Shiny Entertainment

Shiny Entertainment was an American game developer that was founded in 1993 by David Perry in Newport Beach, California.

History

Virtually all of the titles developed Shiny, were praised by the press in the highest terms, but were unable to reach commercial success. The first Shiny titles were the 2D jump 'n' runs Earthworm Jim and Earthworm Jim 2, which first appeared on Sega Genesis and SNES. Since it became a distinct trend towards 3D graphics Perry sold 91 % of the company in 1995 for about 3.6 million U.S. dollars to the U.S. publisher Interplay Entertainment, a decision that 2012 marked Perry as his worst decision. This had underestimated the success of the upcoming game consoles, and hoped in return to reduce this acquisition its lack of experience in the console market. 2001 Interplay acquired the remaining 9% for U.S. $ 600,000.

Under the new parent company, the MDK games for the PC, Wild 9 and R / C Stunt Copter followed for the PlayStation, as well as Messiah and Sacrifice for the PC. In particular, the last four of these titles could only sell poorly, despite or because of their innovative gameplay.

In April 2002, Shiny was sold by his financially floundering parent company for 47 million U.S. dollars to the French publisher Infogrames. This supposed the studio its U.S. subsidiary Atari (formerly Warner ). Shiny developed the licensed title Enter the Matrix for the new owner. This was the first Shiny game that could not achieve high ratings and yet again was a commercial success. Appeared in 2005 with The Matrix: Path of Neo the long-awaited successor to Enter The Matrix, which remained in a playful and technically behind the expectations of critics and players as well as the announcements from the developers.

After also Infogrames and Atari 2006 increasingly found themselves in financial difficulties, founder David Perry left the company in February, in order to facilitate a sale Shinys by its own account. In October 2006, Shiny was sold by Infogrames to the developer Foundation 9 Entertainment. In March 2008, Foundation 9 was announced the merger of Shiny Entertainment with the also part of the company development studio The Collective, new site known as the Double Helix Games Studios was Irvine.

It was considered a running joke of the company to have it in almost all their games as cows Easter Egg. Thus, e.g. a cow can be observed in the second level of the game MDK, floating on his back in an aquarium and emits methane bubbles into the water. In Earthworm Jim Earthworm Jim 2 & there were several places to see cows.

Released Games

• Earthworm Jim (1994 )
• Earthworm Jim 2 (1995 )
• MDK (1997)
• Wild 9 (1998)
• R / C Stunt Copter (1999)
• Messiah (2000)
• Sacrifice ( 2000)
• Enter the Matrix (2003)
• The Matrix: Path of Neo (2005)
• The Golden Compass (2007)