Cavedog Entertainment was a PC game developer and publisher based in

Bothell, Washington Bothell () is a city in King and Snohomish counties in the U.S. state of Washington. It is part of the Seattle metropolitan area, situated near the northeast end of Lake Washington in the Eastside region. It had a population of 48,161 reside ...

. Founded in 1995 as a division of

edutainment Educational entertainment, also referred to by the portmanteau edutainment, is media designed to education, educate through entertainment. The term has been used as early as 1933. Most often it includes content intended to teach but has inciden ...

game developer

Humongous Entertainment Humongous, Inc. (formerly Humongous Entertainment, Inc.) was an American video game developer based in Bothell, Washington. Founded in 1992, the company developed multiple edutainment franchises, most prominently ''Putt-Putt (series), Putt-Putt' ...

, Cavedog was known for the 1997 release of ''

Total Annihilation ''Total Annihilation'' is a science fiction real-time strategy video game released in September 1997 for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS by Cavedog Entertainment and distributed internationally by GT Interactive. Two expansion packs were released ...

''—which won several accolades, such as multiple ''

Game of the Year Game of the Year (GotY) is an award given to a video game by various award events and media publications that they feel represented the pinnacle of gaming that year. Events and ceremonies British Academy Games Awards (BAFTA Games Awards) ...

'' honors—considered one of the "greatest games of all time" in 2004 by ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

''.

History

Early days

Cavedog Entertainment was a label created in 1995 by

, a developer of children's video games founded by

Ron Gilbert Ronald David Gilbert is an American video game designer, programmer, and producer. His games are generally focused on interactive story-telling, and he is arguably best known for his work on several LucasArts adventure games, including '' Man ...

and Shelley Day, to pursue the creation of mainstream games. Humongous Entertainment was originally independent, but was purchased in 1996 by

GT Interactive Atari, Inc. is an American video gaming company based in New York City, and a subsidiary of the Atari SA holding company. It is the main entity serving the commercial Atari brand globally since 2003. The company currently publishes games based o ...

. In the same year Squaresoft closed its office in Redmond, many of their former developers were hired for Cavedog, notably game

music composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and defi ...

Jeremy Soule Jeremy Soule ( ; born December 19, 1975) is an American composer of soundtracks for film, television, and video games. He has composed soundtracks for over 60 games and over a dozen other works during his career, including ''The Elder Scrolls'', ...

and graphics designer Clayton Kauzlaric, who created the

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name that it represents, as in ...

for Cavedog. After two years of development on Cavedog's first product, ''Total Annihilation'', it was presented at the 1997 E3 in Atlanta, and published on September 30, 1997.

After ''Total Annihilation''

''Total Annihilation's'' creator, Chris Taylor, left the company shortly before the release of the '' Core Contingency''

expansion pack An expansion pack, expansion set, supplement, or simply expansion, is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game, video game, collectible card game or Miniature wargaming, miniature wargame. An expansion may introduce new rules ...

to found his own development house,

Gas Powered Games Wargaming Seattle, formerly known as Gas Powered Games, was a video game developer located in Redmond, Washington. The development studio was started in May 1998 by Chris Taylor (game designer), Chris Taylor and several other ex-Cavedog Entertain ...

. Cavedog released one more expansion pack, '' Battle Tactics'', as well as many freely downloadable enhancements and patches, and built strong community support with their own online service, Boneyards (now shut down), that matched opponents and provided a continuing game campaign. In 1999, Cavedog released '' Total Annihilation: Kingdoms,'' largely reusing the ''Total Annihilation''

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games which generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term " software engine" u ...

, but replacing the

science-fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, sp ...

theme with 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, ...

one. ''Kingdoms'' did not resonate as well with critics or fans of the original title. One expansion pack was released, ''The Iron Plague''.

Closure

The closure of Cavedog came as the game industry began to experience a downturn in sales, to which parent company

was affected. Besides the ''Total Annihilation'' franchise, Cavedog had three other ambitious games in development, but only ''Total Annihilation'' and the related ''Kingdoms'' made it to store shelves, and their sales were much smaller than their user base. The unfinished projects were: '' Amen: The Awakening'', a

first-person shooter A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...

; ''Elysium'', a fantasy

adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...

title; and ''Good & Evil'', an adventure title from

. With GT Interactive spiraling into debt and no ship dates in sight, all three were discontinued by the fall of 1999. GT Interactive was purchased by

Infogrames Atari SA (formerly Infogrames Entertainment SA ()), also known as Atari Group, is a French holding company headquartered in Paris that owns mainly video gaming-related interactive entertainment properties. Atari SA's core subsidiaries include ...

and the Cavedog label was discarded by

in 2000, which renewed its focus on children's games. Cavedog declared bankruptcy in 2000. Humongous Entertainment was shut down in 2005 by Infogrames (now called Atari). Cavedog's developers have played significant roles at

and Beep Industries.

References

{{Authority control Defunct companies based in Bothell, Washington Video game companies established in 1995 Video game companies disestablished in 2000 Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Video game publishers 1995 establishments in Washington (state) 2000 disestablishments in Washington (state)