Ion Storm Inc.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the games software company. For the astronomical phenomenon, see Ion storm.

Ion Storm Inc.

Type	Defunct
Founded	November 15, 1996
Headquarters	Dallas, Texas, United States
Key people	John Romero, Tom Hall, Jerry O'Flaherty, Todd Porter, Warren Spector
Industry	Interactive entertainment
Products	Deus Ex, Anachronox, Daikatana, more

Ion Storm Inc. (sometimes spelled ION Storm) was a Texas based developer of computer games founded by John Romero, a co-creator of the wildly popular Doom franchise; Tom Hall; Todd Porter, and Jerry O'Flaherty, under the slogan "Design is Law". At the time it was founded, long before releasing a single title, it was an instant fan and industry darling for its collection of talent and promise of blockbuster games. Ultimately, Ion Storm never lived up to its hype, creating instead several famous missteps, late releases, and internal political turmoil. One Ion Storm game, Deus Ex, was a critical and commercial success.

1 Dallas office
2 Austin office
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Dallas office

The company was originally headquartered in Dallas on November 15, 1996. Ion Storm had signed a licensing deal with Eidos Interactive for six games and the founders planned to scoop up titles from other companies that were close to completion, finish them, and push them out quickly to bring in initial revenue.

Its first attempt was Todd Porter's Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3. Dominion was already partially completed by Todd Porter's previous employer, 7th Level, and was expected to take $50,000 and three months to complete. Instead, development continued for over a year costing hundreds of thousands. When it was finally released it received poor ratings and equally poor sales. Marketing missteps included releasing the real-time strategy game on the same day Blizzard Entertainment put out its highly-anticipated demo of Starcraft, which would become a defining game of the RTS genre.

John Romero's Daikatana was meant to be finished within seven months of the founding of Ion Storm and was to be based on the original Quake engine. However, already behind schedule, the decision was made to port the entire game to id Tech 2, then known as the Quake 2 Engine, a good six months into development. Likewise, Tom Hall's Anachronox was moved over to id Tech 2. These changes brought costly delays to an already beleaguered product line.

John Romero, Warren Spector and Mike Wilson at the 2000 E3 Convention

Although Anachronox received critical acclaim for its vast storyline and characters, it too was commercially unsuccessful on its release in June 2001. Daikatana, meanwhile came out three years after its announced launch date of Christmas 1997. The game itself was not considered strong, and an aggressive ad campaign in '97 touting Romero's name as the reason to buy the game backfired as fans grew angry over delays.

The company also spent a lot of money on office decor and facilities for employees - the Dallas office had sat on the 54th and top floor of the JPMorgan Chase Tower and featured a ten-foot-wide company logo on the floor in Italian marble. In retrospect, Ion Storm looks similar to many other dot com busts, attempting to grow too quickly and focusing on the trappings as opposed to product development. Romero and Hall left the company after producing Anachronox in July 2001. On July 17, 2001, four and a half years after the company's creation, Eidos Interactive closed the Dallas offices.^[1]

[edit] Austin office

In late 1997, Warren Spector was asked to found the Austin branch of Ion Storm. By keeping well clear of the troubles at the Dallas office, Ion Storm (Austin) was more successful. It developed the highly successful and critically acclaimed Deus Ex. With the demise of Looking Glass Studios, Eidos Interactive secured the rights to the Thief franchise and together with Spector tried to relocate as many of the Looking Glass team to Austin as was possible. After the closure of the Dallas office, the Austin office remained open to produce Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows until Spector's departure to "pursue personal interests outside the company" in 2004. A number of other senior staff also left at about the same time. On February 9, 2005, Eidos announced that the Austin office would also close, meaning the end of Ion Storm as a company.