff: How a Grad-School Thesis Theory Evolved Into a PlayStation 3 Game. The Wall Street Journal , November 28, 2006, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  7. ↑ a b flOw. (No longer available online.) Thatgamecompany, archived from the original on February 21, 2009 ; accessed on March 6, 2012 (English). 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 / thatgamecompany.com
  8. ↑ a b c Brandon Sheffield: Finding A New Way: Jenova Chen And Thatgamecompany. Gamasutra , May 5, 2008, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  9. ^ Scott Kirsner: Kellee Santiago and Jenova Chen. Variety , May 2, 2008, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  10. ↑ 2008 Interactive Achievement Awards. Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences , accessed March 6, 2012 .
  11. ^ BAFTA — Games Nominations 2007. British Academy of Film and Television Arts , archived from the original on March 7, 2012 ; accessed on March 6, 2012 (English).
  12. ↑ Brandon Boyer, Christian Nutt: MIGS: First Details On Thatgamecompany's Flower Debut. Gamasutra , November 29, 2007, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  13. ↑ Simon Carless: GDC Europe: Thatgamecompany's Santiago On Flower's Emotional Search. Gamasutra , August 17, 2009, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  14. ↑ Interview: A Beautiful Flight - Creating The Music For Flower. Gamasutra , February 27, 2009, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  15. ↑ a b c Patrick Dugan: Interview: ThatGameCompany's Santiago, Hunicke, On Designing For The Love. Gamasutra , January 26, 2010, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  16. ↑ Video Games Award Nominations - Video Games - Awards - The BAFTA Site. British Academy of Film and Television Arts , February 16, 2010, archived from the original on February 9, 2012 ; accessed on March 6, 2012 (English).
  17. ^ Thatgamecompany - Journey - Development team. thatgamecompany, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  18. ↑ Brandon Sheffield: Interview: Kellee Santiago Talks Thatgamecompany's Road Ahead. Gamasutra , July 1, 2009, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  19. ^ Leigh Alexander: Changes at Thatgamecompany: Santiago departs, new game underway. Gamasutra , March 29, 2012, accessed April 4, 2012 .
  20. ↑ Jeffrey Matulef: ThatGameCompany reveals the "social adventure game" Sky for iOS. In: Eurogamer . Gamer Network, September 12, 2017, accessed February 19, 2018 .
  21. ↑ James Brightman, "It's the game designer's job to evoke different sides of humanity". In: GamesIndustry.biz. Gamer Network , December 5, 2017, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  22. ↑ a b Nora Young: Interview: Kellee Santiago Talks Thatgamecompany's Road Ahead. CBC Radio One , December 22, 2010, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  23. ↑ Game Informer (Ed.): Interview: Redefining Video Games . No. 207 , July 2012, ISSN  1067-6392 , p. 34 (English).
  24. ↑ Dopamine instead of adrenaline: the sensational success of Thatgamecompany. Innovation Stuntmen, October 7, 2010, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  25. ^ Mary Jane Irwin: The Beautiful Game. Eurogamer, February 19, 2009, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  26. ^ Richard Leadbetter: flOw Review. Eurogamer, April 1, 2007, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  27. ↑ Ross Miller: Joystiq interview: Jenova Chen. (No longer available online.) Joystiq, September 18, 2006, archived from the original on January 2, 2009 ; accessed on March 6, 2012 (English). 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.joystiq.com
  28. ^ Jamin Brophy-Warren, Joysticks and Easy Riders. The Wall Street Journal , December 20, 2008, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  29. ↑ flOw. IGN , accessed March 6, 2012 .
  30. ↑ Paola Antonelli: Video Games: 14 in the Collection, for Starters ( English ) In: Inside / Out. A MoMA / MoMA PS1 Blog . Museum of Modern Art . November 29, 2012. Retrieved November 29, 2012.
  31. ↑ Terry Terrones: Flower. GamePro , February 10, 2009, archived from the original on April 15, 2009 ; accessed on March 6, 2012 (English).
  32. ↑ Flower. IGN , accessed March 6, 2012 .
  33. ↑ Jenova Chen: Journey Takes Its First Steps This March. PlayStation Blog, February 16, 2012, accessed March 6, 2012 .
  34. ↑ Jenova Chen: Journey is PSN's Fastest-Selling Game, Soundtrack Coming Soon. PlayStation Blog, March 29, 2012, accessed April 4, 2012 .