Kuju Entertainment Ltd. is a British

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 ...

. The original company was Simis, formed in 1989 and purchased by

Eidos Interactive Eidos Interactive Limited (formerly Domark Limited) was a British video game publisher based in Wimbledon, London. Among its franchises were '' Championship Manager'', '' Deus Ex'', ''Hitman'', '' Thief'' and ''Tomb Raider''. Domark was founded ...

in 1995. Kuju was formed in 1998 in

Shalford, Surrey Shalford is a village and civil parish in the Guildford district, in Surrey, England on the A281 Horsham road immediately south of Guildford. It has a railway station which is between Guildford and Dorking on the Reading to Gatwick Airport lin ...

, England, after a management buyout of Simis from Eidos. Kuju has released titles across different devices, ranging from ''

Art Academy An art school is an educational institution with a primary focus on practice and related theory in the visual arts and design. This includes fine art – especially illustration, painting, contemporary art, sculpture, and graphic design. T ...

'' on the

Nintendo DS The is a foldable handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens worki ...

, '' The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest'' and ''

Battalion Wars 2 ''Battalion Wars 2'', released as in Japan, is a 2007 real-time tactics game developed by Kuju London and published by Nintendo for the Wii. It is the sequel to '' Battalion Wars'' (2005), in which players take command of a battalion of troops ...

'' for the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

, and an

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...

title, ''

Powerstar Golf ''Powerstar Golf'' is a golf video game developed by Zoë Mode and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox One game console. It was released on November 22, 2013. Gameplay ''Powerstar Golf'' plays similar to other video game golf games altho ...

''.

History

Ian Baverstock and Jonathan Newth opened Simis in 1989 and produced a number of

flight simulator A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they rea ...

programs like MiG-29 Fulcrum. In 1995, the company was purchased by Eidos and operated as an in-house development studio. In 1998, Baverstock and Newth led a management buyout of the studio from Eidos Interactive, forming Kuju Ltd. The name "Kuju" originates from the initials of the founders’ first names: Ian Baverstock and Jonathan Newth. Jonathan was leafing through a Japanese dictionary when he found the numbers nine and ten – "ku" and "ju" – corresponding to the positions of "I" and "J" in the English alphabet. The combined result was Kuju. Their first game was ''

Tank Racer ''Tank Racer'' is a 3D action racing computer game, computer and video game developed by the Glass Ghost (company), Glass Ghost team at Simis and published by Grolier Interactive, copyrighted in 1998 in video gaming, 1998 and released on March 30 ...

'', a 3D action racer for PC,

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

and mobile. By 2001, Kuju was employing a team of 80 developers, in three separate offices around the UK in London, Surrey and Brighton. Their most notable project at the time was ''

Microsoft Train Simulator ''Microsoft Train Simulator'' (informally abbreviated to MSTS) is a 2001 train simulator game developed by UK-based Kuju Entertainment and published by Xbox Game Studios, Microsoft Games (now known as Xbox Game Studios) for Microsoft Windows, W ...

''. In 2002, Kuju floated on the

Alternative Investments Market AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in operation since 1980. It allows ...

(AIM) of the

London Stock Exchange The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange based in London, England. the total market value of all companies trading on the LSE stood at US$3.42 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Paul's Cath ...

. Shortly thereafter the company signed its first game with

THQ THQ Inc. was an American video game company based in Agoura Hills, California. It was founded in April 1990 by Jack Friedman, originally in Calabasas, and became a public company the following year through a reverse merger takeover. Initial ...

based on the

Games Workshop Games Workshop Group (often abbreviated as GW) is a British manufacturer of miniature wargames, based in Nottingham, England. Its best-known products are ''Warhammer (game), Warhammer'' and ''Warhammer 40,000''. Founded in 1975 by John Peake ...

franchise, '' Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior''. In the following years between 2002 and 2007, Kuju developed titles including '' SingStar'' games and the ''

Battalion Wars ''Battalion Wars'', released as in Japan, is a 2005 real-time tactics game developed by Kuju London and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. The player controls a vast array of units ranging from infantry, armoured divisions and aircraft, c ...

'' franchise. Kuju was one of the companies considered to develop the

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 ...

for

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

's game show ''

FightBox ''FightBox'' is a game show that aired on BBC Three from 13 October to 10 November 2003 and is hosted by Lisa Snowdon and Trevor Nelson with Paul Dickenson as commentator. Format Contestants design their fighters and submit them to the BBC. Ou ...

''. In 2007, Kuju Ltd. was acquired by a German media investment firm, Catalis SE. Soon after, Kuju Brighton was rebranded to

Zoë Mode Zoë Mode was a subsidiary studio of Kuju Entertainment based in Brighton, England. Zoë Mode's games portfolio covered a variety of Genres of video games, genres and comprised big-brand entertainment, original Social-network game, social games ...

, and in 2008, Kuju London rebranded to

Headstrong Games Headstrong Games was a subsidiary of Kuju Entertainment based in London that developed video games. History The studio was formed in 2000 as Kuju London. In 2008, it was rebranded as Headstrong Games. In 2013, Headstrong Games was included in t ...

. In 2010, Headstrong Games completed development of ''

'' for the

console. In June 2012, Dominic Wheatley, co-founder of

Domark Eidos Interactive Limited (formerly Domark Limited) was a British video game publisher based in Wimbledon, London. Among its franchises were '' Championship Manager'', ''Deus Ex'', ''Hitman'', ''Thief'' and ''Tomb Raider''. Domark was founded b ...

, was appointed as CEO; while Gary Bracey, former vice-president of development at

Ocean Software Ocean Software Limited was a British software development company that became one of the biggest European video game developers and publishers of the 1980s and 1990s. The company was founded by David Ward and Jon Woods and was based in Manchest ...

, was appointed as commercial director.

Studios

Kuju at one point had two UK studios:

in London and

in Brighton. Both have since been amalgamated back into Kuju. Headstrong Games has developed versions of '' The House of the Dead: Overkill'', '' The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest'' and '' Top Gun: Hard Lock''. Original intellectual property include ''

'', which was developed for and owned by

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

. They also developed the ''

'' series, instalments in Nintendo's ''

Wars War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of State (polity), states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or betwe ...

'' series. Zoë Mode have worked on the

EyeToy The EyeToy is a color webcam for use with the PlayStation 2. Supported games use computer vision and gesture recognition to process images taken by the EyeToy. This allows players to interact with the games using motion, color detection, and als ...

series,

Zumba Zumba is a fitness program that involves cardio and Latin-inspired dance. It was founded by Colombian dancer and choreographer Beto Pérez in 2001. It currently has 200,000 locations, with 15 million people taking classes weekly, and is locat ...

dance franchise and ''Powerstar Golf''. They also developed games for Xbox's

Kinect Kinect is a discontinued line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB color model, RGB cameras, and Thermographic camera, infrared projectors and detectors that map dep ...

Previous Kuju Studios

Doublesix Doublesix was a subsidiary of Kuju Entertainment based in Guildford that develops video games for the digital download market. The studio was formed from the team that made ''Geometry Wars: Galaxies''. They also made the zombie themed shooter, ...

* Simis * Kuju Surrey * Kuju Sheffield (latterly rebranded as Chemistry) * Nik Nak Games * Kuju America * Kuju Manila * Vatra Games

Games

* ''

'' (2001) * ''

Lotus Challenge ''Lotus Challenge'' is a racing game developed by Kuju Entertainment and published in 2001 for PlayStation 2 by Virgin Interactive. Versions followed for Windows, GameCube, and Xbox from different publishers. Gameplay ''Lotus Extreme Challenge' ...

'' (2001) * '' Reign of Fire'' (2002) * '' Fire Blade'' (2002) * '' SingStar'' (with

London Studio London Studio was a British video game developer of PlayStation Studios based in London. Founded in 2002, it was best known for developing the '' SingStar'' series, as well as games for PlayStation's external peripherals including the EyeToy ...

) (2002) * '' Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior'' (2003) * '' EyeToy: Play'' (2003) * '' GT-R 400'' (2004) * '' Crash Twinsanity 3D'' (2004) * '' Call of Duty: Finest Hour'' (with

Spark Unlimited Spark Unlimited, based in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, was a video game developer founded by former developers from the ''Medal of Honor'' video game franchise. The studio's first game was '' Call of Duty: Finest Hour'' in 2004. Its last game was ...

) (

PS2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 November, in Australia on 30 November, ...

and

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

versions only) (2004) * ''

'' (2005) * '' Conspiracy: Weapons of Mass Destruction'' (2005) * ''

The Regiment The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling, and in 1950 it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terr ...

'' (2006) * ''

Sensible Soccer 2006 ''Sensible Soccer'', often called ''Sensi'', is an association football video game series which was popular in the early 1990s and which still retains a following. It was developed by Sensible Software and first released for Amiga and Atari ST ...

'' (2006) * '' Pilot Academy'' (2006) * ''

Crush Crush may refer to: * Infatuation or limerence, the romantic attraction to another person * Puppy love, feelings of love, romance, or infatuation felt by young people Crush may also refer to: Film * Crush (1972 film), ''Crush'' (1972 film), a H ...

'' (2007) * '' Geometry Wars: Galaxies'' (with

Bizarre Creations Bizarre Creations Limited was a British video game development studio based in Liverpool, best known for their racing video game, racing titles ''Metropolis Street Racer'' (Dreamcast) and the follow-up Project Gotham Racing, ''Project Gotham Rac ...

) (2007) * ''

'' (2007) * ''

Nucleus Nucleus (: nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to: *Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom *Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA Nucleu ...

'' (2007) * ''

Rail Simulator ''Rail Simulator'' is a train simulation published by Electronic Arts (EA). It was produced by Kuju Entertainment. After release of the EU version, EA's support and further development of the title was taken over by Rail Simulator Developments ...

'' (2007) * '' Dungeons & Dragons Tactics'' (2007) * ''

Dancing with the Stars ''Strictly Come Dancing (widely known as Dancing with the Stars)'' is an international television franchise based on the format of the British TV series '' Strictly Come Dancing,'' itself a successor to the show ''Come Dancing'' (1950–1998) ...

'' (2007) * '' M.A.C.H. Modified Air Combat Heroes (2007) * '' Sensible World of Soccer'' (Xbox Live Arcade version) (2007) * ''

Rock Revolution ''Rock Revolution'' is a music video game developed by Zoë Mode and HB Studios and published by Konami. The game was released on 15 October 2008 for the Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360. As with similar titles, the game uses various ...

'' (2008–2009) * '' You're in the Movies'' (2008–2009) * '' The House of the Dead: Overkill'' (2009) * ''

Disney Sing It ''Disney Sing It'' is a Music video game, karaoke video game. It was released on October 21, 2008 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. It's the second game in the ''Disney Sing It'' series after ''High Schoo ...

'' (2008) * ''

'' (2009–2010) * '' The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest'' (2010) * '' Chime'' (2010) * '' Disney Sing It: Family Hits'' (2010) * '' Grease: The Game'' (2010) * '' Chime: Super Deluxe'' (2011) * ''

Zumba Fitness 2 ''Zumba Fitness 2'' is the second video game in the installment of the Fitness series, based on the Zumba program. It is also the sequel to '' Zumba Fitness'' (2010), later followed by '' Zumba Fitness Core'' (2012). Developed by Zoë Mode, it wa ...

'' (2011) * '' Rush 'N Attack: Ex-Patriot'' (2011) * '' Silent Hill: Downpour'' (2012) * '' Top Gun: Hard Lock'' (2012) * ''

Haunt Haunt is a synonym for ghost. Haunt may also refer to: __NOTOC__ Film * ''Haunt'' (2013 film), an American supernatural horror film * ''Haunt'' (2019 film), an American slasher film Music * Haunt (band), a heavy metal band from Fresno, Califor ...

'' (2012) * '' Crush 3D'' (2012) * '' New Art Academy'' (2012) * '' Zumba Fitness Rush'' (2012) * '' Zumba Fitness Core'' (2012) * '' Rabbids Rumble'' (2012) * '' Zumba Fitness: World Party'' (2013) * ''

Zumba Kids ''Zumba Kids'' is the fifth video game based on the Zumba program. Although '' Zumba Fitness: World Party'' (2013) is the game before this, ''Zumba Kids'' is not a part of the Fitness series, which is only from '' Zumba Fitness'' to ''Zumba Fit ...

'' (2013) * ''

'' (2013) * '' Pokémon Art Academy'' (2014) * ''

Guitar Hero Live ''Guitar Hero Live'' is a 2015 rhythm game developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision. It is the seventh main instalment and the twelfth overall instalment in the ''Guitar Hero'' series. The game was released for PlayStation 3, ...

'' (2015) * ''

Disney Art Academy ''Disney Art Academy'' is an educational art training video game developed by Headstrong Games, published by Nintendo and released for the Nintendo 3DS handheld game console. It is a spin-off of the ''Art Academy'' series centered on Disney and P ...

'' (2016) * '' Marvel: Ultimate Alliance'' (2016) * '' Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2'' (2016) * ''Narcos: Rise of the Cartels'' (2019)

References

External links

Catalis Group, parent company
{{Authority control British companies established in 1998 Video game companies established in 1998 Mobile game companies Video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game development companies Companies based in London 1998 establishments in England Companies formed by management buyout 2007 mergers and acquisitions