Bohemia Interactive

Bohemia Interactive a.s.

Type	Private
Industry	Computer and video games Interactive entertainment
Founded	1999
Headquarters	Prague, Czech Republic
Key people	Marek Španěl (CEO), Ondřej Španěl
Products	Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis ARMA series DayZ
Number of employees	160+[1]
Subsidiaries	Altar Games Black Element Software Centauri Production
Website	http://www.bistudio.com/

Bohemia Interactive (BI), also known as Bohemia Interactive Studio (BIS), is an independent developer and publisher of video games, based in Prague, Czech Republic. Founded in 1999, the company's CEO is Marek Španěl, who is also the co-owner of the company.

Bohemia Interactive is a member of IDEA Games, which functions as a publisher and consultant for several independent developers.

Operation Flashpoint

Bohemia's release of Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis in 2001 into the international market won BI several prestigious awards. At London's ECTS show of 2001, BI won the "Best PC Game Developer of the Year" award. In addition, BI was also awarded "Rookie Studio of the Year" at GDC 2002.

The debut game of BI, published by Codemasters, immediately became the top selling game in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, Czech Republic and other countries. After this success BI prepared a special US version of the game which launched in September 2001 and it also became one of the best selling games in the USA.

After OFP was released, the official expansion packs came onto the game market, officially titled Red Hammer and Resistance which brought significant engine updates. The development team continued (until 2005) to support the game with regularly released upgrades and patches over the Internet.

An Xbox version of Operation Flashpoint containing both original and the resistance campaign was released in November 2005. It was released under the name Operation Flashpoint: Elite.

Products

Title	Type	System	Release Date	Engine	Developed	Published
Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis	Standalone	Windows	June 2001	Real Virtuality 1
Operation Flashpoint: Gold Edition	Standalone	Windows	November 2001	Real Virtuality 1
Operation Flashpoint: Resistance	Expansion	Windows	June 2002	Real Virtuality 1
Operation Flashpoint: GOTY Edition	Standalone	Windows	November 2002	Real Virtuality 1
Operation Flashpoint: Elite	Standalone	Xbox	October 2005	Real Virtuality 2
ARMA: Armed Assault (worldwide) ARMA: Combat Operations (US)	Standalone	Windows	November 2006 (Czech Republic/Germany), February 2007 (Europe), May 2007 (US)	Real Virtuality 2
ARMA: Queen's Gambit	Expansion	Windows	September 2007 (EU)	Real Virtuality 2
Alpha Prime[2]	Standalone	Windows	November 2007	Enforce
ARMA 2	Standalone	Windows	June 2009	Real Virtuality 3
Pat & Mat[3]	Standalone	Windows	October 2009	N/A
ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead	Standalone	Windows	June 2010	Real Virtuality 3
ARMA 2: British Armed Forces	DLC	Windows	August 2010	Real Virtuality 3
ARMA 2: Private Military Company	DLC	Windows	November 2010	Real Virtuality 3
Alternativa[4]	Standalone	Windows	November 2010	N/A
Pound of Ground[5]	Standalone	Windows	November 2010	N/A		Acquired
ARMA 2: Firing Range	Standalone	Android & iOS	July 2011
Take On Helicopters	Standalone	Windows	October 2011	Real Virtuality 3
Take On Helicopters: Hinds	DLC	Windows	March 2012	Real Virtuality 3
ARMA 2: Army of the Czech Republic	DLC	Windows	August 2012	Real Virtuality 3
Carrier Command: Gaea Mission	Standalone	Windows, Xbox 360	September 2012	Enforce
Memento Mori[6]	Standalone	Windows	November 2012	N/A		Acquired
Fish Fillets 2[7]	Standalone	Windows	November 2012	N/A
ARMA Tactics	Standalone	Shield Portable	May 2013	Unity[8]
ARMA 3	Standalone	Windows	September 2013[9]	Real Virtuality 4
Take On Mars	Standalone	Windows	Final: TBA Early Access: 1 August 2013[10]	Enforce[11]
DayZ	Standalone	Windows, PlayStation 4	Final: TBA Early Access: 16 December 2013	Enfusion
MiniDayZ[12]	Standalone	Windows	21 November 2014	-
Ylands	Standalone	Windows	Final: TBA Early Access: 12 November 2015	Unity

Enforce game engine

Enforce is a proprietary computer game engine developed by Black Element Software and now Bohemia Interactive. Enforce was used for Alpha Prime. Bohemia Interactive restarted the use of this game engine with Carrier Command: Gaea Mission in 2012.^[13] Later in 2013 it appeared again to develop Take On Mars;^[13] which was started around the time Carrier Command was released.

Enforce was originally developed by Insanity development team. They originally worked on a game called Enforce but it was later cancelled but was used as a basic for the engine. Insanity later transformed into Black Element Software and used the engine for Shade: Wrath of Angels (originally known as Nefandus). Developers compared it to Unreal Engine. The studio later used the engine for Alpha Prime and the in Carrier Command: Gaea Mission that was developed under Bohemia Interactive as Black Element Software was acquisitioned.^[14][15]

Bohemias latest game developed with Enforce Take On Mars released a Workbench editing suite v.0.3 allowing for the user to create any content for Take On Mars, and possibly Carrier Command: Gaea Mission .^[16]

Bohemia Interactive Simulations

Bohemia Interactive Australia (BIA) is a spinoff studio and was formed by BI and David Lagettie, where the joint development of a special military training simulation program, VBS1, began in December 2001. After thorough testing and field use (in cooperation with United States Marine Corps), VBS1 was made available in the fall of 2002 for qualified government clients and military organizations. On 21 May 2004, VBS1 underwent limited public distribution. On 14 August 2004 it was released for North America; distribution was handled by Coalescent Technologies. In 2008 most of development operations were moved to Prague, Czech Republic under newly formed Bohemia Interactive Simulations. Subsequently BIA was integrated as Asia-Pacific arm of Bohemia Interactive Simulations and Pete Morrison, previously Lead Developer, was appointed CEO. The company was acquired by The Riverside Company, a New York-based private equity firm, in January 2013.

Training programs

• VBS1 (Windows) - November 2006 - 2002, 2004 (worldwide)
• VBS2 (Windows) - April 2007 (worldwide)
• VBS3 (Windows) - July 2014^[17]

Staff arrest on Lemnos

As reported by Greek media^[18] on 10 September 2012, two Czech nationals were arrested on Lemnos and charged with espionage. They claimed to be working for Bohemia Interactive collecting pictures^[18][19] and video footage for the development of Arma 3. The individuals, Ivan Buchta and Martin Pezlar,^[20] were confirmed employees of Bohemia Interactive, but the company officially stated that they were on the island "with the sole purpose of experiencing the island's beautiful surroundings".^[21]

According to Greek law, taking photographs et cetera of military installations is strictly prohibited for reasons of national security^[22] and that the issue of the game causing potential threats to Greek national security was brought officially to the Greek Parliament and was discussed before in 2011.^[23] After the arrest incident, Bohemia Interactive shut down access^[24] to a thread named Greek Military started on 1 August 2012, on their official forum warning them and discussing legal and other problems concerning photographing and realistically depicting Greek military installations.

As of 15 January 2013, the detained BI employees were released on bail of 5000 Euro each.^[25] The employees returned home to their families and await further legal action.

References

1. "Company Brochure". BIStudio. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
2. "Alpha Prime". Retrieved 9 August 2013.
3. "Pat & Mat". Retrieved 9 August 2013.
4. "Alternativa". Retrieved 9 August 2013.
5. "Pound of Ground". Retrieved 9 August 2013.
6. "Memento Mori". Retrieved 9 August 2013.
7. "Fish Fillets 2". Retrieved 9 August 2013.
8. "ARMA Tactics engine".
9. "ARMA 3 Release Date". 8 August 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
10. "Take On Mars Release Date". 17 July 2013. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
11. "Conformation of Enforce game engine". 18 June 2013. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
12. Mailberg, Emanuel. "DayZ Dev Releases MiniDayZ, a Free, 2D Version of the Game". GameSpot. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
13. "Engine being used.". June 18, 2013. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
14. "Insanity". Czech Amiga Demoscene Archive. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
15. "Horor Shade: Wrath of Angels bude česky". Games.cz. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
16. http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Take_On_Mars:_Beta_Patches#6th_September_2013. Retrieved September 7, 2013. Missing or empty |title= (help)
17. "Bohemia Interactive Simulations Releases VBS3 V34". 3 July 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2014.
18. "Κατηγορούμενοι για κατασκοπεία δύο Τσέχοι που συνελήφθησαν στη Λήμνο (translation: Two Czech nationals arrested on Lemnos accused of espionage)". In.gr. 10 September 2012. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
19. "Greek police arrest two Czech men over suspected spying". ceskenoviny.cz. 11 September 2012. Retrieved 17 September 2012.
20. "Κατασκοπία, παιχνίδι ή και τα δυο; (translation: Epsionage, game or both?)". To Proto Thema. 11 September 2012. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
21. "Game makers arrested over alleged spying in Greece". BBC. 13 September 2012. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
22. 1.(Greek) Penal Code, article 149;in Greek : Ποινικός Κώδικας, άρθρο 149,
    2.(Greek) Compulsory Law 376/1936;in Greek with title,date and index details: Αναγκαστικός Νόμος 376/1936 «Περί μέτρων ασφαλείας οχυρών θέσεων», ΦΕΚ 546, Τεύχος Α', 18 December 1936 and
    3.(Greek) Legislative Decree 397/1947; in Greek with title,date and index details: Νομοθετικό διάταγμα 397/1947 «Περί προσθήκης διατάξεων εις το άρθρον 1 του Α.Ν. 376/1936 «περί μέτρων ασφαλείας οχυρών θέσεων»», ΦΕΚ 181, Τεύχος Α', 21 August 1947.
23. "Πεδίο μάχης η Λήμνος στο ARMA 3 (translation: Lemnos a battlefield in ARMA 3)". I Kathimerini. 25 October 2011. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
24. "ArmA dev confirms: staff arrested, accused of spying by Greek authorities". Eurogamer. 11 September 2012. Retrieved 17 September 2012.
25. "Ivan & Martin Free on bail". 15 January 2013. Retrieved 3 August 2013.

External links

• Official website
• The official BI's wiki page