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154-648: IO Interactive A/S ( IOI ) is a Danish video game developer based in Copenhagen , best known for creating and developing the Hitman and Kane and Lynch franchises. IO Interactive's most recent game is Hitman 3 , which was released in January 2021. The company was founded in September 1998 as a joint venture between the seven-man development team of Reto-Moto and film studio Nordisk Film . IO Interactive

308-482: A cyberpunk -themed dystopian world in the year 2052, the game follows JC Denton , an agent of the fictional agency United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO), who is given superhuman abilities by nanotechnology , as he sets out to combat hostile forces in a world ravaged by inequality and a deadly plague. His missions entangle him in a conspiracy that brings him into conflict with the Triads , Majestic 12 , and

462-593: A database , Voice over IP , or add-in interface software; this is also known as middleware . Examples of this include SpeedTree and Havoc . Independents are software developers which are not owned by (or dependent on) a single publisher. Some of these developers self-publish their games, relying on the Internet and word of mouth for publicity. Without the large marketing budgets of mainstream publishers, their products may receive less recognition than those of larger publishers such as Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo. With

616-399: A head-up display crosshair, whose size dynamically shows where shots will fall based on movement, aim, and the weapon in use; the reticle expands while the player is moving or shifting their aim, and slowly shrinks to its original size while at rest. How quickly the reticle shrinks depends on the character's proficiency with the equipped weapon, the number of accuracy modifications added to

770-579: A nuclear missile at Vandenberg to ensure that Area 51, now Majestic 12's headquarters, will be the only location in the world with an operational UC. However, JC can reprogram the missile to strike Area 51. JC travels to Area 51 to confront Page. Page reveals that he seeks to merge with Helios and gain full control over nanotechnology. JC is contacted by Tong, Everett, and the Helios AI successively. All three factions ask for his help in defeating Page while furthering their own objectives. Tong seeks to plunge

924-450: A "simple shooter" instead. As such, the team opted for a run-and-gun action game , as it took less time to develop compared to an MMO, drawing inspiration from John Woo films, such as Hard Boiled and The Killer . They turned to develop for personal computers (PCs), because they were unable to acquire development kits for consoles , and had also found interest in the steady increase of PCs' 3D graphics capabilities. A part of

1078-760: A Hungarian offshoot, named IO Interactive Hungary. To properly establish the studio, 50 Hungarian staff were hired and brought to the company's Copenhagen headquarters for a six-month training programme. However, after the training had been finished, IO Interactive realised that there were 50 people with talent but no leadership that could guide them when in Hungary. Instead of fulfilling the Hungarian subsidiary, IO Interactive opted to offer all 50 people jobs at their headquarters, to which most of them agreed. In October that year, Electronic Arts released Freedom Fighters , an IO Interactive-developed third-person shooter which

1232-461: A better immersion and gameplay experience. He did not want the character to force any emotion, so that whatever feelings the player may be experiencing come from themselves rather than from JC Denton. To do this, Spector instructed voice actor Jay Anthony Franke to record his dialogue without any emotion but in a monotone voice, which is unusual for a voice acting role. Once coded, the team's game systems did not work as intended. The early tests of

1386-600: A compatible version of Windows to run on a Mac. A PlayStation 2 port of the game, retitled Deus Ex: The Conspiracy outside of Europe, was released in 2002 in North America on March 26, in the United Kingdom on June 7, and in Australia on December 13. and Along with motion-captured character animations and pre-rendered introductory and ending cinematics that replaced the original versions, it features

1540-452: A culture of "toxic geek masculinity" within the workplace. In addition, the conditions behind crunch time are far more discriminating towards women as this requires them to commit time exclusively to the company or to more personal activities like raising a family. These factors established conditions within some larger development studios where female developers have found themselves discriminated in workplace hiring and promotion, as well as

1694-470: A distress call to alert the NSF's allies. Upon doing so, JC becomes a wanted man by UNATCO, and his kill switch is activated by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director Walton Simons. JC is unable to escape UNATCO forces, and both he and Paul (provided he survived the raid on the apartment) are taken to a secret prison below UNATCO headquarters. An entity named "Daedalus" contacts JC and informs him that

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1848-510: A few characters were too difficult to edit, and had to be recast for the mod. According to Computer Gaming World ' s Stefan Janicki, Deus Ex had "sold well in North America" by early 2001. In the United States, it debuted at #6 on PC Data 's sales chart for the week ending June 24, at an average retail price of $ 40. It fell to eighth place in its second week but rose again to position 6 in its third. It proceeded to place in

2002-571: A first-party company. As a balance to not being able to release their game for other platforms, second-party developers are usually offered higher royalty rates than third-party developers. These studios may have exclusive publishing agreements (or other business relationships) with the platform holder, but maintain independence so that upon completion or termination of their contracts, they are able to continue developing games for other publishers if they choose to. For example, while HAL Laboratory initially began developing games on personal computers like

2156-410: A fixed period and generally work similar hours as full-time staff members, assisting across all areas of video game development, but as contractors, do not get any benefits such as paid time-off or health care from the employer; they also are typically not credited on games that they work on for this reason. The practice itself is legal and common in other engineering and technology areas, and generally it

2310-403: A game on schedule. The complexity of workflow, reliance on third-party deliverables, and the intangibles of artistic and aesthetic demands in video game creation create difficulty in predicting milestones. The use of crunch time is also seen to be exploitative of the younger male-dominated workforce in video games, who have not had the time to establish a family and who were eager to advance within

2464-406: A game's profits. Current examples of first-party studios include PlayStation Studios for Sony, and Xbox Game Studios for Microsoft Gaming . Second-party developer is a colloquial term often used by gaming enthusiasts and media to describe game studios that take development contracts from platform holders and develop games exclusive to that platform, i.e. a non-owned developer making games for

2618-427: A game. The game's story changed considerably during production, but the idea of an augmented counterterrorist protagonist named JC Denton remained throughout. Though Spector originally pictured Deus Ex as akin to The X-Files , lead writer Sheldon Pacotti felt that it ended up more like James Bond . Spector wrote that the team overextended itself by planning highly elaborate scenes. Designer Harvey Smith removed

2772-471: A mod adding the ability to play as a female JC – a feature that had been planned for Deus Ex but ultimately not implemented – was released in 2021. This included the re-recording of all of JC's voice lines by voice actress Karen Rohan, the addition of 3D models for the character, and editing of all gendered references to JC including other characters' voice clips. The audio editing was the most difficult aspect, as any abnormalities would have been noticed easily;

2926-543: A more open world structure than Deus Ex and new weapons such as the player character's fists. The mod was developed over seven years and has thousands of lines of recorded dialogue and two different parallel story arcs. Upon its release, TNM earned a 9/10 overall from PC PowerPlay magazine. In Mod DB 's 2009 Mod of the Year awards, The Nameless Mod won the Editor's Choice award for Best Singleplayer Mod. In 2015, during

3080-523: A mostly complete White House level due to its complexity and production needs. Finished digital assets were repurposed or abandoned by the team. Pete Davison of USgamer referred to the White House and presidential bunker as "the truly deleted scenes of Deus Ex 's lost levels". One of the things that Spector wanted to achieve in Deus Ex was to make JC Denton a cipher for the player, to create

3234-498: A multi-IP deal. In June 2020, IO Interactive announced Hitman 3 , the conclusion to their World of Assassination trilogy, which was released on 20 January 2021 for Windows computers and current and next-gen consoles, with IO publishing the game themselves. In November 2020, the company announced Project 007 , an original James Bond video game, working closely with licensors MGM and Eon Productions . IO studio director Hakan Abrak said they had spent about two years in preparing

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3388-531: A pitch to the Bond license holders, knowing that the current rights holders, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson were dissatisfied with the amount of violence in past Bond video games. IO's Bond will be a wholly original character and not use any of the film actors' likenesses, and Abrak anticipates that this game would be the start of a trilogy of Bond games. Abrak expected that the game would require them to double their current staff of 200 employees to 400 by

3542-437: A position in a medium to large video game company. An experienced game-development employee, depending on their expertise and experience, averaged roughly $ 73,000 in 2007. Indie game developers may only earn between $ 10,000 and $ 50,000 a year depending on how financially successful their titles are. In addition to being part of the software industry, game development is also within the entertainment industry; most sectors of

3696-457: A publishing deal was signed between IO Interactive and Eidos Interactive. Eneroth became executive producer on the project. As executive producer, Eneroth encouraged the development team to stray away from the run-and-gun gameplay, and instead focus on a "methodical experience", including dragging dead bodies around the scene to create tension. He had previously worked on Deus Ex and Thief: The Dark Project , which had heavily exposed him to

3850-497: A result of which they became independent. Square Enix retained a minor financial stake in IO Interactive. The buyout also included the intellectual property (IP) for Hitman and Freedom Fighters , but lacked that of Kane & Lynch and Mini Ninjas . Yosuke Matsuda, president and chief executive officer of Square Enix at the time, stated that the company's decision to divest itself of IO Interactive, alongside Hitman ,

4004-400: A result, NPC behavior was variable until the very end of development. Spector felt that the team's "sin" was their inconsistent display of a trustable "human AI". The game was developed on systems including dual-processor Pentium Pro 200s and Athlon 800s with eight and nine gigabyte hard drives, some using SCSI . The team used "more than 100 video cards" throughout development. Deus Ex

4158-592: A roundtable discussion with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), the professional association for developers. Statements made by the IGDA's current executive director Jen MacLean relating to IGDA's activities had been seen by as anti-union, and Game Workers Unite desired to start a conversation to lay out the need for developers to unionize. In the wake of the sudden near-closure of Telltale Games in September 2018,

4312-579: A simplified interface with optional auto-aim . There are many minor changes in level design, some to balance gameplay, but most to accommodate loading transition areas, due to the memory limitations of the PlayStation 2. The PlayStation 2 version was re-released in Europe on the PlayStation 3 as a PlayStation 2 Classic on May 16, 2012. Loki Games worked on a Linux version of the game, but

4466-469: A single play-through of the game will miss large sections of dialogue, areas, and other content. In some missions, the player is encouraged to avoid using deadly force, and specific aspects of the story may change depending on how violent or non-violent the player chooses to be. The game is also unusual in that two of its boss villains can be killed off early in the game, or left alive to be defeated later, and this too affects how other characters interact with

4620-407: A single publisher; one canceled game may devastate a small developer. Because of this, many small development companies are short-lived. A common exit strategy for a successful video game developer is to sell the company to a publisher, becoming an in-house developer. In-house development teams tend to have more freedom in game design and content than third-party developers. One reason is that since

4774-403: A strong STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) background for women at the secondary education level, but there are issues with tertiary education such as at colleges and universities, where game development programs tend to reflect the male-dominated demographics of the industry, a factor that may lead women with strong STEM backgrounds to choose other career goals. There

IO Interactive - Misplaced Pages Continue

4928-473: A terrorist strike on the Statue of Liberty . The main character of Deus Ex is UNATCO agent JC Denton (voiced by Jay Franke), one of the first in a new line of agents physically altered with advanced nanotechnology to gain superhuman abilities, alongside his brother Paul (also voiced by Jay Franke), who joined UNATCO to avenge his parents' deaths at the hands of Majestic 12. His UNATCO colleagues include

5082-697: A unique case where nearly all parts of its labor force, including white-collar jobs such as video game development, may engage with labor unions under the Employment Protection Act often through collective bargaining agreements. Developer DICE had reached its union agreements in 2004. Paradox Interactive became one of the first major publishers to support unionization efforts in June 2020 with its own agreements to cover its Swedish employees within two labor unions Unionen and SACO . In Australia, video game developers could join other unions, but

5236-482: Is also a significant gap in racial minorities within the video game industry; a 2019 IGDA survey found only 2% of developers considered themselves to be of African descent and 7% Hispanic, while 81% were Caucasian; in contrast, 2018 estimates from the United States Census estimate the U.S. population to be 13% of African descent and 18% Hispanic. In a 2014 and 2015 survey of job positions and salaries,

5390-449: Is expected that this is meant to lead into a full-time position, or otherwise the end of the contract. But more recently, its use in the video game industry has been compared to Microsoft 's past use of " permatemp ", contract workers that were continually renewed and treated for all purposes as employees but received no benefits. While Microsoft has waned from the practice, the video game industry has adapted it more frequently. Around 10% of

5544-533: Is generally illegal, companies often target their oldest workers first during layoffs or other periods of reduction. Older developers with experience may find themselves too qualified for the types of positions that other game development companies seek given the salaries and compensations offered. Some of the larger video game developers and publishers have also engaged contract workers through agencies to help add manpower in game development in part to alleviate crunch time from employees. Contractors are brought on for

5698-494: Is still their primary activity they are generally described as "publishers" rather than "developers". Developers may be private as well. In the video game industry , a first-party developer is part of a company that manufactures a video game console and develops mainly for it. First-party developers may use the name of the company itself (such as Nintendo ), have a specific division name (such as Sony's Polyphony Digital ) or have been an independent studio before being acquired by

5852-474: Is usually conducted in a casual business environment, with t-shirts and sandals as common work attire. Many workers find this type of environment rewarding and pleasant professionally and personally. However, the industry also requires long working hours from its employees (sometimes to an extent seen as unsustainable). Employee burnout is not uncommon. An entry-level programmer can make, on average, over $ 66,000 annually only if they are successful in obtaining

6006-604: The AFL–CIO writing an open letter to video game developers encouraging them to unionize. In January 2020, Game Workers Unite and the Communications Workers of America established a new campaign to push for unionization of video game developers, the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE), in January 2020. Initial efforts for CODE were aimed to determine what approach to unionization would be best suited for

6160-591: The Direct3D issues in their final release, which slipped through their quality assurance testing. Spector also noted that the artificial intelligence, pathfinding, and sound propagation were designed for shooters and should have been rewritten from scratch instead of relying on the engine. He thought the licensed engine worked well enough that he expected to use the same for the game's sequel Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief 3 . He added that developers should not attempt to force their technology to perform in ways it

6314-779: The ECHELON network, Men in Black , chupacabras (in the form of "greasels" and "karkians" which in game are transgenic creatures created by genetic engineering by a corporation), and grey aliens . Mysterious groups such as Majestic 12 , the Illuminati , the Knights Templar , the Bilderberg Group , and the Trilateral Commission also either play a central part in the plot or are alluded to during

IO Interactive - Misplaced Pages Continue

6468-606: The Hitman franchise. At the same time, Hannes Seifert, who for the past three years had held the position of production director at IO Interactive, took over the company's management as studio head . At a June 2015 press conference , Sony announced that a new game in the Hitman series, simply titled Hitman , had been slated for a December 2015 release. The game was shortly delayed to March 2016, and later announced to be released in an episodic model . As such, starting in March 2016,

6622-621: The Illuminati . Deus Ex ' s gameplay combines elements of the first-person shooter with stealth elements, adventure , and role-playing genres, allowing for its tasks and missions to be completed in a variety of ways, which in turn lead to differing outcomes. Presented from the first-person perspective, the player can customize JC Denton's various abilities such as weapon skills or lockpicking, increasing his effectiveness in these areas; this opens up different avenues of exploration and methods of interacting with or manipulating other characters. The player can complete side missions away from

6776-456: The International Game Developers Association (IGDA), are conducting increasing discussions about the problem; they are concerned that working conditions in the industry cause a significant deterioration in employees' quality of life. Some video game developers and publishers have been accused of the excessive invocation of "crunch time". "Crunch time" is the point at which the team is thought to be failing to achieve milestones needed to launch

6930-516: The MSX , they became one of the earliest second-party developers for Nintendo, developing exclusively for Nintendo's consoles starting with the Famicom, though they would self-publish their mobile games. A third-party developer may also publish games, or work for a video game publisher to develop a title. Both publisher and developer have considerable input in the game's design and content. However,

7084-465: The Me Too movement and have tried to address the symptoms of these problems industry-wide, the video game industry has yet to have its Me Too-moment, even as late as 2021. There also tends to be pay-related discrimination against women in the industry. According to Gamasutra 's Game Developer Salary Survey 2014, women in the United States made 86 cents for every dollar men made. Game designing women had

7238-504: The Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) union doing work for video games struck several major publishers, demanding better royalty payments and provisions related to the safety of their vocal performances, when their union's standard contract was up for renewal. The voice actor strike lasted for over 300 days into 2017 before a new deal was made between SAG-AFTRA and

7392-572: The mechanically-augmented and ruthlessly efficient field agents Gunther Hermann and Anna Navarre; Quartermaster General Sam Carter, and the bureaucratic UNATCO chief Joseph Manderley. UNATCO communications tech Alex Jacobson's character model and name are based on Warren Spector 's nephew, Alec Jacobson. JC's missions bring him into contact with various characters, including NSF leader Juan Lebedev, hacker and scientist Tracer Tong, nano-tech expert Gary Savage, Nicolette DuClare (daughter of an Illuminati member), former Illuminati leader Morgan Everett,

7546-546: The stealth game mechanics he wished to see in Codename 47 . The game was released on 19 November 2000, with reception mixed due to the difficulty of the game. In October 2001, Eidos Interactive announced Hitman 2: Silent Assassin , a sequel to Codename 47 . Following a slight delay in March 2002, it was released in October 2002, this time for Microsoft Windows, as well as PlayStation 2 and Xbox . To more easily overcome

7700-512: The video game industry . He told the Los Angeles Times : "Someone who was part of the co-creation of that world and those characters isn't getting a credit or a nickel for the work they put into it. Maybe we need unions in the video game industry to be able to protect creators." Deus Ex (video game) Deus Ex is a 2000 action role-playing video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive . Set in

7854-417: The "real world, millennial weirdness, [and] conspiracy" topics on his mind and decided to make a game about them that would appeal to a broad audience. The Shooter design document cast the player as an augmented agent working against an elite cabal in the "dangerous and chaotic" 2050s. It cited Half-Life , Fallout , Thief: The Dark Project , and GoldenEye 007 as game design influences, and used

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8008-699: The 15th anniversary of the game's release, Square Enix (who had acquired Eidos earlier) endorsed a free fan-created mod, Deus Ex: Revision , which was released through Steam. The mod, created by Caustic Creative, is a graphical overhaul of the original game, adding in support for newer versions of DirectX , upgraded textures adapted from previous mods, a remixed soundtrack, and more world-building aesthetics. It also alters aspects of gameplay, including new level design paths and in-game architecture. Another overhaul mod, GMDX, released its final version in mid-2017 with enhanced artificial intelligence, improved physics, and upgraded visual textures. The Lay D Denton Project ,

8162-555: The Ambrosia vaccine, the treatment for the Gray Death virus. Through these missions, JC is reunited with his brother, Paul, who is also nano-augmented. JC tracks the Ambrosia shipment to a private terminal at LaGuardia Airport . Paul meets JC outside the plane and explains that he has defected from UNATCO and is working with the NSF after learning that the Gray Death is a human-made virus, with UNATCO using its power to make sure only

8316-677: The Artificial Intelligences (AI) Daedalus and Icarus, and Bob Page, owner of VersaLife and leader of Majestic 12, a clandestine organization that has usurped the infrastructure of the Illuminati, allowing him to control the world for his own ends. After completing his training, UNATCO agent JC Denton takes several missions given by Director Joseph Manderley to track down members of the National Secessionist Forces (NSF) and their stolen shipments of

8470-446: The IGDA found that people of color were both underrepresented in senior management roles as well as underpaid in comparison to white developers. Further, because video game developers typically draw from personal experiences in building game characters, this diversity gap has led to few characters of racial minority to be featured as main characters within video games. Minority developers have also been harassed from external groups due to

8624-473: The U.S. military networks, but Page counters by releasing his own AI, Icarus. Icarus merges with Daedalus to form a new AI, Helios, which can control all global communications. Savage enlists JC's help in procuring schematics for reconstructing components for the UC that were damaged during Majestic 12's raid of Vandenberg. JC finds the schematics and transmits them to Savage. Page intercepts the transmission and targets

8778-515: The Windows and Macintosh versions of the game did not include multiplayer functionality. Support for multiplayer modes was later incorporated through patches . The component consists of three game modes: deathmatch, basic team deathmatch, and advanced team deathmatch . Five maps, based on levels from the single-player portion of the game, were included with the original multiplayer patch, but many user-created maps exist, while also many features of

8932-522: The Year Edition , which was released on May 8, 2001, contains the latest game updates and a software development kit , a separate soundtrack CD , and a page from a fictional newspaper featured prominently in Deus Ex titled The Midnight Sun , which recounts recent events in the game's world. However, later releases of said version do not include the soundtrack CD and contain a PDF version of

9086-601: The Year awards, drawing praise for its pioneering designs in player choice and multiple narrative paths. Deus Ex is regarded as one of the best video games of all time . It has sold more than 1 million copies, as of April 23, 2009. The game led to a series , which includes the sequel Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003), and three prequels: Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011), Deus Ex: The Fall (2013), and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016). Deus Ex incorporates elements from four video game genres : role-playing , first-person shooter , adventure , and " immersive simulation ",

9240-535: The acquisition of Activision Blizzard , stated it supported these unionization efforts. After this acquisition, the employees of Bethesda Game Studios , part of Zenimax under Microsoft, unionized under the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in July 2024. Over 500 employees within Blizzard Entertainment 's World of Warcraft division also unionized with CWA that same month. Sweden presents

9394-572: The advent of digital distribution of inexpensive games on game consoles, it is now possible for indie game developers to forge agreements with console manufacturers for broad distribution of their games. Other indie game developers create game software for a number of video-game publishers on several gaming platforms. In recent years this model has been in decline; larger publishers, such as Electronic Arts and Activision, increasingly turn to internal studios (usually former independent developers acquired for their development needs). Video game development

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9548-522: The best game in the Hitman series. IO Interactive announced their next game, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men , in August 2006. Unlike their Hitman games, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men played as a linear, cooperative gameplay -focused third-person shooter, as opposed to Hitman 's sandbox solo stealth gameplay. Released in November 2007, the game gained mixed reviews, wherein some reviewers felt like

9702-488: The cancellation of a project that was in development for Microsoft . In May 2011, IO Interactive and Square Enix announced that they would be returning to the Hitman franchise through a new entry, Hitman: Absolution . A spin-off demo, Hitman: Sniper Challenge , was released in May 2012. Absolution was released in November that year, and, like Blood Money , saw highly positive reception from critics. However, many fans of

9856-456: The challenge of bringing the game to consoles, IO Interactive grew "considerably" in headcount. The game was received well by critics; according to Greg Kasavin in his review for GameSpot , " Hitman 2 fixes virtually all of the problems of its predecessor". The success of Silent Assassin came as a surprise to the team, and was swiftly followed up with by porting the game to GameCube the following year. In 2003, IO Interactive decided to open

10010-449: The chance to make his "dream game" without any restrictions. Preproduction for Deus Ex began around August 1997 and lasted roughly six months. The project's budget was $ 5 million to $ 7 million. The game's working title was Shooter: Majestic Revelations , and it was scheduled for release on Christmas 1998. The team developed the setting before the game mechanics . Noticing his wife's fascination with The X-Files , Spector connected

10164-431: The closest equity, making 96 cents for every dollar men made in the same job, while audio professional women had the largest gap, making 68% of what men in the same position made. Increasing the representation of women in the video game industry required breaking a feedback loop of the apparent lack of female representation in the production of video games and in the content of video games. Efforts have been made to provide

10318-706: The company went out of business before releasing it. The OpenGL layer they wrote for the port, however, was sent out to Windows gamers through an online patch. Though their quality assurance did not see major Direct3D issues, players noted "dramatic slowdowns" immediately following the launch, and the team did not understand the "black box" of the Unreal engine well enough to make it do exactly what they needed. Spector characterized Deus Ex reviews into two categories based on how they begin with either how "Warren Spector makes games all by himself" or that " Deus Ex couldn't possibly have been made by Ion Storm". He has said that

10472-416: The console manufacturer (such as Rare or Naughty Dog ). Whether by purchasing an independent studio or by founding a new team, the acquisition of a first-party developer involves a huge financial investment on the part of the console manufacturer, which is wasted if the developer fails to produce a hit game on time. However, using first-party developers saves the cost of having to make royalty payments on

10626-508: The console. This established the use of licensing fees as a model for third-party development that persists into the present. The licensing fee approach was further enforced by Nintendo when it decided to allow other third-party developers to make games for the Famicom console, setting a 30% licensing fee that covered game cartridge manufacturing costs and development fees. The 30% licensing fee for third-party developers has also persisted to

10780-404: The conversation system and user interface were flawed. The team also found augmentations and skills to be less interesting than they had seemed in the design document. In response, Harvey Smith substantially revised the augmentations and skills. Production milestones served as wake-up calls for the game's direction. A May 1998 milestone that called for a functional demo revealed that the size of

10934-485: The course of the game. The plot of Deus Ex depicts a society on a slow spiral into chaos. There is a massive division between the rich and the poor, not only socially, but in some cities physically. A lethal pandemic , known as the "Gray Death", ravages the world's population, especially within the United States , and has no cure. A synthetic vaccine , "Ambrosia", manufactured by the company VersaLife, nullifies

11088-444: The developer if the game is not meeting expectations. When each milestone is completed (and accepted), the publisher pays the developer an advance on royalties . Successful developers may maintain several teams working on different games for different publishers. Generally, however, third-party developers tend to be small, close-knit teams. Third-party game development is a volatile sector, since small developers may depend on income from

11242-417: The developers are the publisher's employees, their interests align with those of the publisher; the publisher may spend less effort ensuring that the developer's decisions do not enrich the developer at the publisher's expense. Activision in 1979 became the first third-party video game developer. When four Atari, Inc. programmers left the company following its sale to Warner Communications , partially over

11396-482: The development on the game, which would later become Hitman: Codename 47 , was the creation of the Glacier, the studio's proprietary game engine that fit their needs; co-founder Andersen stated: "Since killing was the main theme of the game, we wanted to do something special. [...] Standard 'death animations' just looked too static so some of the coders tried to see if they could use real-time inverse kinematics for

11550-419: The effects of the virus but is in critically short supply. Because of its scarcity, Ambrosia is available only to those deemed "vital to the social order ", and finds its way primarily to government officials, military personnel, the rich and influential, scientists, and the intellectual elite. With no hope for the common people of the world, riots occur worldwide, and some terrorist organizations have formed with

11704-515: The elite receive the vaccine. JC returns to UNATCO headquarters and is told by Manderley that both he and Paul have been outfitted with a 24-hour kill switch and that Paul's has been activated due to his betrayal. Manderley orders JC to fly to Hong Kong to eliminate Tracer Tong, a hacker whom Paul has contact with, and who can disable the kill switches. Instead, JC returns to Paul's apartment to find Paul hiding inside. Paul further explains his defection and encourages JC to also defect by sending out

11858-412: The engine's rendering and core functionality, they introduced role-playing elements. In 2009, a fan-made mod called The Nameless Mod ( TNM ) was released by Off Topic Productions. The game's protagonist is a user of an Internet forum, with digital places represented as physical locations. The mod offers roughly the same amount of gameplay as Deus Ex and adds several new features to the game, with

12012-467: The entertainment industry (such as films and television ) require long working hours and dedication from their employees, such as willingness to relocate and/or required to develop games that do not appeal to their personal taste. The creative rewards of work in the entertainment business attracts labor to the industry, creating a competitive labor market that demands a high level of commitment and performance from employees. Industry communities, such as

12166-453: The falling bodies. The first versions ran terribly slowly until one of the programmers figured out a way to fake the whole calculation." This led to the first use of advanced ragdoll physics in a video game. This physics system caught the eyes of British publisher Eidos Interactive , and especially staff member Jonas Eneroth , who thought that the system could greatly benefit Codename 47 's gameplay. Following six months of negotiations,

12320-660: The first season for the game was released through six episodes, the last of which was released in October 2016. Around the same time, Ryan Barnard, previously director of the game The Division , left Massive Entertainment to join IO Interactive. At the time, IO Interactive had 170 employees, and was the largest video game developer in Denmark. Seifert announced in February 2017 that he had left IO Interactive to return to his home country of Austria to pursue an unannounced project. Hakan B. Abrak, also formerly production director for

12474-572: The first video game-specific union, Game Workers Unite Australia, was formed in December 2021 under Professionals Australia to become active in 2022. In Canada, in a historic move, video game workers in Edmonton unanimously voted to unionize for the first time in June 2022. In January 2023, after not being credited in The Last of Us HBO adaptation, Bruce Straley called for unionization of

12628-430: The founders and initial staff of IO Interactive. Nordisk Film and the seven founders each held a 50% stake in the venture. By March 2004, Nordisk Film owned 40.3% in IO Interactive. Early on, IO Interactive conceptualised a fantasy massively multiplayer online game (MMO) entitled Rex Dominus , however, Nordisk Film staff asked the development team to cease production on Rex Dominus and "test [themselves]" by developing

12782-578: The future and brings the game to a close. After Looking Glass Technologies and Origin Systems released Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds in January 1993, producer Warren Spector began to plan Troubleshooter , the game that would become Deus Ex . In his 1994 proposal, he described the concept as " Underworld -style first-person action" in a real-world setting with "big-budget, nonstop action". After Spector and his team were laid off from Looking Glass, John Romero of Ion Storm offered him

12936-549: The game contains eighteen different nano-augmentations, the player can install a maximum of nine, as each must be used on a certain part of the body: one in the arms, legs, eyes, and head; two underneath the skin; and three in the torso. This forces the player to choose carefully between the benefits offered by each augmentation. For example, the arm augmentation requires the player to decide between boosting their character's skill in hand-to-hand combat or his ability to lift heavy objects. Interaction with non-player characters (NPCs)

13090-509: The game had a disconnect with modern gameplay styles. On 11 April 2008, four of IO Interactive's co-founders, Vorsholt Jørgensen, Pollas, Andersen and Guldbrandsen, announced that they had, together with former Eidos Interactive executive producer Neil Donnell, reformed Reto-Moto as an active developer. Guldbrandsen and Donnell became chief technology officer and chief executive officer , respectively. Six further IO Interactive employees followed to Reto-Moto in December that year. Co-founder and at

13244-1076: The game is well along in its development. Glacier is a proprietary in-house game engine developed for the Hitman series, Freedom Fighters , the Kane & Lynch series and Mini Ninjas . Glacier supports DLSS , XeSS and FSR . The engine supports ray tracing in Hitman 3 . Eidos-Montréal licensed Glacier for their own in-house engine, Dawn Engine . Video game developer A developer may specialize in specific game engines or specific video game consoles , or may develop for several systems (including personal computers and mobile devices ). Some focus on porting games from one system to another, or translating games from one language to another. Less commonly, some do software development work in addition to games. Most video game publishers maintain development studios (such as Electronic Arts 's EA Canada , Square Enix 's studios, Activision 's Radical Entertainment , Nintendo EPD and Sony's Polyphony Digital and Naughty Dog ). However, since publishing

13398-451: The game won over 30 "best of" awards in 2001, and concluded that their final game was not perfect, but that they were much closer for having tried to "do things right or not at all". Deus Ex was built on Unreal Engine 1 , which already had an active community of modders . In September 2000, Eidos Interactive and Ion Storm announced in a press release that they would be releasing the software development kit (SDK), which included all

13552-464: The game would have no budget, marketing, or time restraints. By mid-1998, the game's title had become Deus Ex , derived from the Latin literary device deus ex machina ("god from the machine"), in which a plot is resolved by an unpredictable intervention. Spector felt that the best aspects of Deus Ex ' s development were the "high-level vision" and length of preproduction, flexibility within

13706-405: The game's maps caused frame rate issues, which was one of the first signs that maps needed to be cut. A year later, the team reached a milestone for finished game systems, which led to better estimates for their future mission work and the reduction of the 500-page design document to 270 pages. Spector recalled Smith's mantra on this point: "less is more". One of the team's biggest blind spots

13860-404: The gaming industry, while a 2017 IGDA survey found that the female demographic in game development had risen to about 20%. Taking into account that a 2017 ESA survey found 41% of video game players were female, this represented a significant gender gap in game development. The male-dominated industry, most who have grown up playing video games and are part of the video game culture , can create

14014-525: The gaming market. Shortly after the announcement of Mini Ninjas , in April 2009, Eidos Interactive was acquired by Japanese video game conglomerate Square Enix for £84.3 million . Eidos Interactive was reorganised over the course of 2009 and became known as Square Enix Europe in November that year. Square Enix Europe continued to oversee their previously owned development studios, including IO Interactive. Speaking for IO Interactive, Karsten Lund stated that

14168-569: The high costs associated with living in Scandinavia , much of the company's graphic department had been outsourced to Shanghai . The Chinese office had been set up by two Danish representatives from IO Interactive, with one Dane permanently residing in Shanghai to look over the outsourcing progress. In March 2010, 35 of previously 200 employees were let go from the company. A further 30 people were laid off in November that year, supposedly due to

14322-457: The industry by working long hours. Because crunch time tends to come from a combination of corporate practices as well as peer influence, the term "crunch culture" is often used to discuss video game development settings where crunch time may be seen as the norm rather than the exception. The use of crunch time as a workplace standard gained attention first in 2004, when Erin Hoffman exposed

14476-431: The lack of respect that the new management gave to programmers, they used their knowledge of how Atari VCS game cartridges were programmed to create their own games for the system, founding Activision in 1979 to sell these. Atari took legal action to try to block the sale of these games, but the companies ultimately settled, with Activision agreeing to pay a portion of their sales as a license fee to Atari for developing for

14630-572: The last of which being a game where "nothing reminds you that you're just playing a game." For example, the game uses a first-person camera during gameplay and includes exploration and character interaction as primary features. The player assumes the role of JC Denton, a nanotech -augmented operative of the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO). This nanotechnology is a central gameplay mechanism and allows players to perform superhuman feats. As

14784-484: The limited choices in Suikoden inspired him to expand on the idea with more meaningful choices in Deus Ex . In early 1998, the Deus Ex team grew to 20 people, and the game entered a 28-month production phase. The development team consisted of three programmers, six designers, seven artists, a writer, an associate producer, a "tech", and Spector. Two writers and four testers were hired as contractors. Chris Norden

14938-411: The mobile games division of publisher Wargaming , in September 2017, and was renamed as Wargaming Copenhagen. In June 2013, 70 staff members, half of IO Interactive's workforce at the time, were made redundant due to "internal adjustments to face the challenges of today's market". Square Enix announced that, from that point on, IO Interactive would exclusively focus on the development of new entries in

15092-559: The movement again called out for the industry to unionize. The movement argued that Telltale had not given any warning to its 250 employees let go, having hired additional staff as recently as a week prior, and left them without pensions or health-care options; it was further argued that the studio considered this a closure rather than layoffs, as to get around failure to notify required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 preceding layoffs. The situation

15246-448: The nature of the video game culture. The industry also is recognized to have an ageism issue, discriminating against the hiring and retention of older developers. A 2016 IGDA survey found only 3% of developers were over 50 years old, while at least two-thirds were between 20 and 34; these numbers show a far lower average age compared to the U.S. national average of about 41.9 that same year. While discrimination by age in hiring practices

15400-540: The news, there have typically been followup discussions towards the potential to form a union. A survey performed by the International Game Developers Association in 2014 found that more than half of the 2,200 developers surveyed favored unionization. A similar survey of over 4,000 game developers run by the Game Developers Conference in early 2019 found that 47% of respondents felt the video game industry should unionize. In 2016, voice actors in

15554-634: The newspaper on the game's disc. Developed by Westlake Interactive, the Mac OS port was released on July 13, shipping with the same capabilities which can also be patched to enable multiplayer support. However, publisher Aspyr Media did not release any subsequent editions of the game or any additional patches. As such, the game is only supported in Mac OS 9 and the "Classic" environment in Mac OS X , neither of which are compatible with Intel -based Macs. The Windows version will run on Intel-based Macs using Crossover, Boot Camp , or other software to enable

15708-527: The player accomplishes objectives, the player character is rewarded with "skill points". Skill points are used to enhance a character's abilities in eleven different areas, and were designed to provide players with a way to customize their characters; a player might create a combat-focused character by increasing proficiency with pistols or rifles, while a more furtive character can be created by focusing on lock picking and computer hacking abilities. There are four different levels of proficiency in each skill, with

15862-432: The player's actions, such as when the player starts a conversation, engages in combat, or transitions to the next level. All the music in the game is tracked - Gabrels' contribution, "NYC Bar", was converted to a module by Alexander Brandon. Deus Ex has been re-released in several iterations since its original publication and has also been the basis of several mods developed by its fan community. The Deus Ex: Game of

16016-488: The player). Deus Ex features combat similar to first-person shooters, with real-time action, a first-person perspective, and reflex-based gameplay. As the player will often encounter enemies in groups, combat often tends toward a tactical approach, including the use of cover, strafing, and " hit-and-run ". A USA Today reviewer found, "At the easiest difficulty setting, your character is puréed again and again by an onslaught of human and robotic terrorists until you learn

16170-411: The player. Because of its design focus on player choice, Deus Ex has been compared with System Shock , a game that inspired its design. Together, these factors give the game a high degree of replayability, as the player will have vastly different experiences, depending on which methods they use to accomplish objectives. Deus Ex was designed as a single-player game, and the initial releases of

16324-694: The present, being a de facto rate used for most digital storefronts for third-party developers to offer their games on the platform. In recent years, larger publishers have acquired several third-party developers. While these development teams are now technically "in-house", they often continue to operate in an autonomous manner (with their own culture and work practices). For example, Activision acquired Raven (1997); Neversoft (1999), which merged with Infinity Ward in 2014; Z-Axis (2001); Treyarch (2001); Luxoflux (2002); Shaba (2002); Infinity Ward (2003) and Vicarious Visions (2005). All these developers continue operating much as they did before acquisition,

16478-414: The primary differences being exclusivity and financial details. Publishers tend to be more forgiving of their own development teams going over budget (or missing deadlines) than third-party developers. A developer may not be the primary entity creating a piece of software, usually providing an external software tool which helps organize (or use) information for the primary software product. Such tools may be

16632-434: The primary storyline by moving freely around the available areas, which can reward the player with experience points to upgrade abilities and alternative ways to tackle main missions. Powered by Unreal Engine 1 , the game was released for Microsoft Windows in June 2000, with a Mac OS port following the next month. A modified version of the game was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2002 as Deus Ex: The Conspiracy . In

16786-496: The prison is part of Majestic 12 , and arranges for him and Paul (if alive) to escape. JC and Paul (if alive) flee to Hong Kong to meet with Tong, who deactivates their kill switches. Tong requests that JC infiltrate the VersaLife building. Doing so, JC discovers that the corporation is the source for the Gray Death, and he can steal the plans for the virus and destroy the universal constructor (UC) that produces it. Analysis of

16940-585: The professed intent of assisting the downtrodden, among them the National Secessionist Forces (NSF) of the U.S. and a French group known as Silhouette. To combat these threats to the world order, the United Nations has expanded its influence around the globe to form the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO). It is headquartered near New York City in a bunker beneath Liberty Island , placed there after

17094-708: The project, testable "proto-missions", and the Unreal Engine 1 license. The team's pitfalls included the management structure, unrealistic goals, underestimating risks with artificial intelligence , their handling of proto-missions, and weakened morale from bad press. Deus Ex was released in North America on June 23, 2000, Australia on July 27, and the United Kingdom on August 4, 2000. and published by Eidos Interactive for Microsoft Windows . The team planned third-party ports for Mac OS 9 and Linux . The original 1997 design document for Deus Ex privileges character development over all other features. The game

17248-429: The publisher's wishes generally override those of the developer. Work for hire studios solely execute the publishers vision. The business arrangement between the developer and publisher is governed by a contract, which specifies a list of milestones intended to be delivered over a period of time. By updating its milestones, the publisher verifies that work is progressing quickly enough to meet its deadline and can direct

17402-415: The publishers. While this had some effects on a few games within the industry, it brought to the forefront the question of whether video game developers should unionize. A grassroots movement, Game Workers Unite , was established around 2017 to discuss and debate issues related to unionization of game developers. The group came to the forefront during the March 2018 Game Developers Conference by holding

17556-428: The series, including the developers at IO Interactive, felt like Absolution was leaning too far into the mainstream, as a result of which they were losing their core player base. In February 2012, Square Enix opened a new Copenhagen office under the IO Interactive name. The following March, this new office was announced to be Hapti.co, a subsidiary studio focused on mobile games . Hapti.co was sold to Wargaming Mobile,

17710-415: The simulation ultimately failed to maintain the desired level of openness, and they had to brute force "skill", "action", and "character interaction" paths through each level. Playtesting also revealed that their idea of a role-playing game based on the real world was more interesting in theory than in reality, as certain aspects of the real world, such as hotels and office buildings, were not compelling in

17864-598: The single-player game missing in multiplayer have been re-introduced by various user RPG modifications. The PlayStation 2 release of Deus Ex does not offer a multiplayer mode. In April 2014 it was announced that GameSpy would cease their masterserver services, also affecting Deus Ex . A community-made patch for the multiplayer mode has been created as a response to this. Deus Ex takes place in 2052, as it exists if real-world conspiracy theories turn out to be true. These include speculations regarding black helicopters , vaccinations , and FEMA , as well as Area 51 ,

18018-534: The skill point cost increasing for each successive level. Weapons may be customized through "weapon modifications", which can be found or purchased throughout the game. The player might add scopes , silencers , or laser sights ; increase the weapon's range , accuracy , or magazine size; or decrease its recoil and reload time; as appropriate to the weapon type. Players are further encouraged to customize their characters through nano-augmentations— cybernetic devices that grant characters superhuman powers. While

18172-519: The stories and settings of Colossus: The Forbin Project , The Manchurian Candidate , RoboCop , The X-Files , and Men in Black as reference points. The team designed a skill system that featured "special powers" derived from nanotechnological augmentation and avoided the inclusion of die rolling and skills that required micromanagement. Spector also cited Konami 's 1995 role-playing video game Suikoden as an inspiration, stating that

18326-438: The studio experienced "no loss of freedom" following the buyout. A sequel to Kane & Lynch: Dead Men , titled Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days , was announced in November 2009, and released in August 2010. Critics found that most elements in the game had deliberately been made "ugly" to better fit into the well-told story of the game. In a November 2009 interview with gaming website Gamasutra , Jørgensen revealed that, due to

18480-429: The studio to make Hitman 2 a stronger game. IO Interactive confirmed shortly after the split that all profits from 2016's Hitman would from that point go directly to the studio. In August that year, the studio confirmed that another Hitman game was in development. In April 2018, IO Interactive partnered with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) to distribute a Definitive Edition of 2016's Hitman , which

18634-420: The studio's performance in the following four years. The deal closed on 31 March that year. At the time, IO Interactive was Europe's 10th largest video game developer, with 140 staff members employed at their offices. The sale was primarily negotiated by founding member Flösser. The first game to release under Eidos Interactive's management was Hitman: Contracts , the third game in the Hitman franchise, which

18788-418: The studio, took over his duties, becoming chief executive officer . In May 2017, Square Enix announced that they had withdrawn funding from IO Interactive and would begin negotiating with potential investors that would want to purchase the studio. Several jobs were cut at IO Interactive shortly following that announcement. On 16 June 2017, IO Interactive announced that it had performed a management buyout , as

18942-545: The target of sexual harassment. This can be coupled from similar harassment from external groups, such as during the 2014 Gamergate controversy . Major investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct that went unchecked by management, as well as discrimination by employers, have been brought up against Riot Games , Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard in the late 2010s and early 2020s, alongside smaller studios and individual developers. However, while other entertainment industries have had similar exposure through

19096-453: The team only addressed this later in the project. To Spector, this was a lesson to always prefer "general solutions" over "special casing", such that the toolset works predictably. They waited to license a game engine until after preproduction, expecting the benefits of licensing to be more time for the content and gameplay, which Spector reported to be the case. They chose the Unreal engine, as it did 80% of what they needed from an engine and

19250-405: The time managing director Flösser left the company in April 2008, and was succeeded by Niels Jørgensen, who had joined the company in 2002. In January 2009, Eidos Interactive announced IO Interactive-developed Mini Ninjas , a family-friendly game, as opposed to all of the studio's previous titles. Jørgensen explained that, using Mini Ninjas , the studio wanted to reach a broader demographic in

19404-514: The time the first Bond game is released. IOI Barcelona, based in Barcelona , Spain, was announced in April 2021. The studio is to assist IOI on its active projects, including Hitman and Project 007 game. In February 2023, IO Interactive announced Project Fantasy , this new IP is set to be an online fantasy RPG, a departure from IO's Hitman games. IOI Brighton, in Brighton , England,

19558-432: The tools used to create the original game. Several team members, as well as project director Warren Spector, stated that they were "really looking forward to seeing what [the community] does with our tools". The kit was released on September 22, 2000, and soon gathered community interest, followed by the release of tutorials, small mods, up to announcements of large mods and conversions. While Ion Storm did not hugely alter

19712-484: The toxic nature of the video game culture. This racial diversity issue has similar ties to the gender one, and similar methods to result both have been suggested, such as improving grade school education, developing games that appeal beyond the white, male gamer stereotype, and identifying toxic behavior in both video game workplaces and online communities that perpetuate discrimination against gender and race. In regards to LGBT and other gender or sexual orientations,

19866-487: The use of crunch time at Electronic Arts , a situation known as the "EA Spouses" case. A similar "Rockstar Spouses" case gained further attention in 2010 over working conditions at Rockstar San Diego . Since then, there has generally been negative perception of crunch time from most of the industry as well as from its consumers and other media. Game development had generally been a predominately male workforce. In 1989, according to Variety , women constituted only 3% of

20020-409: The value of stealth." However, through the game's role-playing systems, it is possible to develop a character's skills and augmentations to create a tank -like combat specialist with the ability to deal and absorb large amounts of damage. Non-player characters will praise or criticize the main character depending on the use of force, incorporating a moral element into the gameplay. Deus Ex features

20174-508: The video game industry typically shares the same demographics as with the larger population based on a 2005 IGDA survey. Those in the LGBT community do not find workplace issues with their identity, though work to improve the representation of LGBT themes within video games in the same manner as with racial minorities. However, LGBT developers have also come under the same type of harassment from external groups like women and racial minorities due to

20328-678: The video game industry. Whereas some video game employees believe they should follow the craft-based model used by SAG-AFTRA which would unionize based on job function, others feel an industry-wide union, regardless of job position, would be better. Starting in 2021, several smaller game studios in the United States began efforts to unionize. These mostly involved teams doing quality assurance rather than developers. These studios included three QA studios under Blizzard Entertainment : Raven Software , Blizzard Albany , and Proletariat; and Zenimax Media 's QA team. Microsoft , which had previously acquired Zenimax and announced plans to acquire Blizzard via

20482-478: The virus shows that its structure was designed by the Illuminati , prompting Tong to send JC to Paris to obtain their help fighting Majestic 12. JC meets with Illuminati leader Morgan Everett and learns that the technology behind the Gray Death was intended to be used for augmentation , but Majestic 12, led by trillionaire businessman and former Illuminatus Bob Page, stole and repurposed it. Everett recognizes that without VersaLife's UC, Majestic 12 can no longer create

20636-489: The virus, and will likely target Vandenberg Air Force Base (which in real life is now a space force base), where X-51, a group of former Area 51 scientists, have built another one. After aiding the base personnel in repelling a Majestic 12 attack, JC meets X-51 leader Gary Savage, who reveals that Daedalus is an artificial intelligence (AI) borne out of the ECHELON program. Everett attempts to gain control over Majestic 12's communications network by releasing Daedalus onto

20790-689: The weapon, and the level of the "Targeting" nano-augmentation. Deus Ex features twenty-four weapons, ranging from crowbars , electroshock weapons , and riot baton , to laser-guided anti-tank rockets and assault rifles ; both lethal and non-lethal weapons are available. The player can also make use of several weapons of opportunity, such as fire extinguishers . Gameplay in Deus Ex emphasizes player choice. Objectives can be completed in numerous ways, including stealth , sniping, heavy frontal assault, dialogue, or engineering and computer hacking. This level of freedom requires that levels, characters, and puzzles be designed with significant redundancy, as

20944-504: The workforce in video games is estimated to be from contract labor. Similar to other tech industries, video game developers are typically not unionized . This is a result of the industry being driven more by creativity and innovation rather than production, the lack of distinction between management and employees in the white-collar area, and the pace at which the industry moves that makes union actions difficult to plan out. However, when situations related to crunch time become prevalent in

21098-489: The world into a Dark Age by destroying the global communications hub and preventing anyone from taking control of the world. Everett offers Denton the chance to return the Illuminati to power by killing Page and using the Area 51 technology to rule the world with an invisible hand. Helios wishes to merge with Denton and rule the world as a benevolent dictator with infinite knowledge and reason. The player's decision determines

21252-650: The years following its release, Deus Ex has received additional improvements and content from its fan community. The game received critical acclaim, including being named "Best PC Game of All Time" in PC Gamer ' s "Top 100 PC Games" in 2011 and a poll carried out by the UK gaming magazine PC Zone . Deus Ex was praised for its ambitious plot, the freedom of its immersive gameplay, world-building and diversity of character customization and choices, but its graphics and voice acting polarized critics. It received several Game of

21406-448: Was a significant design focus. When the player interacts with a non-player character, the game will enter a cutscene -like conversation mode where the player advances the conversation by selecting from a list of dialogue options. The player's choices often have a substantial effect on both gameplay and plot, as non-player characters will react in different ways depending on the selected answer (e.g., rudeness makes them less likely to assist

21560-798: Was acquired by publisher Eidos Interactive for £ 23 million in March 2004, which saw itself acquired by Square Enix and renamed as Square Enix Europe in 2009. In May 2017, Square Enix ceased funding for IO Interactive and started seeking a buyer for the studio. IO Interactive performed a management buyout in June 2017, becoming independent and regaining the rights to their Hitman and Freedom Fighters franchises. IO Interactive employs 200 people as of January 2021 and operates four subsidiary studios: IOI Malmö in Malmö , Sweden; IOI Barcelona in Barcelona , Spain, IOI Istanbul in Istanbul , Turkey, and IOI Brighton in Brighton , England. In 1997, Reto-Moto

21714-446: Was announced and released in April that year. The game was developed in about nine months, from concept stage to console submission, but was under the influence of "crunch time" throughout the entire development. Contracts received positive reception. The next game, Hitman: Blood Money , was announced shortly afterwards, in November 2004. Released in May 2006, the game was praised by critics and retrospectively multiply referred to as

21868-518: Was announced by the company in July 2023. The studio initially will support IO's Project 007 , Project Fantasy and Hitman . In 2024, IO Interactive introduced IOI Partners starting with the publication of MindsEye, a AAA title from Leslie Benzies 's Build A Rocket Boy. IOI is responsible for the game's marketing and distribution and MindsEye serves as a demonstration of the Everywhere platform. Hakan Abrak, CEO of IO Interactive, mentioned that

22022-668: Was argued to be "exploitive", as Telltale had been known to force its employees to frequently work under "crunch time" to deliver its games. By the end of 2018, a United Kingdom trade union, Game Workers Unite UK, an affiliate of the Game Workers Unite movement, had been legally established. Following Activision Blizzard 's financial report for the previous quarter in February 2019, the company said that they would be laying off around 775 employees (about 8% of their workforce) despite having record profits for that quarter. Further calls for unionization came from this news, including

22176-504: Was built using Visual Studio , Lightwave , and Lotus Notes . They also made a custom dialogue editor, ConEdit. The team used UnrealEd atop the Unreal game engine for map design, which Spector wrote was "superior to anything else available". Their trust in UnrealScript led them to code "special-cases" for their immediate mission needs instead of more generalized multi-case code. Even as concerned team members expressed misgivings,

22330-440: Was designed to be "genre-busting": in parts simulation , role-playing , first-person shooter , and adventure . The team wanted players to consider "who they wanted to be" in the game, and for that to alter how they behaved in the game. In this way, the game world was "deeply simulated", or realistic and believable enough that the player would solve problems in creative, emergent ways without noticing distinct puzzles. However,

22484-581: Was founded as a video game developer in Copenhagen . Before the studio finished any games, they struck a partnership with Danish film studio Nordisk Film in 1998 that would lead to the creation of a developer jointly owned by the two companies. The resulting company, IO Interactive, was established on 16 September 1998, with Reto-Moto's seven employees—Jesper Vorsholt Jørgensen, Rasmus Guldberg-Kjær, Martin Munk Pollas, Karsten Lemann Hvidberg, Jacob Andersen, Janos Flösser, and David Guldbrandsen—serving as

22638-448: Was made because they felt like the series needed to go on, but would be in better hands with another partner or with IO Interactive itself. IO Interactive's associate director, Eskil Mohl, said that, when Square Enix decided to withdraw from the studio, they were already working on Hitman 2 , and the job cuts were a necessary step to make sure that the studio would remain viable without Square Enix's backing; Mohl felt that this helped harden

22792-442: Was more economical than building from scratch. Their small programming team allowed for a larger design group. The programmers also found the engine accommodating, though it took about nine months to acclimate to the software. Spector felt that they would have understood the code better had they built it themselves, instead of "treating the engine as a black box " and coding conservatively. He acknowledged that this precipitated into

22946-416: Was not intended, and should find a balance between perfection and pragmatism. The soundtrack of Deus Ex , composed by Alexander Brandon (primary contributor, including main theme), Dan Gardopée ("Naval Base" and "Vandenberg"), Michiel van den Bos ("UNATCO", "Lebedev's Airfield", "Airfield Action", "DuClare Chateau", plus minor contribution to some of Brandon's tracks), and Reeves Gabrels ("NYC Bar"),

23100-425: Was praised by critics for complementing the gritty atmosphere predominant throughout the game with melodious and ambient music incorporated from a number of genres, including techno , jazz , and classical . The music sports a basic dynamic element, similar to the iMUSE system used in early 1990s LucasArts games; during play, the music will change to a different iteration of the currently playing song based on

23254-400: Was previously announced as Freedom: The Battle for Liberty Island in May 2002. Although a sequel to Freedom Fighters has been anticipated, IO Interactive has been unable to comment on whether such a game was in development. On 3 March 2004, Eidos Interactive announced that they were acquiring IO Interactive for £ 23 million in cash and stock, plus another £5 million linked to

23408-421: Was released in the following month. In June 2018, IO Interactive announced Hitman 2 . Unlike 2016's Hitman , Hitman 2 does not feature an episodic release format. Published by WBIE, Hitman 2 was released in November that year. On 16 January 2019, IO Interactive opened a subsidiary studio, IOI Malmö, in Malmö , Sweden. IO Interactive continued its partnership with WBIE and, by October 2019, had turned it into

23562-449: Was the AI programming for NPCs. Spector wrote that they considered it in preproduction, but that they did not figure out how to handle it until "relatively late in development". This led to wasted time when the team had to discard their old AI code. The team built atop their game engine 's shooter-based AI instead of writing new code that would allow characters to exhibit convincing emotions. As

23716-460: Was the lead programmer and assistant director, Harvey Smith the lead designer, Jay Lee the lead artist, and Sheldon Pacotti the lead writer. Close friends of the team who understood the intentions behind the game were invited to playtest and give feedback. The wide range of input led to debates in the office and changes to the game. Spector later concluded that the team was "blinded by promises of complete creative freedom", and by their belief that

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