Massive Development GmbH was a German

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 ...

based in

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (), is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, second-largest city in Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, the States of Ger ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Founded as Massive Development GbR, the company was active between 1994 and 2005 and is primarily known for their

post-apocalyptic Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction are genres of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronom ...

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, space ...

video games ''

Archimedean Dynasty ''Archimedean Dynasty'' (German: ''Schleichfahrt'', meaning silent running) is the first of the ''AquaNox'' series of computer games, developed by Massive Development and published by Blue Byte in 1996. On July 29, 2015, after years of commercia ...

'' and ''

AquaNox ''AquaNox'' is a series of submarine-based first-person shooter/simulation video games set in the distant future. The collection includes ''AquaNox'', ''AquaNox 2: Revelation'' and ''AquaNox: The Angel's Tears''. The predecessor and the starter of t ...

'', which have attained somewhat of a

cult status A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The latter is often called a cult classic. A film, book ...

History

Massive Development was founded in 1994 by Alexander Jorias, Ingo Frick and Oliver Weirich in Mannheim as Massive Development GbR. Their first product was the porting of the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

game ''

The Settlers ''The Settlers'' () is a City-building game, city-building and real-time strategy video game series created by Volker Wertich in 1993. The The Settlers (1993 video game), original game was released on the Amiga, with subsequent games released p ...

'' to

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...

in 1994. In 1996 they released the successful

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 ...

submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...

role-playing Role-playing or roleplaying is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' offers a definition of role-playing ...

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

''Archimedean Dynasty'', published by

Blue Byte Ubisoft Blue Byte GmbH (Blue Byte until 2017) is a German video game holding company owned by Ubisoft. It was founded in October 1988 by Thomas Hertzler and Lothar Schmitt as a developer and ís best known for developing the '' Anno'' and ''Th ...

. In December 2000, Massive Development was bought by the Austrian publisher JoWooD. Until 2000, Massive Development worked on its own game engine called "krass Engine", which was used for their next title ''

''. It was one of the first games to make use of the new capabilities of

graphic card A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics accelerator, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or colloquially GPU) is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a displa ...

s with T&L hardware, which is why ''AquaNox'' was also bundled with new graphic cards. On 30 May 2005, the development studio was closed by JoWooD, and by that cancelling the development of '' AquaNox: The Angel's Tears'' for the

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...

. Two of the original founders, Alexander Jorias and Ingo Frick, are now working on a 3D chat with Social Networking Features, titled ''Club Cooee''.

Developed games

* ''

'' (

port) (1994) - released in

under its original title ''Die Siedler'', and in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

as ''Serf City: Life is Feudal'' * ''

'' (1996) - released in Germany under its original title ''Schleichfahrt'' * '' krass Engine'' (2001) - engine of the ''

'' series and ''

SpellForce ''SpellForce'' is a real-time strategy and role-playing series created by Phenomic and currently owned by THQ Nordic. The first release was published by JoWooD Productions and Encore Software in 2003 and THQ Nordic in 2017. Setting and plot ...

'', and

middleware Middleware is a type of computer software program that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue". Middleware makes it easier for software developers to imple ...

of ''

Legend of Kay ''Legend of Kay'' is a 2005 platform video game developed by Neon Studios and published by JoWood Productions for the PlayStation 2. An abridged version of the game for the Nintendo DS by Firehazard Studio was released in 2010. An enhanced versi ...

'' * ''

'' (2001) * '' AquaNox 2: Revelation'' (2003) * '' AquaNox: The Angel's Tears'' (canceled)

References

External links

* {{Authority control Companies based in Mannheim Video game development companies Video game companies established in 1994 Video game companies disestablished in 2005 Defunct video game companies of Germany