Oddworld Inhabitants
Oddworld Inhabitants is an American game designer, best known by the Oddworld series. The company's headquarters is currently in Berkeley, California.
History
1994-1999: Early years
The Oddworld Inhabitants ( German: Oddworld inhabitants ) was founded in October 1994 as Offworld Entertainment, Inc. of Sherry McKenna and Lorne Lanning. McKenna and Lanning had previously worked as a specialist in Visual Effects for the movie studio Rhythm & Hues. The reason for the studio 's foundation was Lanning's desire to realize with the help of computer-generated graphics own stories and at the same time being able to retain full creative control over the product and the brand. When he came in the early 1990s to the conclusion that neither of these is possible in the film industry at that time, he decided to get a foothold in the emerging game industry. He convinced McKenna to join him after he was able to get with the help of the investor Gary Vickers, at this time the company Creative Programming and Technology Ventures ( CPTV ) Managing Director, the necessary start-up capital of 3.5 million U.S. dollars for the company was founded. On request Vickers ', the company moved to San Luis Obispo (California ), in which the companies belonging to CPTV Alexandria had its headquarters.
Lorne Lanning and his development team set themselves the goal to publish a five-part series, called Quintology, which deals with the Oddworld world and its characters. The first game of the team was Oddworld: Abe 's Oddysee, whose development began in January 1995. On 17 September 1996 sold Investor Creative Programming and Technology Ventures, Inc. its 50% stake in the company Oddworld Inhabitants to the American publisher GT Interactive, which thus acquired the exclusive worldwide publishing rights for the game. Under Warner the title of the game of Soulstorm was changed to Abe 's Oddysee. In 1997, the first book was finally published for PlayStation and Windows. Oddworld: Abe 's Oddysee caused by his appearance and render thanks to the innovative gameplay of positive reviews from the purchasers. The player controls the game character Abe through a bizarre game world, which is inhabited by different creatures. The bizarre yet innovative gameplay was successful worldwide. As part of its quarterly report on 17 February 1998 Warner announced the sale of one million copies of the game. Overall, Abe 's Oddysee was sold 3.5 million times.
Due to the surprising sales success a quick sequel was decided that was not counted for the originally planned Quintology and again the character of Abe included in the lead role. The sequel to Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus already appeared in November 1998 in Germany and offered up a quick -save feature only a few new features over its predecessor. In the same month, on 27 November 1998, Oddworld Inhabitants also released a nearly 15 - minute animated film titled Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus: The Movie. It was compiled from cutscenes of the game and some specially designed for the film scenes. This was performed by GT Interactive in the Laemmle Theater in Los Angeles and submitted as a candidate for the Oscar nominations, but was not taken into account.
2000-2005: Xbox years and retreat from the games market
After Abe's Exoddus Oddworld Inhabitants who worked on the continuation of Quintology, which should also provide new ideas in addition to a new 3D graphics engine. In April 1999 was Oddworld: Munch 's Oddysee announced for the PlayStation 2. In October 2000, the development of the game was interrupted and continued for Microsoft's upcoming Xbox console. The abrupt change of platform broke into groups of customers partly violent reactions to death threats from. Oddworld: Munch 's Oddysee was finally published in November 2001 as the starting title for the Xbox. Microsoft hoped with the title as a family-friendly console position and Munch 's Oddysee to place as a competitor to Nintendo's Super Mario. However, the company's non-existent because of the sales launch room for an extended developments forced to cuts in the game content. The game appeared in publication in parts unfinished, received modest reviews and sold only about 500,000 times. In addition, Microsoft's marketing focus gradually shifted by the great success of Halo. Although Microsoft after the release of Munch 's Oddysee working with Oddworld Inhabitants ended and no further acted as publisher for the announced successor, the Group acquired on 15 June 2004 of the 50% company share of the now trading under the name Atari shareholder GT Interactive. At the same time, Electronic Arts acquired the publishing rights for the fourth Oddworld titles.
After Munch 's Oddysee had left a mixed impression among buyers and critics to Oddworld Inhabitants decided to invest more time in their next match. In January 2005 appeared Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath for the Xbox. The game was a departure from previous gameplay of the previous titles, marked a significant departure from the childishly silly atmosphere of previous games. Thus one controls a nameless bounty hunter in Western style by Oddworld typical landscapes must fulfill orders and has arms with a lively ammunition. The development was overshadowed by quarrels between Oddworld Inhabitants and publisher Electronic Arts, among other things, the proposed port was deleted on PlayStation 2. Despite positive reviews, the game was not a financial success, rather than the necessary for achieving profitability 1.6 million copies were sold only 600,000, Oddworld Inhabitants wrote losses. The development of measures announced in cooperation with Majesco Entertainment succession game Oddworld: The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot was therefore aborted. In April 2005, Lorne Lanning announced that Oddworld Inhabitants moved his headquarters to Berkeley and at the same time set the work as a game developer. Instead, you would be limited in the future on the development of narrative and action concepts and focus on cinema and television. The reason Lanning called the dissatisfaction with the publisher funding model. In October 2006, the film project Citizen victory was announced, which was not completed.
2010: return to the gaming market
In July 2010, the British development studio Just Add Water announced plans to work in close collaboration with Sherry McKenna and Lorne Lanning on new games in the Oddworld universe, at " various projects on various platforms ." With the return of Oddworld Inhabitants ' in the games sector, the company focused initially on the re-release of his title via digital distribution to using these revenues may be able to develop a new title. After the clashes with Electronic Arts, the company has since published and self-distributed in order to continue to retain full control over the brand. As a first release since 2005, on December 20, 2010, OddBoxx, a collection of all four Oddworld games, Steam released for Windows on the online distribution platform. This was also the first release of Munch 's Oddysee and Stranger's Wrath on the PC platform represents the next step was the revision adopted by Just Add Water all previous titles and republishing on other platforms represents the beginning made Stranger's Wrath, because it forms a the youngest and fastest according to its own information actionable title was, on the other hand because the game is completely based on proprietary technology from Oddworld Inhabitants. In December 2011, the HD remake of Oddworld appeared: Stranger's Wrath for PlayStation 3 and December 19, 2012 for PlayStation Vita, each as a download title on the PlayStation Network. The PC version was released on September 14, 2012 as a free upgrade for the download version of the game. Also on December 19, 2012 was released via PlayStation Network Munch's Oddysee HD for PlayStation 3