Wargaming Seattle

Wargaming Seattle
Private
Industry Video game industry
Interactive entertainment
Founded May, 1998
Headquarters Redmond, Washington, USA
Key people
 Chris Taylor
Products Dungeon Siege, Dungeon Siege II, Supreme Commander, Supreme Commander 2, Demigod, Chris Taylor's Kings and Castles
Number of employees
 <20
Parent Wargaming
Website Wargaming.com

Wargaming Seattle, formerly known as Gas Powered Games, is a video game developer located in Redmond, Washington. The development studio was started in May 1998 by Chris Taylor, creator of Total Annihilation, and several other ex-Cavedog Entertainment employees.[1] In 2013 they became the Seattle studio of Wargaming.net.

History

Gas Powered Games logo

The studio formed in 1998 as Gas Powered Games, with their launch title being the 2002 3D role-playing video game Dungeon Siege, published by Microsoft Game Studios. Apart from its custom graphics engine, it also featured simple and innovative RPG rules and mechanics that made it stand out from a market already crowded with sword & sorcery/fantasy role-playing games.

In 2003 Gas Powered released a stand-alone expansion pack for the game, Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna. The expansion was co-developed by Mad Doc Software and again published by Microsoft Game Studios. In August 2005, Gas Powered released its sequel to Dungeon Siege, Dungeon Siege II. In March 2006, Take-Two Interactive purchased the full publishing rights of the Dungeon Siege series, ending the four-year Microsoft partnership with Gas Powered Games.[2][3] GPG released Supreme Commander (SupCom), a real-time strategy game in February 2007, published by THQ. Announced in the August 2005 issue of PC Gamer magazine, Chris Taylor touted SupCom as the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation as TA remains the intellectual property of Atari. As a "stand alone expansion", Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance was announced in June 2007, for a November release.[4]

In May 2007, Gas Powered Games announced a partnership with Sega to work on an original RPG. On July 6, 2007, the original RPG was announced as Space Siege. The game was released on August 12, 2008 to generally middling reviews.[5] In January 2008, GPG announced a new project, Demigod, to be released sometime in early 2009.[6] It is an Action RPG / RTS hybrid inspired by the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients. Demigod was released on 14 April 2009 in the USA.[7] On November 12, 2008, Square Enix announced that it would be partnering with Gas Powered Games to create Supreme Commander 2.[8] The game was released in March 2010 for the PC and Xbox 360, with a version for Mac OS X following in September 2010.

On February 24, 2011, it was announced that Gas Powered Games would be taking over development on the upcoming RTS game Age of Empires Online, replacing Robot Entertainment on the project.[9] Gas Powered Games has also announced plans to create a real-time strategy game named Kings and Castles, which will use the game engine from Supreme Commander 2.[10] On Jan 4, 2013, it was noted in an Age of Empires Online blog post [11] that GPG would no longer be supporting the game. Approximately two weeks prior to this announcement, GPG put up a teaser web site announcement for a 'Project W' [12]

On Jan 14, 2013, Gas Powered Games announced the Kickstarter project "Wildman", declared to be "An 'Evolutionary' Action RPG"[13] Four days later on January 18, GPG had to lay off roughly 40 employees, with the ultimate fate of the company riding on the Kickstarter campaign.[14] On Feb 11, 2013, Gas Powered Games canceled their Kickstarter project "Wildman", four days before it was due to finish, announcing that they wanted to "focus [their] attention on other ways to keep Gas Powered Games running" [15] Three days later, Wargaming.net announced that they were in talks to buy Gas Powered Games.[16] Later, Gas Powered Games was absorbed into Wargaming.net to become Wargaming Seattle, which ended Gas Powered Games as an independent studio.

GPGnet

GPGnet was an online gaming service run by the company. It was used with Supreme Commander, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, Dungeon Siege, Dungeon Siege II, and Space Siege.

Games

Title Year Platform
Dungeon Siege 2002 PC, Mac
Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna 2003 PC
Dungeon Siege II 2005 PC
Dungeon Siege II: Broken World 2006 PC
Supreme Commander 2007 PC, Xbox 360
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance 2007 PC
Space Siege 2008 PC
Demigod 2009 PC
Supreme Commander 2 2010 PC, Mac, Xbox 360
Age of Empires Online 2011 - 2012 PC
Kings and Castles "On Hold" ?
Wildman Cancelled[17] PC

References

  1. ↑ Keighley, Geoffrey (2007). "The Total Annihilation: The Story So Far". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 2007-08-07. Retrieved 2011-01-08.
  2. ↑ "New Dungeon Siege titles coming from 2K Games". Retrieved 2009-04-28.
  3. ↑ "2K grabs deeds to Dungeon Siege". Retrieved 2009-04-28.
  4. ↑ "THQ Announces Supreme Commander(TM): Forged Alliance For Windows PC Coming in November 2007".
  5. ↑ Butts, Steve (2008-08-12). "Space Siege Review". IGN. Retrieved 2011-03-27.
  6. ↑ "Demigod Revealed". 1UP.com. 2008-01-03. Retrieved 2008-01-04.
  7. ↑ "Demigod released! - stardoc".
  8. ↑ "Square Enix orders Supreme Commander 2". Retrieved 2009-04-28.
  9. ↑ "Age of Empires Online swaps devs". PC Gamer. 2011-02-24. Retrieved 2011-03-27.
  10. ↑ "Gas Powered Games Announces Chris Taylor’s Kings and Castles". 2010-02-15. Retrieved 2010-02-17. |first1= missing |last1= in Authors list (help)
  11. ↑ "Age of Empires Blog Post".
  12. ↑ "Develop Online - Gas Powered ends Age of Empires Online support".
  13. ↑ "Gas Powered Games' Wildman Kickstarter Page".
  14. ↑ Schreier, Jason. "Massive Layoffs Crush Gas Powered Games Just Days After Launch Of $1.1 Million Kickstarter [Update]". Kotaku.
  15. ↑ Schreier, Jason. "With Four Days To Go, Chris Taylor Cancels Wildman Kickstarter". Kotaku.
  16. ↑ Narcisse, Evan. "World of Tanks Company Buys Gas Powered Games". Kotaku.
  17. ↑ Sliwinksi, Alexander. "'Wildman' Kickstarter canceled by Gas Powered Games". Joystiq.

External links

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