| Former type | Defunct |
|---|---|
| Industry | Interactive entertainment |
| Founded | 1990 |
| Defunct | 2000 |
| Headquarters | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States |
| Key people | Paul Neurath (co-founder) Ned Lerner (co-founder) Doug Church |
| Website | www.lglass.com (archived, last version of 2000-06-20) |
Looking Glass Studios was a computer game development company during the 1990s.
The company originally formed as Looking Glass Technologies, when Blue Sky Productions and Lerner Research merged.
Their games were regarded for demonstrating innovative gameplay, pioneering physics simulation, and well-written, engaging stories. However, many of their games, despite wide critical acclaim, sold poorly in comparison to contemporary rivals.
Their best known games series were Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and Thief. In 1997, the company merged with Intermetrics, Inc[1] to become Intermetrics Entertainment Software, LLC. Intermetrics became AverStar after it acquired Pacer Infotech in February 1998. In March 1999, Intermetrics divested Looking Glass Studios Inc.[2] The company went out of business on May 24, 2000 during a financial crisis related to their publisher at the time, Eidos Interactive.
Originally based in Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1994 the company moved to Cambridge. A significant number of Looking Glass personnel were MIT graduates. Looking Glass also had satellite offices in Redmond, Washington,[3] Austin, TX and Huntington Beach, California.
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After the company folded, people from Looking Glass went on to work at Ion Storm, Irrational Games, Harmonix, Mad Doc Software, Arkane Studios, Valve, and to found Floodgate Entertainment and Digital Eel, amongst other later studios. Ion Storm Austin developed Deus Ex, Deus Ex: Invisible War, the second game in the Deus Ex series and Thief: Deadly Shadows, the third game in the Thief series. Arkane Studios went on to develop Arx Fatalis, a dungeon crawling game that bore heavy resemblance to Looking Glass' cult series Ultima Underworld, and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, which was co-designed by Floodgate. Ex-Looking Glass personnel have worked on such games as Deus Ex, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Half-Life 2, Freedom Force, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3, Bioshock, Empire Earth II, Boom Blox, and Star Trek: Armada II among others.
The following people worked on projects with Looking Glass Studios (by no means an all-inclusive list):
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