FormGen Corporation was a developer of business software and publisher of video games based in

Scottsdale, Arizona Scottsdale is a city in eastern Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and is part of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Named Scottsdale in 1894 after its founder Winfield Scott (chaplain), Winfield Scott, a retired Chaplain Corps (United States ...

History

FormGen was founded in 1987 by friends Randy MacLean and Robert Van Rycke in

Bolton, Ontario Bolton ( 2021 population 26,795) is an unincorporated town and is the most populous community in the town of Caledon, Ontario, Canada, in the Regional Municipality of Peel. It is located beside the Humber River, approximately 50 kilometres nor ...

. It was a software producer and distributor, selling its text-based form generation program through

Radio Shack RadioShack (formerly written as Radio Shack) is an American electronics retailer that was established in 1921 as an amateur radio mail-order business. Its parent company was purchased by Tandy Corporation in 1962, which shifted its focus from ma ...

stores in Canada. Van Rycke left the company in October 1988 and was replaced later by James Perkins. The company advanced rapidly in the early 1990s when it made an agreement with

id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...

to distribute its new games, such as '' Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter'', '' Wolfenstein 3D: Spear of Destiny'', '' Doom'' (shareware), and with Apogee Software (later 3D Realms) for '' Rise of the Triad'' and ''

Duke Nukem 3D ''Duke Nukem 3D'' is a 1996 first-person shooter, first-person shooter game developed by 3D Realms and published by FormGen for MS-DOS. It is a sequel to the platform games ''Duke Nukem (video game), Duke Nukem'' and ''Duke Nukem II'', published ...

''. After being based in

North Andover, Massachusetts North Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 30,915. History Native Americans inhabited what is now northeastern Massachusetts for thousands of years prior to European colonizati ...

, FormGen relocated to the Scottsdale Airpark in

, in November 1993. The facility, which measured , was outgrown by October 1995, so the company moved to a nearby office of . FormGen opened its website in April 1996 to serve news and

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ...

downloads online.

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 ...

acquired FormGen in July 1996.

Lawsuit

FormGen was involved in a landmark intellectual property lawsuit, '' Micro Star v. FormGen Inc.'' They claimed that Micro Star's sale of the ''Nuke It'' compilation of user-created maps and levels infringed on its copyright of the derivative works of ''Duke Nukem 3D'' and won the case on appeal.''Micro Star v. FormGen Inc.''
154.F.3d 1107
(9th Cir. 1999) (opinion full text).

References

Defunct software companies of the United States Defunct video game companies of Canada Defunct video game companies of the United States Software companies established in 1987 Video game companies established in 1987 1987 establishments in Ontario Defunct companies based in Arizona Defunct companies of Ontario {{US-videogame-company-stub