Looking Glass Studios

Looking Glass Studios
Defunct
Industry Interactive entertainment
Founded 1992
Defunct May 24, 2000
Headquarters Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Key people
 Paul Neurath (co-founder)
Ned Lerner (co-founder)
Doug Church
Warren Spector
Website www.lglass.com (archived, last version of 2000-06-20)

Looking Glass Studios was a computer game development company during the 1990s. Their games were regarded for demonstrating innovative gameplay, pioneering physics simulation, and well-written, engaging stories. Their best known game franchises were Ultima Underworld, System Shock and Thief.

History

The company originally formed as Looking Glass Technologies in 1992, when Blue Sky Productions and Lerner Research merged. 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,[1] Austin, TX and Huntington Beach, California. In 1997, the company was renamed to Looking Glass Studios.

In 1997, the company merged with Intermetrics, Inc[2] 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.[3]

The company went out of business on May 24, 2000 during a financial crisis related to their publisher at the time, Eidos Interactive. Warren Spector managed to move many Looking Glass Studios employees over to Ion Storm Austin.

After the company folded, people from Looking Glass went on to work at Ion Storm, Irrational Games, Harmonix, Mad Doc Software, Arkane Studios, Westwood Studios, Valve, and to found Floodgate Entertainment and Digital Eel, amongst other later studios.

Ion Storm Austin developed Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War, the first two games 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), Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (co-designed by Floodgate) and Dishonored.

People

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, Star Trek: Armada II and Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, among others.

The following people worked on projects with Looking Glass Studios (by no means an all-inclusive list):

List of titles

Early Looking Glass Studios logo

As Lerner Research

As Blue Sky Productions

As Looking Glass Technologies

As Looking Glass Studios

References

  1. ↑ "Company Fact Sheet". Looking Glass Studios, Inc. Archived from the original on 2000-03-08. Retrieved 2008-09-25.
  2. ↑ Nicholas Valtz. "Intermetrics and Looking Glass Studios Merge Computer Game Operations to Form Multimedia Powerhouse". Intermetrics, Inc. Archived from the original on 1999-11-03. Retrieved 2008-09-25.
  3. ↑ "Averstar Inc · S-1/A". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 1999-07-16. Retrieved 2008-09-25.

External links

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