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 Logo used from 1993 to 1996, designed byRoger Dean[1] | |
| Formerly | Psygnosis (1984–1999) |
|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 1984; 41 years ago (1984) |
| Founders | Ian Hetherington David Lawson Jonathan Ellis |
| Defunct | 22 August 2012 (2012-08-22) |
| Fate | Merged |
| Headquarters | Napier Court,Wavertree Technology Park,Liverpool, England |
| Products | Shadow of the Beast Lemmings Wipeout Colony Wars Formula One |
| Parent | Sony Computer Entertainment (1993–2005) SCE Worldwide Studios (2005–2012) |
| Website | worldwidestudios.net/liverpool |
Psygnosis Limited (/sɪɡˈnoʊsɪs/; known asSCE Studio Liverpool or simplyStudio Liverpool from 1999)[1] was a Britishvideo game developer andpublisher headquartered atWavertree Technology Park inLiverpool. Founded in 1984[1][2] byIan Hetherington, Jonathan Ellis, and David Lawson, the company initially became known for well-received games on theAtari ST andAmiga. In 1993, it became a wholly ownedsubsidiary andfirst-party developer ofSony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and began developing games for the originalPlayStation. It later became a part ofSCE Worldwide Studios. The company was the oldest and second largest development house within the company. The company is best known for creating theWipeout,Formula One andColony Wars series.
Reports of Studio Liverpool's closure surfaced on 22 August 2012, withEdge quoting staff tweets.[3] Staff members were told the news by Michael Denny, vice president of Sony Worldwide Studios Europe.[4] Sony said that the Liverpool site would remain in operation, as it was still home to many Sony Departments.[5] At the time of its closure, it employed roughly 100 people comprising two development teams. Mick Hocking oversaw Studio Liverpool's operations as its last Group Studio Director, a position he continued to hold withinEvolution Studios.
Psygnosis still exists as a legal entity under Sony and continues to make legal filings, but has had no developers since 2012.[6] In December 2021, Sony renewed Psygnosis' logo and trademarks despite not using the Psygnosis branding since 2000, though this is thought to be standard filing practice as trademarks last for a decade in the United States and Sony had previously filed renewal applications in 2011 as well.[7]
Psygnosis was the eventual successor of the defunct 8-bit software houseImagine Software, where Lawson was one of the founders and Hetherington was financial director. Finchspeed, a company created by the directors,[8][9] attempted to acquire the assets of the failing company but this was unsuccessful and the remains of Imagine, including their much-hyped but never completed "megagames", were sold by the receivers.[10] While the name and trademarks were bought byOcean Software,[11]Sinclair Research paid a rumoured £100,000 for the rights toBandersnatch and contracted a new company set up by Hetherington and Lawson, Fire Iron, to produce the game for theSinclair QL for release in early 1985.[12][13][14]
Sinclair withdrew funding from Fire Iron in early 1985[15] and Psygnosis, which became alimited company underUnited Kingdom company law in July 1985,[16] launched their first titleBrataccas, which featured many of the concepts originally intended forBandersnatch,[17] at the 1985Personal Computer World show in September.[15][18]
The name of another Imagine Megagame (the proposed but never developedPsyclapse) was later used by Psygnosis as an alternative label for some of its releases,[19] such asBallistix andCaptain Fizz Meets The Blaster-Trons.[20]
The box artwork was very distinctive with a black background and fantasy artwork by Roger Dean[21] bordered in red. This style was maintained for the better part of 10 years. For the next few years, Psygnosis' releases contained increasingly improved graphics, but were marred by similarly difficult gameplay and control methods. The original company headquarters were located at thePort of Liverpool Building at thePier Head in Liverpool, but soon moved to Century Buildings in Liverpool's Brunswick Business Park, and later moved down the road to South Harrington Building bythe docks.
Although Psygnosis primarily became a game publisher, some games were developed fully or partly in-house. During the early days, artists were employed full-time at the headquarters, offeringthird-party developers, who were often just singleprogrammers, a high-quality art resource. This allowed Psygnosis to maintain high graphical standards across the board. The original artists were Garvan Corbett, Jeff Bramfitt, Colin Rushby and Jim Bowers, with Neil Thompson joining a little later.
Obliterator, released in 1988, contained an opening animation by Jim Bowers. This short scene would pave the way for increasingly sophisticated intro animations, starting with 2D hand drawn sequences, and progressing intoFMV and 3D rendered movies created withSculpt 4D on the Amiga. Eventually, Psygnosis would buySilicon Graphics workstations for the sole purpose of creating these animations.
While most game companies of the mid-to-late 1980s (including Psygnosis) were releasing identical games on both theAmiga andAtari ST, Psygnosis started to use the full potential of the Amiga's more powerful hardware to produce technically stunning games, with the landmark titleShadow of the Beast bringing the company its greatest success so far in 1989. Its multi-layeredparallax scrolling andmusic were highly advanced for the time and as such led to the game being used as a showcase demonstration for the Amiga in many computer shops.
Psygnosis consolidated its fame after publishing theDMA DesignLemmings game franchise: debuting in 1991 on the Amiga,Lemmings was ported to a plethora of different computer and video game platforms, generating many sequels and variations of its concept through the years.Microcosm, a game that appeared on theFM Towns,Amiga CD32, and3DO furthered the company's reputation for games with excellent graphics.
Psygnosis also created the "Face-Off" games in theNickelodeon 1992 television game show,Nick Arcade, such as "Post Haste", "Jet Jocks" and "Battle of the Bands".
In 1993 the company was acquired bySony Electronic Publishing.[22][23] The acquisition cost Sony £20 million.[24] In preparation for the September 1995 introduction of Sony'sPlayStation console in Western markets, Psygnosis started creating games using the PlayStation as primary reference hardware. Among the most famous creations of this period wereWipeout,G-Police, and theColony Wars series, some of which were ported to PC and to other platforms. The PlayStation marked a turning point in Psygnosis's game design, moving away from the prerendered graphics and limited gameplay that the company had become associated with.[25][26] This was a successful period for the company; in the 1995–96 financial year, Psygnosis games accounted for 40% of all video games sales in Europe.[27]
The acquisition was rewarding for Sony in another aspect: development kits for PlayStation consoles. As it had previously published PSY-Q development kits for various consoles bySN Systems, Psygnosis arranged for them to create a development system for the PS based on cheap PC hardware. Sony evaluated the system duringCES in January 1994 and decided to adopt it.[28]
As Psygnosis expanded after the Sony buyout, another satellite office was opened in Century Building with later offices opening inStroud, London, Chester, Paris, Germany, and Foster City in California (as the Customer Support & Marketing with software development done in San Francisco), now the home of Sony Computer Entertainment America. The company headquarters has resided at Wavertree Technology Park since 1995.
The Stroud studio was opened in November 1993 in order to attract disgruntledMicroProse employees. Staff grew from initially about 50 to about 70 in 1997.[29] Among the titles created at Stroud areOverboard! andG-Police.[29] The Wheelhouse—its publishing name—was closed in 2000 as part of theSony Computer Entertainment takeover of Psygnosis. Some members joinedBristol-basedRage Software, but faced a similar demise a number of years later.
Despite being owned by Sony, Psygnosis retained a degree of independence from its parent company during this period and continued to develop and publish titles for other platforms,[30] including theSega Saturn[31][32] and theNintendo 64.[33] This caused friction between Psygnosis and Sony, and in 1996 Sony engagedSBC Warburg's services in finding a buyer for Psygnosis.[34][35] However, though bids reportedly went as high as $300 million (more than ten times what Sony paid for the company just three years before),[36] after six months Sony rescinded its decision to sell Psygnosis. Relations between the two companies had improved during this time, and Sony became reconciled to Psygnosis releasing games for competing platforms.[37] Shortly after, Psygnosis took over distribution of its own titles, a task that Sony had been handling following the buyout.[38]
Psygnosis had a subsidiary studio atCamden Town which developedBlast Radius,Kingsley's Adventure andTeam Buddies.[39] It was moved to Sony as a separate studio named SCE Studio Camden and releasedDropship: United Peace Force before being merged withTeam Soho intoLondon Studio.[40]
In 1999, a process to consolidate Psygnosis intoSony Computer Entertainment was underway, resulting in the bulk of Psygnosis' sales, marketing and PR staff being made redundant and the development teams reporting directly into Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's president of software development.[41] To reflect this, in 2000, the Psygnosis brand was dropped in favour of SCE Studio Liverpool. During the year, as its American division was shut down,Midway Home Entertainment acquired the remaining titles of Psygnosis'PlayStation lineup.[42]
The newly named SCE Studio Liverpool released its first title,Formula One 2001, in 2001. The game was also the studio's first release on thePlayStation 2, and the first entry in theFormula One series after taking over from developerStudio 33. From 2001 to 2007, Studio Liverpool released eight instalments in the series between the PlayStation 2,PlayStation Portable andPlayStation 3. However, Sony Computer Entertainment's exclusive licence with theFormula One Group expired, without renewal, before the 2007 season, marking the end of any furtherFormula One series instalments from the developer.
Studio Liverpool also developedWipeout Fusion, the first of two instalments of the series on the PlayStation 2, released in 2002. Next they developedWipeout Pure for the PlayStation Portable, which launched alongside the handheld in 2005 to significant acclaim, with many media outlets heralding it a return to glory for the series. They followed up with the sequelWipeout Pulse in 2007 which was later ported to the PlayStation 2 and released in Europe.
In 2008 it releasedWipeout HD, a downloadable title for the PlayStation 3'sPlayStation Network service, consisting of various courses taken from bothWipeout Pure andWipeout Pulse remade in high definition. An expansion pack forWipeout HD namedWipeout HD Fury is available at PlayStation Network, including new game modes, new tracks, new music and new ship skins/models.[43] In 2007, a copy ofManhunt 2 was leaked online prior to its release by an employee from the Sony Europe Liverpool office.[44]
On 29 January 2010, Sony made a public statement on its restructuring of Studio Liverpool.[45] The closure of Studio Liverpool was announced on 22 August 2012. In a press release, Sony stated that after an assessment of all European studios, it had decided to close Studio Liverpool. Sony said that the Liverpool site would remain in operation, as it is home to a number of Sony World Wide Studios and SCEE Departments.[5]
Eurogamer was told by an unnamed source that, at the time of its closure, Studio Liverpool was working on twoPlayStation 4 launch titles. One was aWipeout title described as "dramatically different"; the other was a motion capture-based game along the lines ofTom Clancy's Splinter Cell.[46]
In 2013 a number of former Studio Liverpool employees formed two new studios:Firesprite[47] which worked on the visuals ofThe Playroom for thePlayStation 4,[48] and Playrise Digital who had success with theirTable Top Racing games. In September 2021, Sony acquired Firesprite.[49]
XDev, Sony's external development studio, is responsible for managing the development of titles at developers that are outside of Sony's own developer group. It has won 14British Academy (BAFTA) video game awards andAIAS awards forLittleBigPlanet, 3 BAFTA awards for theBuzz! series andDevelop Industry Excellence Awards forMotorStorm andBuzz!.[50]
The company has developed and published more than 100 titles since its founding in 1984
Psyclapse was actually the name of a Commodore 64 game that was never released [but] was to live on as a division of Psygnosis.
In the 16-Bit days, Psygnosis was best known for attractive titles lacking gameplay, but that all changed with the launch of the PlayStation.
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