Chair Entertainment

Chair Entertainment Group
Subsidiary of Epic Games
Industry Interactive entertainment
Computer and video games
Founded Utah (2005)
Headquarters Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
Key people
 Donald Mustard (founder, creative director)
Geremy Mustard (founder, technical director)
Products Undertow
Shadow Complex
Infinity Blade
Infinity Blade II
Infinity Blade III
Number of employees
 22 (2014)[1]
Parent Epic Games

Chair Entertainment Group (stylized as ChAIR) is an American video game developer based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

History

ChAIR Entertainment Group was formed in 2005 by Donald Mustard and Geremy Mustard, CEO Ryan Holmes, and other key Advent Rising[2] core design team members Bert Lewis, Orlando Barrowes, Nathan Trewartha, Cameron Dayton and Jared Trulock. Soon after, ChAIR licensed the literary rights to its Empire property to best-selling author Orson Scott Card.[3] The novel Empire was published by Tor Books and debuted as a New York Times Best-Seller in November 2006. Card has since released the literary sequel Hidden Empire and committed to writing additional novels for the series. Chair also secured an option with Joel Silver and Warner Bros. for the Empire movie, which is currently in development.[4] Additionally, Chair has retained the rights to produce future video games and comic books based on its Empire property.[5]

ChAIR began production on its first Xbox Live Arcade game, Undertow, in the fall of 2006. Released on November 21, 2007, Undertow is a fast-paced, action-shooter that takes place entirely underwater. Upon release, Undertow won numerous E3 and Editor's Choice awards and was named Xbox Live Arcade Game of the Year by Official Xbox Magazine.

On January 29, 2008, Chair announced it had acquired the interactive rights to Orson Scott Card's novel Ender's Game with plans to adapt the best-selling novel as a digitally distributed video game for all viable downloadable platforms.[6][7][8] On May 20, 2008, Chair Entertainment was acquired by Epic Games.[9] On August 19, 2009, Chair released its second game, Shadow Complex, exclusively for Xbox Live Arcade. The game was published by Microsoft Game Studios and won more than 45 Game of the Year and 35 E3 and Editors Choice Awards. The game was released to positive reviews, with a score of 88 out of 100 on Metacritic.com as of July 10, 2010.[10] Shadow Complex featured a story written by famed comic book author Peter David and was set in ChAIR's Empire universe.

On September 1, 2010, Chair's next title, code-named "Project Sword", was announced at the Apple Fall Event 2010.[11] The game, Infinity Blade, a sword fighting title playable on iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, was released December 2010, and is the first game on Apple mobile devices powered by Unreal Engine 3. It utilizes Apple's new GameCenter online gaming service. A tech demo for UE3, entitled Epic Citadel was released on iTunes the same day as a free download (though it was created by Epic Games, not Chair).

In October 2010, ChAIR relocated from Provo, Utah to Salt Lake City, Utah. ChAIR relocated to its current studio in South Jordan, Utah in 2013.

On December 14, 2010, Chair Entertainment confirmed in an interview that it had ceased development on the video game version of Ender's Game in favor of a continued focus on developing its own original intellectual properties.[12]

During the Apple Fall Event 2011, Infinity Blade II was announced, with new features and visuals which took advantage of the next generation of iOS hardware (the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S). The game was released on December 1, 2011.

On January 5, 2012, Epic Games announced that the Infinity Blade franchise had generated over $23 million in revenue.[13]

In August 2013, ChAIR released the literary sequel, Infinity Blade: Redemption, also written by Brandon Sanderson.

At the Apple iPhone 5S conference on September 11, 2013, Infinity Blade III, allegedly the final Infinity Blade game in the series, was announced by Donald Mustard and Geremy Mustard, who took the stage to provide a live demo. Infinity Blade III debuted at #1 on the App Store on September 18, 2013. The game featured the exclusive debut of the original, Infinity Blade-inspired song "Monster" from award-winning alternative rock band Imagine Dragons.

In late 2015 ChAIR released a remastered version of Shadow Complex for Windows PC with a PlayStation 4 and Xbox One release announced for early 2016.[14]

Games

Books

References

  1. ↑ Kietzmann, Ludwig. "Epic's Mark Rein on UE4, Epic Baltimore and Gears of War: Judgment".
  2. ↑ "Chair Entertainment – About Chair". Retrieved 2008-01-29.
  3. ↑ "Chair Entertainment Projects Page". 2006-06-27.
  4. ↑ "Joel Silver builds 'Empire' with Chair". 2006-11-13. Archived from the original on October 11, 2007.
  5. ↑ "MTV News Feature on Chair". 2007-08-05.
  6. ↑ "Newsweek Exclusive: Chair Entertainment Reveals Plans for 'Ender's Game' Video Games". Archived from the original on 2008-01-31. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
  7. ↑ "Press Release: Chair Entertainment Acquires Interactive Rights for Ender's Game". 2008-01-29. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
  8. ↑ "Exclusive Interview: Chair Entertainment's Donald and Geremy Mustard Shed Some Light On 'Ender's Game'". Archived from the original on 2008-01-31. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
  9. ↑ Brandon Boyer (2008-05-20). "Epic Games Acquires Undertow Developer Chair". GamaSutra. Retrieved 2008-05-20.
  10. ↑ "Metacritic Page for Shadow Complex". Retrieved 2008-08-22.
  11. ↑ "Project Sword Announcement". Retrieved 2010-09-01.
  12. ↑ "Chair Puts Ender's Game On Hold". 2010-12-14.
  13. ↑ "Infinity Blade franchise grosses over $30 million". 2012-01-05.
  14. ↑ "How Shadow Complex led Chair to Infinity Blade, to Star Wars and to J.J. Abrams". Polygon. Retrieved 2016-01-04.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, March 22, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.