Volition (company)
Volition, Inc. (English for wool or willpower to see Volition (psychology ) ) is a US-based development studio for computer and video games and has its headquarters in Champaign, Illinois.
History
Splitting by Parallax Software and Interplay era
On June 1, 1993 Matt Toschlog and Mike Kulas founded in Champaign (Illinois ), the development studio Parallax Software. After a first inconclusive commissioned work for Apogee Software, the company succeeded with the publisher Interplay Entertainment for a partner for his first game titles Descent to win. After the successful release of the direct successor Descent 2 it came between the two studio founders to considerations to move the company's headquarters. Since both but could not commit to a common location, they finally agreed on a division of the company to November 1996. Toschlog founded out in Ann Arbor (Michigan) with part of the Parallax staff the new studio Outrage Entertainment, which later Descent3 and Alter Echo developed, acquired in 2002 by THQ and was disbanded in 2004. The remaining staff under Mike Kulas made at the previous location Volition, Inc.
Outrage and Volition received from her former partner Interplay Entertainment each have a development contract for two more tracks. Outrage took over the work on Descent3 while Descent 4 in the connection should it come from Volition. However, the first title from Volition was the space - flight simulation Descent: Freespace - The Great War, no relation to the Descent series had, despite the similarity in name and in Europe under the title Conflict: Freespace was marketed. The game proved to be successful, and a year later the successor FreeSpace 2 was released. While Volition received for these high critical acclaim and numerous awards, the game was played but no major sales more and brought the company only small profit. Among other things, lack of marketing, the decline of the joystick control and connected to the space flight simulations as well as generally increasing the loss of importance of the PCs have been blamed for this as a gaming platform as reasons.
Acquisition by THQ
Parallel to Freespace 2 and Descent 4 Volition also worked in a role playing game that should be published for the launch of the PlayStation 2 in the United States. Since the former business partner Interplay but enough of their own projects in the role play area and pursued Volition had also set nor the work on Descent 4, the company needed a new distribution partner for his upcoming title. The American publisher THQ signaled interest in a takeover of the studio, in order to strengthen its development capacity. The takeover was finally sealed on 31 August 2000. THQ paid for the acquisition of one million shares of stock and assumed approximately $ 500,000 net liabilities of the developer. The total volume of the deal was estimated at 21.25 million U.S. dollars. In October 2000, Volition released about the new parent company, finally, the role-playing game Summoner, which also represented volitions first game for a console platform.
Apart from the direct successor Summoner 2 the studio for THQ developed since some well-known game titles and rows as the Red Faction series, whose first part was built on the code base of the set Descent 4, the companion game to the movie The Punisher and the Saints- Row - series. During the Spike Video Game Awards 2010 THQ also announced that Volition together with Hollywood director Guillermo del Toro working on a horror game called Insane.
On September 22, 2011, founder Mike Kulas his office as President of the Company from and left the company. His successor as head of the studio was the longtime vice president Dan Cermak. Known after the end of December 2011 had become a serious financial problems THQ, the parent company concentrated its activities on high-quality mobile games. Volition, therefore, was one of the THQ development studios, which remained largely spared the extensive cost-cutting measures and closures. In August 2012, however, THQ announced the closure of the Insane- Project at Volition and returned the rights to director del Toro. With the bankruptcy of THQ Volition was sold together with the Saints- Row license in an auction on January 23, 2013 22.3 million U.S. dollars to the German publisher Koch Media.