Blue Fang Games, LLC was an American

video game developer A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...

. Founded in

Waltham, Massachusetts Waltham ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the Technological and industrial history of the United States, American Industrial Revoluti ...

in 1998, they achieved commercial success with their first title ''

Zoo Tycoon ''Zoo Tycoon'' is a series of business simulation video games in which the player is tasked with building and running a successful zoo. The series was initially developed by Blue Fang Games and published by Microsoft Studios who later in 2001 ...

'' on

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

. They went on to develop a sequel and numerous expansion packs for the franchise. However, as the video game market shifted away from packaged games with long development cycles, the studio struggled to adapt. After publishing several titles for mobile and social platforms with little commercial success, the studio shut down in 2011.

History

Blue Fang Games was founded in

in the summer of 1998. Its founders included Adam Levesque and John Wheeler, former employees of

Papyrus Design Group Papyrus Design Group, Inc. was a computer game developer founded in 1987 by David Kaemmer and CEO Omar Khudari. Based in Watertown, Massachusetts, Watertown, Massachusetts, it is best known for its series of realistic sim racing games based on th ...

who had worked on the ''

NASCAR Racing ''NASCAR Racing'' is a series of car racing video games originally developed by Papyrus Design Group in the 1990s. The series started in 1994 and ended with the release of ''NASCAR Racing 2003 Season'' in 2003. Later NASCAR games were released b ...

'' series. The company was initially reported to be working on a

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out ...

. This project was ultimately cancelled; former Blue Fang president Hank Howie said in 2020, "Originally, Blue Fang was supposed to do a game about dragons, but that was way too big for our small team." The team was then inspired by ''

RollerCoaster Tycoon ''RollerCoaster Tycoon'' is a series of construction and management simulation games about building and managing an amusement park. Each game in the series challenges players with open-ended amusement park management and development, and allo ...

'' to pivot to a management simulation game. According to the company, they developed the concept for the ''

'' in summer 1998, and signed a publishing deal with

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

in fall of 2000. The game released in late 2001 and was a commercial success, reaching 2 million sales domestically and 4 million internationally by July 2004. Blue Fang released several expansion packs for the game and began development on a sequel. '' Zoo Tycoon 2'' was released in November 2004. It was similarly successful, ranking as the 19th best-selling computer game of 2004, and several expansion packs were published. Plans for a ''Zoo Tycoon 3'' were started but ultimately scrapped as the company shifted away from developing PC games. The company reached its peak head count of 75 employees in 2009, the same year it published '' World of Zoo'' for Windows,

Nintendo DS The is a foldable handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens worki ...

and

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

with publisher

THQ THQ Inc. was an American video game company based in Agoura Hills, California. It was founded in April 1990 by Jack Friedman, originally in Calabasas, and became a public company the following year through a reverse merger takeover. Initial ...

. This game was not a commercial success, and marked a downturn for the studio. "The collapse of the Wii market really hurt," said Howie. The company then attempted a pivot from packaged games to mobile and social network games. They released ''Lion Pride'' for

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

in 2009, and worked with

The Learning Company The Learning Company (TLC) was an American educational software company founded in 1980 in Palo Alto, California and headquartered in Fremont, California. The company produced a grade-based line of learning software, edutainment games, and ...

to port some of its older games to

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

. ''Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?'' and ''The Oregon Trail'' were developed in three months and released on Facebook in 2011. According to Howie, the short development timeline and a poor working relationship with The Learning Company led to the failure of these titles. The studio reportedly laid off its development staff in July 2011, and closed down in September.

Games

References

External links

*
Blue Fang Games
at

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

{{Zoo Tycoon Video game development companies Zoo Tycoon Defunct companies based in Massachusetts Companies based in Waltham, Massachusetts Video game companies established in 1998 Video game companies disestablished in 2011 Defunct video game companies of the United States