Gearbox Software

Infobox Company
company_name = Gearbox Software
company_
company_type = Private
foundation = Plano, Texas, USA (1999)
founder = Randy Pitchford
Brian Martel
Stephen Bahl
Landon Montgomery
Rob Heironimus
location = Plano, Texas, USA
key_people =
revenue =
num_employees = 150+
industry = Software & Programming
products =
owner =
homepage= [http://www.gearboxsoftware.com www.gearboxsoftware.com]

Gearbox Software, LLC is an American video game development company based in Plano, Texas.

History

Gearbox was founded by five members of the content team from the defunct developer Rebel Boat Rocker: Randy Pitchford, Brian Martel, Stephen Bahl, Landon Montgomery, and Rob Heironimus. Before Rebel Boat Rocker, Pitchford and Martel previously worked together at 3D Realms, and Montgomery previously worked at Bethesda Softworks.

Gearbox started with developing expansions to the game "Half-Life". Porting "Half-Life" to console platforms (each with new game content) followed, building the company's experience in console game-making, in addition to enhancing and building upon the successful "Counter-Strike" branch of the "Half-Life" franchise. Prior to "Half-Life 2", Gearbox had developed or helped develop every "Half-Life" expansion game or port, including ', ', "Counter-Strike", "Condition Zero", "Half-Life" for the Sony PlayStation 2 ("Half-Life Decay"), and "Half-Life" for the Sega Dreamcast. Branching out to other publishers, Gearbox pursued additional port work, each game being released with additional content, but this time from console to PC. These projects including Gearbox's first non-FPS "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3", and "", forging new publisher relationships with Activision and Microsoft Game Studios respectively. Additional new development, in the form of a PC game in the James Bond franchise ("Nightfire") for EA, also occurred during the company's initial 5-year period.

2007 brought announcements of new projects based on licensed film IPs, including the crime drama "Heat"cite web |title=Gearbox turning up Heat on next-gen consoles |url=http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/demonik/news.html?sid=6150948 |accessdate=2007-10-31] and the sci-fi classic "Aliens".cite web |title=SEGA and Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising to bring Alien franchise to next-gen systems |accessdate=2006-12-17 |url=http://www.sega.com/corporate/corporate.php?item=pr_20061211a] In the September 2007 issue of Game Informer, a new game franchise was revealed, the sci-fi shooter/vehicle combat game "Borderlands"cite web |title=2K Games To Publish Gearbox's Borderlands |url=http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?story=48486 |accessdate=2007-10-31] , after which Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford mentioned in an online interview that development on the "Heat" game had not yet begun, as the planned development partner for the project had gone under.cite web |url=http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=16994 |title=What Happened To Gearbox Software's Heat? |accessdate=2007-08-17] This was followed by an announcement by Sega that Gearbox would be helming a new version of rhythm game "Samba de Amigo" for the Wii, a departure from their signature FPS titles.cite web |url=http://gonintendo.com/?p=25760|title=Samba De Amigo Announcement|accessdate=2007-09-15]

In 2008, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford announced that the company was working on yet another major unannounced title, hinting that is was "huge". This title is rumored to be Halo 4, which is expected to be a launch title for next Microsoft console.cite web |url=http://kotaku.com/352427/gearbox-hints-at-something-huge|title=Gearbox Hints At Something Huge|accessdate=2008-04-08]

Game Series

"Half-Life Series"

Gearbox has developed a total of six games in the Half-Life series: and (expansion packs); ports of Half-Life for Dreamcast (which included ) and Half-Life for PlayStation 2 (which included ); they also did a large amount of work on both the retail release of Counter-Strike and the main portion of Condition Zero.

"Brothers in Arms Series"

During their fourth year (2003), Gearbox began secretly working on their first internally-driven and independently-owned game: '. Developed for both PC and Microsoft's Xbox console, and built with the Unreal 2 engine, this game was released in March 2005. The sequel, ', followed seven months later. The series was published by Ubisoft, who supported both games with PlayStation 2 versions, and later worked with Gearbox to develop "Brothers in Arms" games for portable systems (mobile phones, PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS) and the Wii home console.

In 2005, Gearbox licensed the Unreal 3 engine from Epic Games,Cite press release |url=http://www.gearboxsoftware.com/index.php?p=pr&pr=9 |title=Gearbox Software licenses Unreal Engine 3 |publisher=Gearbox Software, LLC. |accessdate=2007-11-07 |date=2005-09-23] to replace the Unreal 2 engine technology used in previous games, and grew its internal development teams to handle the demands of next-generation technology and content. "" was the first new title to be announced, [Cite press release |url=http://www.gearboxsoftware.com/index.php?p=pr&pr=17 |title=Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway Announced |publisher=Gearbox Software, LLC. |accessdate=2007-11-07 |date=2006-04-12] continuing the company's flagship franchise.

Technology

Gearbox has developed using a number of existing game engines for various projects, including GoldSrc, RenderWare, Bungie's Halo, Unreal 2 and Unreal 3. They have completed games on a variety of game platforms, including Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, Wii and Microsoft Windows.

In 2006, Gearbox partnered with Dell and Intel to provide development computer systems and technology.cite web |title=Dell Case Study: Gearbox Software: Go Further |publisher=Dell, Inc. |url=http://www.dell.com/html/us/segments/bsd/case_studies/gearbox/index.html |accessdate=2007-10-31]

In June 2007, Gearbox purchased a Moven motion capture system, [Cite press release |title=Big Leap Forward for Animation Production at Gearbox |accessdate=2007-10-27 |date=2007-06-28 |url=http://www.moven.com/en/home_moven/news.php?BasicNieuwsItemID=1 |publisher=Xsens Technologies B.V.] becoming one of the few independent developers with an in-house motion capture studio.

In February 2008, it was announced that Gearbox had licensed NaturalMotion's Morpheme softwarecite web |title=Gearbox Licenses NaturalMotion's Morpheme |url=http://www.gamescentral.com/story-170-Gearbox-Licenses-NaturalMotions-morpheme-.html |accessdate=2008-02-14] .

Games developed

*"" — PC expansion (October 1999, published by Sierra Entertainment/Vivendi Games).
*"Half-Life" — Dreamcast (unreleased, available on PC) — Includes "".
*"Counter-Strike" — PC (November 2000, published by Sierra Entertainment/Vivendi Games) — Retail version, co-developed with Valve Software — Includes " CTF"
*' — PC expansion (July 2001, published by Sierra Entertainment/Vivendi Games) — Includes Half-Life High Definition Pack and '.
*"Half-Life" — PlayStation 2 (November 2001, published by Sierra Entertainment/Vivendi Games) — Includes "".
*"" — PC expansion (unreleased, available on PS2).
*"Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3" — PC (October 2002, published by Activision) — Co-developed with Neversoft.
*"" — PC (November 2002, published by Electronic Arts).
*"" — PC, Mac (September 2003, published by Microsoft Game Studios) — Co-developed with Bungie Studios.
*"" — PC (March 2004, published by Sierra Entertainment/Vivendi Games) — Co-developed with Valve Software, Ritual Entertainment and Turtle Rock Studios.
*"" — PC (May 2004, published by Microsoft Game Studios).
*"" — PC, Xbox, PlayStation 2 (March 2005, published by Ubisoft).
*"" — PC, Xbox, PlayStation 2 (October 2005, published by Ubisoft).
*"" — Mobile Phones (October 2005, published by Ubisoft) — Co-developed with Gameloft.
*"" — PSP (December 2006, published by Ubisoft) — Co-developed with Ubisoft.
*"Brothers in Arms DS" — Nintendo DS (June 2007, published by Ubisoft) — Co-developed with Gameloft.
*"" — Mobile Phones (March 2008, published by Ubisoft) — Co-developed with Gameloft.
*"Brothers in Arms (N-Gage 2.0)" — Nokia Mobile Phones (TBA 2008, published by Ubisoft) — Co-developed with Gameloft.
* "Samba de Amigo "— Wii (September 23, 2008, published by Sega)cite web |url=http://kotaku.com/gaming/game-announcement/samba-de-amigo-wii-the-press-release-315024.php|title=Samba De Amigo: Press Release|accessdate=2007-10-31] — Co-developed with Escalation Studios.
* "" — PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 (September 2008, published by Ubisoft).

Game Compilations featuring Gearbox Software games:
*"Half-Life Platinum Collection" — PC (November 2000, published by Sierra Entertainment/Vivendi Games) — Includes "", and "Counter-Strike".
*"Half-Life Platinum Pack" — PC (August 2002, published by Sierra Entertainment/Vivendi Games) — Includes ', ', and "Counter-Strike".
*"The Movie Collection" — PC (October 2003, published by Electronic Arts) — Includes "".
*"Counter-Strike" — Xbox (November 2003, published by Microsoft Game Studios) — Includes content developed by Gearbox for "Counter-Strike" and "".
*"EA Games Collection" — PC (September 2004, published by Electronic Arts) — Includes "".
*"Half-Life 1 Anthology" — PC (September 2005, published by Valve Software/Electronic Arts) — Includes ', and '.
*"Counter-Strike 1 Anthology" — PC (September 2005, published by Valve Software/Electronic Arts) — Includes "Counter-Strike" and "".

Games currently in development

As of September 2008, the following games are in development at (or under guidance by) Gearbox Software:

* "" — PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 (TBA 2009, published by Sega).
* " Borderlands" — PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 (TBA 2009, published by 2K Games) .
* Untitled FPS game based on the movie "Heat" (unknown release date - possibly canceled).cite web |url=http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=16994 |title=What Happened To Gearbox Software's Heat? |accessdate=2007-08-17]
* Untitled game (unknown release date)cite web |url=http://kotaku.com/352427/gearbox-hints-at-something-huge|title=Gearbox Hints At Something Huge|accessdate=2008-04-08] (rumoured to be Halo 4 for the next Xbox console) cite web |url=http://www.joystiq.com/2008/08/25/oxm-rumor-gearbox-developing-halo-4-as-launch-title-for-next-xb/|title=Gearbox developing Halo 4|accessdate=2008-08-26]
* 2 other mystery games mentioned on the website.

References

External links

* [http://www.gearboxsoftware.com/ Official Gearbox Software website]
* [http://gearboxity.com/ Gearboxity - Official Gearbox Software fan site]
* [http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/ Official Gearbox Software forums]
* [http://www.mobygames.com/company/gearbox-software-llc MobyGames profile]