Core Design

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Core Design
Type Private
Founded 1988
Headquarters Flag of the United Kingdom, Derby, United Kingdom
Key people See Below
Industry Computer and video game industry
Products Video games
Owner Rebellion_Developments

Core Design is a video game developer best known for creating the popular Tomb Raider series. Core Design was set up in 1988 by Chris Shrigley, Andy Green, Rob Toone, Terry Lloyd, Simon Phipps, Dave Pridmore, Jeremy Smith and Greg Holmes. Most were former employees of Gremlin Graphics.

The studio is based in Derby, a city in the United Kingdom. It is owned by Eidos Interactive, having been part of distribution company CentreGold when it was acquired by Eidos in 1996. Eidos subsequently sold most of CentreGold, but retained US Gold the owners of Core Design.

Jeremy Smith resigned from Core Design on 15 July 2003.[1]

On May 11, 2006 it was announced that Core's assets and staff were sold to independent development group Rebellion. Eidos still owns the Core brand and IP, including those of Tomb Raider. It is unlikely there will be any more new games under the Core Design banner, however an 'Atari'-like regeneration of the name and re-branding of existing games is possible (see Infogrames).

Contents

[edit] Games

Core Design had developed numerous games, including the following titles:

[edit] Tomb Raider

The company is most widely known for the Tomb Raider series, created by Toby Gard and Paul Howard Douglas, which was released in 1996 and followed by several sequels. The success of Tomb Raider and its subsequent sequels played a huge part in keeping Eidos Interactive financially solvent. In 2003, however, parent company Eidos moved development of the Tomb Raider franchise from Core Design to Crystal Dynamics, another Eidos-owned studio,[2] after the sixth instalment, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, was met with mixed reactions by reviewers and was not a large commercial success. This prompted three key members of the Core Design team to leave the company and establish a game development team of their own, Circle Studio. One employee has subsequently returned to Core.

[edit] Other titles

Core Design have continued developing games such as the PSP title Smart Bomb, which turned out to be a mass market title thus receiving criticism from reviewers. This game was later tweaked and re-released in Asia where it garnered a much better reception.[citation needed]

Core staff are working with the Rebellion studio, starting work on a sequel to Shellshock[citation needed].

[edit] Tomb Raider Anniversary

In June 2006 screenshots were released showing development of a PSP version of an anniversary edition of the original Tomb Raider, developed by Core Design. Days later, SCI, the by-now owners of Eidos Interactive, issued a press release announcing that Crystal Dynamics would be producing the game, rather than Core Design.[3]

[edit] Tomb Raider film royalties

 This section does not cite any references or sources. (December 2006)
Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

When Paramount Pictures wanted to adapt Lara Croft's story for the big screen, it entered into negotiations with Core Design and Eidos. Among other provisions, the contract is believed to have awarded Eidos only a few million dollars as a licensing fee, but no share of the film's takings. Core Design felt it was more important to secure merchandising rights over any share of box office takings.

Paramount Pictures invested $80m in making the film, which grossed over $130m in US box office alone (international box office grosses were between $250-300m). It is unknown how many toys and other crossover merchandise were manufactured, nor how many were sold.

At the time the movie was released, there was some criticism that no tie-in game was planned for simultaneous release. This choice was explained by Core Design stating that they believed the mere appearance of a major motion picture based on a video game character would help sell further copies of the existing Tomb Raider[citation needed] titles—as indeed it did.

[edit] Relationship with Sony

Core had a brief history of producing titles for the Sega consoles (Thunderhawk for Sega CD was arguably one of a handful of games that took advantage of the platform). After the release of the original Tomb Raider, which had debuted on the Sega Saturn platform ahead of the PlayStation version (they had been developed simultaneously) Sony Computer Entertainment recognised the game's huge popularity and the potential mass appeal of future Tomb Raider titles. They offered Core Design and Eidos Interactive an exclusivity agreement, to ensure that the first sequel would not be developed for either the Saturn or the N64. The full terms of this offer have never been revealed, but it is likely to have included either a lump sum cash offer, a reduction in the third-party royalty rate or a contractual cross-promotional agreement (perhaps even all three).

By making the PlayStation the only console with Tomb Raider II, Sony Computer Entertainment was able to benefit by attracting new PlayStation owners leveraging Tomb Raider as a killer application and using Lara Croft as a marketing character alongside Sony's own first party characters. Core Design also had the advantage of developing only for a single console, rather than several at once. This exclusivity agreement was further extended to cover the third game in the series. The fourth and fifth games in the franchise, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation and Tomb Raider: Chronicles respectively, were also released for the Sega Dreamcast.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tomb Raider Co-Creator Steps Down | PS2 News | GamePro.com
  2. ^ BBC NEWS | England | Derbyshire | Lara leaves UK
  3. ^ PSP: Tomb Raider 10th Anniversary Edition Cancelled, Announced

[edit] External links