Digital Jesters was a British
video game publisher
A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that have been developed either internally by the publisher or externally by a video game developer.
They often finance the development, sometimes by paying a video game developer ...
, based in
Welwyn Garden City
Welwyn Garden City ( ) is a town in Hertfordshire, England, north of London. It was the second garden city in England (founded 1920) and one of the first new towns (designated 1948). It is unique in being both a garden city and a new town an ...
,
Hertfordshire. The company was founded in 2003 by veterans from
CDV UK (after the UK office was shut by
CDV), and their first UK-releases were
TrackMania
''TrackMania'' is a series of Racing video game, racing games for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Nintendo DS and Wii developed by Nadeo and Firebrand Games. Instead of following the usual trend of choosing a set car ...
and
Virtual Skipper 3, both by
Nadeo
Nadeo (pronounced ''NĂ-dā-yō'') is a French video game developer founded in 2000. The studio is best known for creating the racing game series '' TrackMania''. Other games developed by Nadeo include the '' Virtual Skipper'' series and ''ShootM ...
.
In the beginning, they concentrated on the UK market only, but began publishing games in other regions as well. Notable releases included ''
TrackMania Sunrise'' (UK & Scandinavia), ''
Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich'' (UK & Scandinavia), the ''
Pro Rugby Manager'' series (UK) and ''
Chaos League'' (UK).
Despite a well publicised investment, on 22 December 2005 a winding-up order was made against the company in the Birmingham District Registry of the
UK High Court
The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Senior Courts of England and Wales. Its name is abbreviated as EWHC (England ...
on the petition of Kaoscontrol Limited. This followed a period where the company was accused of withholding payments to various developers they had worked with, resulting in some developers terminating contracts with the publisher.
Bet On Soldier dev ditches DJs News // PC /// Eurogamer
/ref> Their website disappeared soon after.
The last game the company released was a racing game based on the Crazy Frog
Crazy Frog (originally known as The Annoying Thing) is a Swedish CGI-animated character and Eurodance musician created in 2003 by actor and playwright Erik Wernquist. Marketed by the ringtone provider Jamba!, the character was originally create ...
licence in November 2005.
References
External links
Digital Jesters' website
*{{London Gazette, issue=58108, date=26 September 2006, page=13151 — official notice of appointment of liquidator
UK companies registryUnofficial forum for all PRM discussion
Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom
Video game companies established in 2003
Video game companies disestablished in 2005
Video game publishers