Data Design Interactive

Data Design Interactive
Private
Founded United Kingdom (1983)
Founder Stewart Green
Defunct DDI UK in 2009
Headquarters Florida, USA

Data Design Interactive was a British video game developer and video game publisher. It was founded in 1983, became a limited company in 1999 and set up a US division Data Design Interactive LLC in May 2008.[1] The UK office ceased trading in 2009.[2]

History

The company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry, started by Stewart Green as a single programmer, on 8 bit consoles, Sinclair Spectrum, Amstrad CPC he designed, programmed, created graphics, wrote music, manually recorded the games, and sold units at computer fairs and by mail order. The company grew organically hiring artists and programmers, mostly doing work for hire for publishers, it grew and topped out at 105 staff. It is best known for developing Family friendly titles, for Hasbro and Lego, although it has also produced two 18+ rated titles. DDI was a preferred developer for Lego Media, and created rendered animations for all the LEGO Media titles, including Harry Potter. Their first of many million unit sales came from the classic 'LEGO ROCK RAIDERS' a title that is still being sold today, and has a fan club 'ROCK RAIDERS UNITED' actively modding the original game. In 2005 they pioneered 'AdverGaming' (in game advertising), with the first real time interactive adverts featuring P&G products in their London Taxi title.[3] In 2003, after three publishers pulled out of the games market, DDI nearly closed down, but managed to save the company and the staff jobs, by making a bold move from developing titles for other companies, to creating original titles. They are one of the few development teams who have been able to make the move into self publishing on consoles. They become licensed publishers with Sony, Intel, Nintendo and Microsoft. Their amazing comeback story culminated in 2008 when DDI managed to get 40% of the Wii Market with retail sales worth 30 million Euros.[4]

Licenses

Data Design Interactive worked with global brands and licences including Kawasaki, Mini, Harry Potter, BMW, Austin Mini, Rover, Austin-Healey, Spearmint Rhino, Habitrail, Lego, London Taxi, Tonka, EARACHE records and Nickelodeon.

GODS

'Game Orientated Development System' was a game engine developed by DDI for rapid cross platform games development. By re-using large amounts of code between titles DDI achieved very short product release cycles with relatively few development staff. This was often clearly visible in the end product as games looked and played very similarly.

Popcorn Arcade

The Popcorn Arcade was Data Design Interactive's publishing label intended to fill a lack of Wii titles, and especially establish a low price Wii budget range. Many of the Popcorn Arcade titles were ports of DDI's PlayStation 2 games, with their control schemes modified to take advantage of the Wii's motion control capabilities. From 2007 DDI released over 30 'family friendly' titles on its Popcorn Arcade label targeted at casual gamers. DDI specialized in children's titles for LEGO and Hasbro, and the games were designed with an original range of characters intended to appeal to children, such as Ninjabread Man, Billy the Wizard and the Myth Makers. The Popcorn range was a huge commercial success, especially for a small independent publisher with just a small 30 man team. It sold over 4 million units of which over 2 million were in the first year alone. Sales peaked at 40% of the European market for Wii games in this price segment.[5] Later titles such as Kidz Sports Crazy Mini Golf sold over 400,000 units.[6] and user demand lead to the sequels Kidz Sports Crazy Mini Golf 2.

As an indie developer, DDI had a long history of innovations including Crazy Mini Golf's use of the angle and rotation of the Wii remote to detect small swings rather than the accelerometer - this made the control far more sensitive than the Golf minigame in Wii Sports, which only used the accelerometer and thus requires a harder, longer swing. Mini Golf 2 improved on the sensitivity and was one of only 4 titles with Motion Plus support demonstrated at the Launch of Motion Plus at E3 2009.[7] DDI introduced the NuYu (pronounced: New You) characters which could be customized, similar to the Nintendo Mii characters, but they had over four times the detail and animation, these characters could be saved and your personalized character loaded into other NuYu compatible games. Battle Rage 3D was the first Wii title to feature stereoscopic 3D support, with the use of Red/Green glasses.[8]

Critical response to Popcorn Arcade

The Popcorn Arcade range of Wii games received overwhelmingly negative reviews that were highly critical of the products' quality.[9] The press strongly criticised poor graphics, flawed gameplay, unresponsive controls and lack of polish all associated with rushed production schedules or "shovelware" games.

Data Design Interactive's Kidz Sports Series were IGN's Worst Reviewed Wii Games,[10] with all 3 titles receiving 1.0 out of 10. None of Data Design Interactive's Wii games had received a review score higher than 3.0 out of 10. The lowest score of all DDI titles was 0.8 out of 10, given to Action Girlz Racing.[11]

In 2008 games reviewers on IGN and GameSpot UK declared they believed DDI were damaging the Wii games market's credibility by saturating the market with substandard products. One review called for Nintendo to refuse to publish DDI games on the grounds that they were killing public interest in the Wii.[12]

Notable games

Notes

  1. ↑ http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/109723/Data_Design_Interactive_Opens_US_Office.php
  2. ↑ "WebCHeck - Select and Access Company Information". Wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 30 August 2010.
  3. ↑ http://www.frankwbaker.com/videogameads.htm
  4. ↑ http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/09/15/popcorn-arcade-hits-40-market-share-of-the-european-value-priced-wii-games
  5. ↑   (15 September 2008). "Popcorn Arcade Hits 40% Market Share of the European Value-Priced Wii Games - Wii News at IGN". Uk.wii.ign.com. Retrieved 30 August 2010.
  6. ↑ "Popcorn Arcade Range exclusive preview | Retail Biz | MCV". Mcvuk.com. Retrieved 30 August 2010.
  7. ↑ "IGN Video: Kids Sports: Crazy Mini Golf Nintendo Wii Video - E3 2009: Wii MotionPlus". Uk.wii.ign.com. Retrieved 30 August 2010.
  8. ↑ "3D Stereoscopic Trailer For Wii’s Battle Rage: Robot Wars". Cinemablend.com. 5 February 2009. Retrieved 30 August 2010.
  9. ↑ Lyon, James (16 October 2007). "Popcorn Arcade Roundup Wii Review - Page 1". Eurogamer.net. Retrieved 30 August 2010.
  10. ↑ "Worst Reviewed Nintendo Console Games - Wii Feature at IGN". IGN. 7 July 2010. Retrieved 30 August 2010.
  11. ↑ Thomas, Lucas M. "Action Girlz Racing Review". IGN. Retrieved 13 February 2009.
  12. ↑ Surette, Tim (18 September 2007). "Wii getting 13 from Data Design". GameSpot. Retrieved 30 August 2010.

References

External links

External links