Starwave was a

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

-based

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

and website company, founded in 1993 by

Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American business magnate, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which h ...

, co-founder of

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

and led by CEO Mike Slade. The company produced original CD-ROM titles, including '' Muppets Inside'', and titles for

Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the " Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "'' D ...

Sting Sting may refer to: * Stinger or sting, a structure of an animal to inject venom, or the injury produced by a stinger * Irritating hairs or prickles of a stinging plant, or the plant itself Fictional characters and entities * Sting (Middle-ear ...

, and

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched ...

. They were the original developers of ''

Castle Infinity ''Castle Infinity'' was the first commercially launched MMOG for children. It was launched by Starwave Corporation in 1996, and featured personalized avatars, an embedded message system and live chat in a 2D side scrolling game world. It surviv ...

'', the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game for children, but Starwave's most lasting mark was in the area of web content sites. They developed ESPN.com,

ABCNEWS.com ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast '' ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include morning news-talk show ''Good Morning America'', ''Nig ...

, Outside Online, and Mr. Showbiz.com among other sites, setting the standard for much of the commercial Internet explosion of the late 1990s. Starwave also developed the first site and publishing system for

Jim Cramer James Joseph Cramer (born February 10, 1955) is an American television personality and author. He is the host of ''Mad Money'' on CNBC and an anchor on ''Squawk on the Street''. A former hedge fund manager, founder, and senior partner of Cramer ...

's TheStreet.com.

Disney

The company merged with

Infoseek Infoseek (also known as the "big yellow") was an American internet search engine founded in 1994 by Steve Kirsch. Infoseek was originally operated by the Infoseek Corporation, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Infoseek was bought by The W ...

and was later sold to

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Disney Stud ...

. In April 1998, Disney purchased the outstanding shares of Starwave from Allen after an initial buy of about 30% in 1997. The new entity,

Walt Disney Internet Group Disney Interactive is an American video game and internet company that oversaw various websites and interactive media owned by The Walt Disney Company. History 1995–1996: Formation and beginnings In December 1994, Disney announced that it wa ...

(WDIG) developed the

Go.com Go.com (also known as The Go Network) is a portal for Disney content that was created after The Walt Disney Company acquired the search engine Infoseek. Go.com is operated by Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, one of four divisions of the ...

portal. In 2004, Disney re-activated the Starwave identity as Starwave Mobile, which published

casual game A casual game is a video game targeted at a mass market audience, as opposed to a hardcore game, which is targeted at hobbyist gamers. Casual games may exhibit any type of gameplay and genre. They generally involve simpler rules, shorter sessio ...

s for mobile phones. They published several '' Scarface'' licensed games including '' Scarface: Money. Power. Respect.'' and games from

Capybara Games Capybara Games is an independent game studio based out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The studio was founded in 2003 from a collection of Toronto IGDA members. The company is most known for developing 2011's '' Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP' ...

including '' Critter Crunch''.

References

External links

Starwave Takes the Web ... (Seriously) , Fast Company

Starwave in Disneyland , Salon

Starwavers
List of Former Starwave Employees

by Patrick Naughton, who left Sun for Starwave {{Authority control American companies established in 1993 American companies disestablished in 1998 Companies based in Bellevue, Washington Defunct software companies of the United States Defunct video game companies of the United States Disney acquisitions Software companies established in 1993 Software companies disestablished in 1998 Video game companies established in 1993 Video game companies disestablished in 1998 Software companies based in Seattle