Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What was the first video game published by ESP Software?
In March 1999, Game Art's Japanese publisher ESP Software showcased a PlayStation version of "Grandia" at that year's Tokyo Game Show expo, along with confirmation that the game would be released in English for the first time in North America by Sony Computer Entertainment America. Working Designs, which had previously worked with Game Arts on bringing their "Lunar" games to the region, had expressed interest in publishing the game, but were ultimately unable to secure the rights. New features for the PlayStation version included support for the system's DualShock analog control sticks and vibration function, as well as compatibility with Sony's Japanese-only PocketStation peripheral, which allows players to download game data on a portable device for use in a special mini-game. Although the company had expressed interest in bringing the game to the PlayStation as early as 1998, technical problems originally prevented the title from being ported to the system. Game Arts was later able to release the game with a slight loss in frame rate and a marginal decrease in video effects the following June. The North American version was originally announced by Sony as a summer release during the 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, but was pushed back to the following October. "Grandia" was later released for the PlayStation in Europe in 2000 by Ubisoft.
The Amstrad CPC enjoyed a strong and long lifetime, mainly due to the machines use for businesses as well as gaming. Dedicated programmers continued working on the CPC range, even producing graphical user interface (GUI) operating systems such as SymbOS. Internet sites devoted to the CPC have appeared from around the world featuring forums, news, hardware, software, programming and games. CPC Magazines appeared during the 1980s including publications in countries such as Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Australia, and Greece. Titles included the official Amstrad Computer User publication, as well as independent titles like "Amstrad Action", "Amtix!", "Computing with the Amstrad CPC", "CPC Attack", Australia's "The Amstrad User", France's "Amstrad Cent Pour Cent" and "Amstar". Following the CPC's end of production, Amstrad gave permission for the CPC ROMs to be distributed freely as long as the copyright message is not changed and that it is acknowledged that Amstrad still holds copyright, giving emulator authors the possibility to ship the CPC firmware with their programs.
"Doom"s original release date was the third quarter of 1993, which the team did not meet. By December 1993, the team was working non-stop on the game, with several employees sleeping at the office; programmer Dave Taylor claimed that working on the game gave him such a rush that he would pass out from the intensity. Id began receiving calls from people interested in the game or angry that it had missed its planned release date, as hype for the game had been building online. At midnight on December 10, 1993, after working for 30 straight hours, the development team at id uploaded the first episode of the game to the internet, letting interested players distribute it for them. So many users were connected to the first network that they planned to upload the game to—the University of Wisconsin–Parkside FTP network—that even after the network administrator increased the number of connections while on the phone with Wilbur, id was unable to connect, forcing them to kick all other users off to allow id to upload the game. When the upload finished thirty minutes later, 10,000 people attempted to download the game at once, crashing the university's network.
Epic Games had released "Fortnite", a cooperative survival game, into early access near the release of "Battlegrounds". Epic saw the potential to create their own battle royale mode, and by September 2017, released the free-to-play "Fortnite Battle Royale" which combined some of the survival elements and mechanics from the main "Fortnite" game with the Battle Royale gameplay concept. The game saw similar player counts as "Battlegrounds", with twenty million unique players reported by Epic Games by November 2017. Bluehole expressed concern at this move, less due to being a clone of "Battlegrounds", but more so that they had been working with Epic Games for technical support of the Unreal Engine in "Battlegrounds", and thus they were worried that "Fortnite" may be able to include planned features to their battle royale mode before they could release those in "Battlegrounds". "Battleground" developer, PUBG Corporation, filed a lawsuit against Epic in South Korea in January 2018 claiming "Fortnite Battle Royale" infringements on "Battlegrounds" copyrights. By the end of June 2018, the lawsuit had been closed by PUBG, under undisclosed reasons.
On 7 July 1994, the Fraunhofer Society released the first software MP3 encoder called l3enc. The filename extension ".mp3" was chosen by the Fraunhofer team on 14 July 1995 (previously, the files had been named ".bit"). With the first real-time software MP3 player WinPlay3 (released 9 September 1995) many people were able to encode and play back MP3 files on their PCs. Because of the relatively small hard drives back in that time (≈500–1000 MB) lossy compression was essential to store non-instrument based (see tracker and MIDI) music for playback on computer. As sound scholar Jonathan Sterne notes, "An Australian hacker acquired l3enc using a stolen credit card. The hacker then reverse-engineered the software, wrote a new user interface, and redistributed it for free, naming it "thank you Fraunhofer"".
At Nintendo's E3 press conference on June 15, 2010, the Nintendo 3DS handheld console was revealed. At the conference Nintendo listed a number of publishers and franchises coming to the 3DS, one of whom was Activision with "DJ Hero 3D", a new installment in the "DJ Hero" series and the first handheld "DJ Hero" title. The gameplay is similar in nature to "DJ Hero", where the stylus and touchscreen are used to mimic scratching and crossfading between songs. It is unknown if the game is still in development after Activision stopped production of the "Guitar Hero" and "DJ Hero" franchises.
On April 15, 2009, the publishers of "", Genius Products and Numark, sued against "Scratch"'s developer, 7 Studios and Activision. The lawsuit contends that Activision purchased 7 Studios to both gain access to proprietary technology and to delay publication of the game so "DJ Hero" could come out first. The Los Angeles Superior Court in which the suit was filed did not grant the requested restraining order against Activision on "DJ Hero". Activision states that "Scratch" was already delayed by as early as October 2008, before they made contact with 7 Studios, and their acquisition of the developers did not impede them from completing "Scratch". However, on April 20, the court reversed its decision, awarding Genius and Numark a temporary restraining order, and ordered the "immediate return" of all of the material from 7 Studios from Activision, including all source code related to "Scratch". 7 Studios subsequently filed a counter-suit against Genius Products, claiming that they engaged in "unlawful and unsavoury business practices" that limited 7 Studios from completing the game as planned.
"Gears of War" was an immediate hit upon its release. On November 7, 2006—the day that it was released—it became the most popular game on the Xbox Live service, until the release of "Halo 3", overtaking "Halo 2" which had held the spot since its launch in November 2004. "Gears" was the second most-played game on the Xbox Live service throughout 2007. "Gears of War" sold one million copies in its first two weeks on sale making it the fastest-selling Xbox 360 game to date. By January 19, 2007, just ten weeks after its debut, over three million units of the game had been sold. It received a "Double Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom. As of November 7, 2008, the game has sold 5.88 million copies worldwide. "Gears of War" was also the first Xbox or Xbox 360 game to sell out and reach the top ten charts in Japan.
As a result, on November 7, 2012, Silicon Knights was directed by the court to destroy all game code derived from Unreal Engine 3, all information from licensee-restricted areas of Epic's Unreal Engine documentation website, and to permit Epic Games access to the company's servers and other devices to ensure these items have been removed. In addition, the studio was instructed to recall and destroy all unsold retail copies of games built with Unreal Engine 3 code, including "Too Human", "X-Men Destiny", "The Sandman", "The Box"/"Ritualyst", and "Siren in the Maelstrom" (the latter three titles were projects never released, or even officially announced).
The first-person shooter may be considered a distinct genre itself, or a type of shooter game, in turn a subgenre of the wider action game genre. Following the release of "Doom" in 1993, games in this style were commonly termed "Doom clones"; over time this term has largely been replaced by "first-person shooter". "Wolfenstein 3D," released in 1992, the year before "Doom", has been credited with introducing the genre, but critics have since identified similar though less advanced games developed as far back as 1973. There are occasional disagreements regarding the specific design elements which constitute a first-person shooter. For example, "Deus Ex" or "BioShock" may be considered as first-person shooters, but may also be considered role-playing video games as they borrow from this genre extensively. Certain puzzle games like "Portal" are also called first-person shooters, but lack any direct combat or shooting element, instead using the first-person perspective to help immerse players within the game to help solve puzzles. Some commentators extend the definition to include combat flight simulators where the cockpit or vehicle takes place of the hands and weapons.
"Sonic the Hedgehog" is a video game series. It is published by Sega, with entries developed by Sega, Sonic Team, Dimps, SIMS Co., Ltd., BioWare, and Sumo Digital. The series debuted in 1991 with the video game, "Sonic the Hedgehog", released for the Mega Drive video game console (named Genesis in North America). Most "Sonic the Hedgehog" games have either been platform games or released for Sega video game consoles and handheld game consoles (handhelds) dating from the Genesis to the eighth generation of video game consoles (2012–present). However, some of the original games were ported into versions on third-party home consoles and developed by several companies. As of February 2013, the series has collectively sold over 85 million copies worldwide across both the platform games and spin-offs.
Ashton Tate held a large company wide convention aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California in early August,1984 and presented new product to hundreds of clients and staff. Right after the convention, George Tate suddenly died of a heart attack at the age of 40 on August 10, 1984. David Cole on October 29 announced his resignation and left for Ziff-Davis, leaving Ed Esber to become CEO. Cole hired Esber because he was the marketing expert who launched VisiCalc and who built the first distribution channels for personal computer software. (VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet and is credited for sparking the personal computer revolution and was the first commercially successful personal computer software package.)
A new installment in the "Grandia" series developed by Game Arts was officially announced on June 1, 2001 with the tentative name of "Grandia X". The game, later retitled "Grandia Xtreme", was to be published by Enix as they had just invested capital in Game Arts for a total of ¥99.2 million, or 15% of the company. The game was the first title Game Arts developed exclusively for the PlayStation 2. While previous installments in the series were traditional role-playing video games, the developers took the new title in a different direction and designed it more as an action role-playing game or dungeon crawler to make it more accessible to casual gamers. They nevertheless kept and enhanced mainstays such as the combat and magic systems, as well as the "enchantment" aspect of the story. To design the characters of the game, Enix and Game Arts selected Kamui Fujiwara, the character designer of "Terranigma". Development for the game spanned roughly 18 months.
During that time Lucasfilm Games pioneered several innovations in computer games and interactive entertainment, including the first animated multiplayer online game, called Lucasfilm’s Habitat, in partnership with the predecessor to AOL. This technology was considered by many to be the forerunner of today’s modern multiplayer graphical adventure games, and the first animated adventure game featuring multiple storylines based on which characters the game player chose to adopt. While at Lucasfilm he also led a group that developed innovative uses of multimedia technology for education, collaborating with Apple Computer, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Audubon Society
Video game journalists have praised "GoldenEye 007" for proving that it is possible to create a "fun" first-person shooter experience on a console in both single-player and multiplayer modes; when the game was released, the first-person shooter was primarily a genre for PC gamers. Journalists noted that the game "opened the genre to a completely new market" and that it was "the first big console [first-person shooter] that truly got it right." The game has subsequently become credited alongside Shiny Entertainment's "MDK" for pioneering and popularising the now-standard inclusion of scoped sniper rifles in video games. The game's use of context-sensitive hit locations on enemies added a realism that was previously unseen in video games, though the "Quake" computer mod "Team Fortress" already featured locational damage like headshots.
2D third-person shooters have existed since the earliest days of video games, dating back to "Spacewar!" (1962); third-person perspective shooting is also featured in its clones, "Galaxy Game" (1971) and "Computer Space" (1971). Arcade shooters with a 3D third-person perspective include Nintendo's "Radar Scope" (1979), Atari's "Tempest" (1981), Nihon Bussan's "Tube Panic" (1983), Sega's "Space Harrier" (1985), Atari's "Xybots" (1987), and Square's "3-D WorldRunner" (1987). and "JJ" (1987) Third-person shooters for home computers include Dan Gorlin's "Airheart" (1986) and Paul Norman's "Beyond Forbidden Forest" (1986).
In September 2004, IDW Publications began publishing a series of "Metal Gear Solid" comics, written by Kris Oprisko and illustrated by Ashley Wood. As of 2006, 12 issues have been published, fully covering the "Metal Gear Solid" storyline. The comic was adapted into a PlayStation Portable game, "Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel" ("Metal Gear Solid: Bande Dessinée" in Japan). It features visual enhancements and two interactive modes designed to give further insight into the publication. Upon viewing the pages, the player can open a "scanning" interface to search for characters and items in a three-dimensional view. Discoveries are added to a database which can be traded with other players via Wi-Fi. The "mission mode" allows the player to add collected information into a library. This information must be properly connected to complete a mission. "Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel" was released in North America on June 13, 2006, Japan on September 21 and the PAL region on September 22. In 2006, the game received IGN's award for Best Use of Sound on the PSP. A DVD-Video version is included with its sequel ("Metal Gear Solid 2: Bande Dessinée"), which was released in Japan on June 12, 2008. The DVD version features full voice acting.
At the computer science department at Aarhus University, three students, avid players of XPilot and of Sid Meier's "Civilization", which was a stand-alone PC game for MS-DOS, decided to find out whether the two could be fused into an X-based multiplayer Civilization-like strategy game. The students—Peter Unold, Claus Leth Gregersen and Allan Ove Kjeldbjerg—started development in November 1995; the first playable version was released in January 1996, with bugfixing and small enhancements until April. The rules of the game were close to Civilization, while the client/server architecture was basically that of XPilot.
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, known in the PAL regions as Dragon Quest: The Journey of the Cursed King, is a role-playing video game developed by Level-5 and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 2. It was first released in Japan in 2004, and was later released in North America in 2005 and PAL regions in 2006, making it the first main series installment released in the PAL region. It is the eighth installment of the popular "Dragon Quest" series and it is the first English version of a "Dragon Quest" game to drop the "Dragon Warrior" title. A version of the game for Android and iOS was released in Japan in December 2013, and worldwide in May 2014.
When the game was brought to Penguin Software, some of its content was deemed slightly too mature for publication and was subsequently "toned down" for its release. Despite these changes, the game was given a review in Playboy Magazine and is the only game published by Penguin Software to be reviewed by the magazine. Also this would be Dallas Snell's first game in a career of over 30 games he contributed to and who would go on as a developer and producer at Origin Systems.
This is a list of the best-selling video games of all time. The best-selling video game to date is "Tetris", a tile-matching puzzle video game originally released for the Electronika 60 in 1984 and then popularised upon its Game Boy release in 1989. The game has been ported to a wide range of platforms and sold in excess of 170 million copies, including 100 million paid mobile game downloads and 35 million Game Boy version sales. "Minecraft" and "Grand Theft Auto V" are the only other games to have sold over 100 million copies. The best-selling game on a single platform is "Wii Sports", with nearly 83 million sales for the Wii console.
Near the same time that Epic released "Fortnite" into early access, "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" had become a worldwide phenomenon, having sold over 5 million copies three months from its March 2017 release, and drawing strong interest in the battle royale genre. Epic recognized that with the "Fortnite" base game, they could also do a battle royale mode, and rapidly developed their own version atop "Fortnite" in about two months. By September 2017, Epic was ready to release this as a second mode from "Save the World" in the paid-for earlier access, but then later decided to release it as a free game, "Fortnite Battle Royale", supported with microtransactions. This version quickly gained players, with over 10 million players during its first two weeks of release, and leading Epic to create separate teams to continue the "Fortnite Battle Royale" development apart from the "Save the World" mode, outside of common engine elements and art assets. This allowed "Fortnite Battle Royale" to expand to other platforms otherwise not supported by the "Save the World" mode, including iOS and Android mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch.
Between 1982 and 1984 they released the developed games themselves with limited success. In 1984 they ceased publishing games themselves and instead developed for Publishers Mastertronic and then later for Alternative Software, Gremlin Graphics and other publishers. Probably the best known game released under the Mr. Chip Software company name was Trailblazer which led to several sequels and ports to other systems. Most of the other games released under the Mr. Chip Software label were already focused on racing like Kikstart 2, but also some non-racing games found a fanbase like P.O.D.. Although early development was focused on the Commodore 64 and Commodore VIC-20 platforms the company widened the number of target platforms for their games in the mid 1980s. One of the other platforms included the Commodore 16, which featured a few conversions (including an impressive conversion of Trailblazer), but also a number of unique titles including Arthur Noid and Bandits and Zero. Shaun also wrote a completely different version of Kikstart for the machine to what was produced for the C64.
The then-renamed "Deathstar" was first published solely by Superior Software in 1985 and later re-released in 1989 by Superior Software and Blue Ribbon as a budget title. The game also appeared on the Beau Jolly compilations "Five Star Games" and "10 Computer Hits 4", and Superior Software's own "Superior Collection" compilations (vol 2 on the BBC, vol 3 on the Electron). A cheat loader program for the game was also published in 1988 by Impact Software on the compilation "Cheat it again Joe 1". An in-built cheat was discovered to have been left in the BBC version of the game and was published in the March 1989 edition of Micro User magazine.
One of the first Christian Video Games was the “Bible Computer Games” series published by BibleBytes (now a division of Kidware Software LLC) for the TRS-80 Color Computer in 1982. The “Bible Computer Games” were then released on the Timex Sinclair and Texas Instruments TI-99/4A computer platforms in 1983. The Bible Computer Games Series was then released on the Apple IIe, Commodore 64, Commodore VIC-20, and the Kaypro CP/M computer platforms in 1984. An MS-DOS version of the Bible Computer Games was released in 1986 by PC Enterprises.
id Software is an American video game developer based in Dallas, Texas. It was founded in February 1991 by four members of the software company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack. The founders, along with business manager Jay Wilbur, had previously developed the 1990 personal computer game "Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons" as "Ideas from the Deep" while still employees of Softdisk. After its founding, id developed further shareware computer games in the "Commander Keen" series for Apogee Software, as well as a series of small games for Softdisk, before releasing the "grandfather of first-person shooters", "Wolfenstein 3D", in 1992 through both shareware and retail. It was followed by "Doom" (1993), considered one of the most significant and influential titles in video game history, which id self-published in shareware before releasing for retail through GT Interactive. GT Interactive published a sequel, "Doom II" (1994) and the two companies split publishing duties on id's final self-published or shareware game, "Quake" (1996).