Stormfront Studios, Inc.

Formerly	Beyond Software (1988–1993)
Company type	Private
Industry	Video games
Founded	December 28, 1988; 36 years ago (1988-12-28)
Founder	Don Daglow
Defunct	March 31, 2008 (2008-03-31)
Fate	Dissolved
Headquarters	San Rafael,California , U.S.
Key people	Don Daglow(President &CEO)
Number of employees	33 (2008)

Stormfront Studios, Inc. was an Americanvideo game developer based inSan Rafael, California. In 2007, the company had over 50 developers working on two teams, and owned all its proprietary engines, tools, and technology. As of the end of 2007, over fourteen million copies of Stormfront-developed games had been sold. Stormfront closed on March 31, 2008, due to the closure of their publisher at the time,Sierra Entertainment.^[1][2]

The company received major awards and award nominations fromThe Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences,G4 Television,BAFTA, TheIGDAGame Developers Choice Awards, TheEMMA Awards,SCEA, theSoftware Publishers Association and many magazines and websites.

In 2008,Neverwinter Nights was honored (along withEverQuest andWorld of Warcraft) at the 59th AnnualTechnology & Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the art form ofMMORPG games.Don Daglow accepted the award for project partners Stormfront Studios,AOL andWizards of the Coast.

Stormfront was founded in 1988 byDon Daglow, who had worked as agame programmer and then as Director of Game Development atMattelIntellivision, as a producer atElectronic Arts, and as a production executive atBroderbund. Stormfront's management includes veterans ofDisney,Electronic Arts,Ensemble Studios,LucasArts,Origin Systems,THX,Vivendi Universal andWarner Bros.

Stormfront was founded asBeyond Software, but changed its name in 1993 when the trademark forBeyond proved difficult to enforce.

• Neverwinter Nights. Daglow had worked on game projects withKathi McHugh andSteve Case ofAOL (then calledQuantum Computer Services) since early in AOL's history. Apart from baseball, Stormfront's initial projects were a series of online titles for AOL, including the first originalplay-by-email game,Quantum Space (1989) and later the first graphicalMMORPG, the originalNeverwinter Nights (1991–1997).Neverwinter Nights held the all-time record as the top revenue-producing onlineRPG for almost ten years until the success ofUltima Online in the late 1990s.BioWare subsequently purchased the rights to the name, and built a new generation of award-winning multiplayer RPGs set in the Neverwinter universe.
• Tony La Russa Baseball. Upon its founding in 1988 Stormfront's first project was a baseball title, which over the following eight years was to become theTony La Russa Baseball series of games, working closely with baseball managerTony La Russa. La Russa remains a member of the company's Board of Directors today. Daglow had previously designed or co-designed a number of baseball games, includingBaseball,Intellivision World Series Baseball andEarl Weaver Baseball, the latter two with programmerEddie Dombrower.
• Gold Box D&D Games. In 1990 the company began working withSSI on a series ofGold BoxDungeons & Dragons RPG games. This led to the company's first #1 hit,Gateway to the Savage Frontier (1991), and the first game where an AI character might fall in love with the player (depending on how they reacted to situations in the game),Treasures of the Savage Frontier (1992).
• Stronghold (1993). The firstRTS game to use a3D perspective,Stronghold also featured aGUI interface in an era when most games continued to use text menus.

• NASCAR Racing, the original versions of the top-selling Americanauto racing game series of all time, created by Stormfront for EA Sports.John Madden Football game designerScott Orr, who produced a long series of games with Stormfront, championed the development ofAndretti Racing, which led in turn to the creation ofNASCAR.
• Madden NFL. Stormfront created the original PC versions ofMadden for EA Sports.
• Byzantine: The Betrayal, Although the game earned limited distribution in the United States, Stormfront's 1997Discovery Channel gameByzantine: The Betrayal swept the EuropeanEMMA Awards at theFrankfurt Book Fair, winning honors as Best Adventure Game, Game of the Year, and CD of the Year.
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf, EA Sports.
• Tony La Russa Baseball 3 andOld Time Baseball. In 1994-1995 the company self-published these two baseball games, both distributed by EA. Thebaseball strike of 1994 severely hampered sales, and Stormfront returned to being solely a developer.
• Stormfront was the first video game developer to usemotion control photography in a video game, in the Electronic Arts gameEagle Eye Mysteries, (1993).

• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002). Published byElectronic Arts forPS2,GameCube. and Xbox and based on thePeter Jackson film fromNew Line Cinema. One of the top-selling games of both 2002 and 2003,The Two Towers allows players to joinFrodo and the Fellowship of the Ring in their quest to saveMiddle-earth fromSauron. Players can fight asAragorn,Legolas orGimli in this epic adventure that features scenes and music from the first two movies inThe Lord of the Rings film trilogy, battlingOrcs including theUruk-hai,Ringwraiths and more. Players play a pivotal role inthe defense ofHelm's Deep. The game features extensive unlockable content, including exclusive interviews with the stars of the films. Winner,Academy of Interactive Arts & SciencesAward for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering.
• Blood Wake forXbox (2001). A featured title inMicrosoft’s launch of the Xbox, Blood Wake is a fast-action naval combat game with real wakes and waves and the most striking water effects created on avideo game console. The game later became part of the Xbox Platinum line of classic hits.
• Demon Stone (2004). Published byAtari for PS2, Xbox and PC. Players can switch which of the three main characters they control “on the fly” at any moment to battle an onslaught of enemies. The game was nominated for multiple Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Interactive Achievement Awards andBAFTA Awards.

• The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008) Wii, Xbox 360, PS2, and PC, published by Sierra, based on the Paramount film (adapted from the illustrated children's fantasy books written byHolly Black and illustrated byTony DiTerlizzi).
• Eragon (2006). Published byVivendi Universal Games forXbox 360, PS2, Xbox and PC, based on theTwentieth Century Fox movieEragon, adapted from the best-sellingChristopher Paolini fantasy novel.
• (2008) Stormfront closed on March 31, 2008.^[1]

Stormfront had an ongoing involvement in the development of games forInteractive television since its first experiments on Florida cable systems in 1990, and produced demos for companies including OpenTV.

• 1up.com feature on Stormfront
• GameBanshee feature on Stormfront
• Game Informer article on Daglow
• Underdogs company listing
• MobyGames company summary

• Official Website
• The Original Neverwinter Nights

• Defunct video game companies of the United States
• Video game companies established in 1988
• Video game companies disestablished in 2008
• Video game development companies
• Companies based in San Rafael, California
• Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata