Westwood Studios
Las Vegas, Nevada | |
Key people |
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Products |
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Owner | Virgin Interactive (1992–1998) Electronic Arts (1998–2003) |
Website | www.westwood.com (archived homepage on March 4, 2000) |
Westwood Studios, Inc. was an American
Westwood is best known for developing video games in the real-time strategy, adventure and role-playing genres. It was listed in Guinness World Records for selling 30 million copies of Command & Conquer games worldwide.[2]
History
This section needs additional citations for verification. (September 2019) |
Early history and company name
Brett Sperry and Louis Castle met in late 1983 in Las Vegas. Sperry had a background in architecture and psychology and was already working in the gaming industry. Both Sperry and Castle worked as contract programmers. The two eventually became friends and decided to form a company together and named it Brelous Software.[3]
Sperry and Castle founded Westwood Studios in 1985.[4][5]
According to Louis Castle, the company was named after the "entertainment meets professional" character of the Westwood neighborhood in Los Angeles.
We really liked the "entertainment meets professional" character of Westwood CA (in L.A.) and the attraction of the area to teens and young adults felt like the perfect fit for a new company specializing in entertainment software. Even back then we recognized that it took a team of people to make great products so we appended the "Associates" to emphasize that aspect of product development. We were not really sure if we could make a go at game development so the original name "Westwood Associates" also gave us the ability to get into more traditional business software if necessary.[6]
The company's first projects consisted of contract work for companies like
Later success and acquisition by Virgin Games
One of the company's first great successes was
The company in the late 1980s was known for shipping products late, but by 1993 it had so improved that,
Acquisition by EA and liquidation
In August 1998, Westwood and sister company
The last games
Technology
The first version of the engine, originally named W3D, was a major modification of the SurRender 3D engine developed by Hybrid Graphics Ltd.[18] Westwood first used W3D for their first-person shooter Command & Conquer: Renegade and their massively multiplayer online role-playing game Earth & Beyond.[19][20]
After Westwood was dissolved by their parent company, Electronic Arts, the engine was renamed SAGE (Strategy Action Game Engine) and updated for the release of
Following the release of the
Games
References
- ^ from the original on May 29, 2016. Retrieved October 24, 2016.
- ^ "Best-selling real-time videogame series". Guinness World Records. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
- ^ a b "Command and Conquer in the Development of Real-Time Strategy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-12-14.
- ^ Keefer, John (March 31, 2006). "GameSpy Retro: Developer Origins, Page 14 of 19". GameSpy. Archived from the original on June 9, 2007.
- ^ a b "Westwood Studios Partnership Hits Jackpot". Computer Gaming World. 1 August 1993. p. 32. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 12 July 2014.
- ^ a b Keefer, John (March 31, 2006). "GameSpy Retro: Developer Origins". GameSpy. Archived from the original on June 10, 2007. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
- ^ Plunkett, Luke (July 13, 2011). "Let's Pour One Out for Westwood Studios, Creators of the Real-Time Strategy Genre". Kotaku. Archived from the original on January 23, 2019. Retrieved October 8, 2023.
- ^ ONeill, John (December 6, 2013). "Vintage Bits: BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception". Black Gate. Archived from the original on December 11, 2013. Retrieved October 8, 2023.
- ISBN 9781476625577. Archivedfrom the original on 8 October 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
- ^ Petreley, Nicholas (December 20, 1993). "Lands of Lore". InfoWorld. Vol. 15, no. 51. p. 85. Retrieved October 30, 2009.
- ^ Fahey, Mike (December 23, 2014). "How Westwood Made The Lion King, One Of Gaming's Finest Platformers". Kotaku. Archived from the original on December 24, 2014. Retrieved July 3, 2022.
- Allgame. Archived from the originalon November 14, 2014. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
- Gamasutra
- ^ "Joe Bostic (Westwood Studios) - Interview". Arcade Attack. August 31, 2018. Archived from the original on December 17, 2018. Retrieved December 16, 2018.
- ^ Chris Morris: Electronic Arts' online folly Gaming powerhouse has been unable to transfer its success to the online world Archived 2020-08-04 at the Wayback Machine, March 4, 2003, CNN Money
- ^ CBS Interactive. Archivedfrom the original on June 12, 2020. Retrieved September 23, 2017.
- ^ Callaham, John (February 2, 2009). "Westwood Games co-founder launches Jet Set Games". Big Download. Archived from the original on January 30, 2015. Retrieved October 27, 2016.
- ^ Majik 3D Project announces co-operation with Taika Technologies, Ltd. - SurRender 3D is one of the leading 3D libraries on the market and is currently being used in many commercial titles such as Westwood Studios' Command & Conquer: Renegade.
- ISBN 978-1-4398-7918-4.
- ^ Lennart "TaxOwlbear" Bachman (February 7, 2019). "Emperor: Battle for Dune". hardcoregaming101.net. Retrieved 2023-03-07.
Powered by the W3D engine, it was Westwood's first 3D game. W3D was supposed to be used for Command & Conquer 3: Incursion, the sequel to Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun.