Pipeworks Studios is 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 ...

based in

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lane County, Oregon, United States. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie River (Oregon), McKenzie and Willamette River, Willamette rivers, ...

. The company was founded in November 1999 by Dan White and Dan Duncalf and works to provide full development, co-development, and live operations to video game publishers and other partners, in addition to creating original IPs.

History

Pipeworks Software was founded in

, in November 1999 by Dan White and Dan Duncalf, two developers formerly of

Dynamix Dynamix, Inc. was an American developer of video games from 1984 to 2001, best known for the flight simulator Red Baron (1990 video game), ''Red Baron'', the puzzle video game, puzzle game ''The Incredible Machine (video game), The Incredible Mach ...

. White and Duncalf assumed the roles of chief technical officer and

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

, respectively, and Phil Cowles was hired as director of

business development Business development entails tasks and processes to develop and implement growth opportunities within and between business organizations. It is a subset of the fields of business, commerce and organizational theory. Business development is the cre ...

. On April 12, 2005, it was announced that Pipeworks had been acquired by

Foundation 9 Entertainment Foundation 9 Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game company based in Irvine, California. The company was formed in March 2005 through the merger of video game developers Backbone Entertainment and The Collective (company), The Collectiv ...

, a video game conglomerate company founded the month prior. Subsequently, Duncalf joined Foundation 9's

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

. By May 2010, Pipeworks had 60 employees. In September 2014, under advisory from GP Bullhound, Foundation 9 sold Pipeworks to Italian game publishing company Digital Bros. By February 2016, Pipeworks employed 75 people and had changed its name to Pipeworks Studio. Digital Bros sold Pipeworks off to Northern Pacific Group for in February 2018, and the studio was later renamed Pipeworks Studios. In September 2020,

Sumo Group Sumo Group Limited is a British video game holding company based in Sheffield. It was formed in December 2017 as the parent company for Sumo Digital and Atomhawk, followed by its initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange later that m ...

acquired Pipeworks for $100 million. Together with its new parent company, the studio opened a subsidiary, Timbre Games, in Canada under the management of Joe Nickolls. In July 2022, Pipeworks Studios was acquired by Jagex, developers of the

RuneScape ''RuneScape'' is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Jagex, released in January 2001. ''RuneScape'' was originally a browser game built with the Java (programming language), Java progr ...

franchise. It was acquired by Virtuos for an undisclosed sum on January 22, 2025.

Games developed

References

External links

* {{Authority control Companies based in Eugene, Oregon Video game companies established in 1999 Video game companies of the United States Video game development companies 1999 establishments in Oregon 2005 mergers and acquisitions 2014 mergers and acquisitions 2018 mergers and acquisitions 2020 mergers and acquisitions 2022 mergers and acquisitions American subsidiaries of foreign companies American companies established in 1999 Sumo Group