Eutechnyx

Eutechnyx
Industry Video games
Founded November 1987 (as Zeppelin Games)
1994 (as Merit Studios Europe)
1996 (as Eutechnyx)[1]
Headquarters Gateshead, UK
Key people
  • Brian Jobling - Founder, Executive Chairman[2]
  • Darren Jobling, CEO[3]
Number of employees
 approx. 200 (2009)[4]
Website www.eutechnyx.com

Eutechnyx is a British computer and video games developer, founded in November 1987 as Zeppelin Games and was also briefly known as Merit Studios Europe in 1994. They are based in Dunston, Gateshead in the United Kingdom. Since 1997, the company is focused on racing games. They are also known for Ride to Hell: Retribution, a 2013 video game considered to be one of the worst games ever made.

History

Zeppelin Games (1987-1994)

The company founder, Brian Jobling, started creating games for the Atari 800, ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 personal computers at home in the early 1980s as a 14-year-old.[4] With the money that he made, he started the company, Zeppelin Games, in November 1987 when he was 17.[1][4] Zeppelin Games produced a large number of games for various home computer systems including Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST and Amiga and by the early 90s were also making games for PC and consoles such as the Mega Drive/Genesis and SNES. Popular games included Jocky Wilson's Darts Challenge, International Tennis, Universal Warrior and Sink or Swim. They also worked with publisher Codemasters to produce the first two Micro Machines games and Pete Sampras Tennis.

Merit Studios Europe (1994-1996)

The company was acquired by American company Merit Studios, Inc. in 1994 and became known as Merit Studios Europe.[5] As well as developing their own games, the company was also responsible for the marketing and distribution of Merit's US games in Europe.

Eutechnyx (1996-present)

The company became Eutechnyx in 1996. After gaining registered developer and publisher status for the Sony PlayStation, the Directors bought back the company from Merit with help from French publishers Infogrames. This started a 3-year agreement with Eutechnyx developing exclusively for Infogrames on the PlayStation and PC platforms. The end of this agreement meant that as of 2000, the company became a fully independent developer and currently releases games across many formats for publishing companies such as Electronic Arts and Namco.[6][7] Since 1996, the company has specialised in driving and racing games of many types, including licensed titles such as James Bond 007, Max Power, Cartoon Network and The Fast and the Furious.

As of 2009, Eutechnyx has studios in Gateshead, England, Hong Kong, Chengdu, and the United States.[4] It employed almost 200 people.[4]

The London studio was closed in June 2013. In June 2013 several employees were loaned to Ubisoft Reflections and in February 2014 a restructuring was announced, with the loss of 12 jobs, taking the headcount to 130.[8] In July 2014, following another re-structuring, an additional 19 members of staff were lost. [9]

Games developed

as Zeppelin Games

as Merit Studios Europe

as Eutechnyx

Reception

Eutechnyx has been widely criticized for their release of the infamous Ride to Hell: Retribution, which received extremely negative reviews and was being named as the newest candidate for "Worst Game of All Time". Ride to Hell was criticized for its largely broken gameplay, poorly implemented controls, poor voice acting and writing, its negative portrayal of women, and for dropping the originally announced open world format in favor of a linear structure. Daniel Starkey of GameSpot considered Ride to Hell: Retribution to be "painfully insubstantial" and broken all-around, criticizing its plot for showing a "pathetic, out-of-touch approach to sex, violence, and masculinity", and believing that its developers were showing a lack of respect towards players due the game's abysmal quality. As of August 2013, the game has a Metacritic score of 19 out of 100, based on 14 reviews of the Xbox 360 version. It is currently the third lowest scoring game ever on the Xbox 360, and the lowest scoring full retail Xbox 360 game of all time. It received a 13 out of 100 score from Metacritic for the PS3 version, making it the lowest scoring PS3 game of all time.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Company History". Eutechnyx. Archived from the original on 2007-10-30. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
  2. ↑ "Our People". Eutechnyx. Archived from the original on 2007-10-30. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
  3. ↑ "Eutechnyx reveals new leadership structure". MCV. Archived from the original on 2013-12-03. Retrieved 2013-12-03.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Wray, Richard (13 November 2009). "Video games developer Eutechnyx shows the value of self-help". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 November 2009.
  5. ↑ "MERIT SOFTWARE INC. FINALIZES ACQUISITION OF ZEPPELIN GAMES LIMITED". The Free Library. 1994-07-06. Retrieved 2014-08-19.
  6. ↑ "Eutechnyx Company Profile 2009" (PDF). Eutechnyx - Press and Marketing Portal. Eutechnyx. 2009. Retrieved 2011-02-20.
  7. ↑ "Eutechnyx at IGN". IGN. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
  8. ↑ Yin-Poole, Wesley (19 February 2014). "Layoffs hit NASCAR, Auto Club Revolution developer Eutechnyx". Eurogamer. Gamer Network. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  9. ↑ http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/19-jobs-in-doubt-as-racing-experts-eutechnyx-re-structures/0135570

External links