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118-620: Jagex Limited is a British video game developer and publisher based at the Cambridge Science Park in Cambridge , England. It is best known for RuneScape and Old School RuneScape , both free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing games . The company's name is derived from the company's original slogan, " Ja va G aming Ex perts". In addition to RuneScape , Jagex has released multiple casual games on its FunOrb portal , as well as other titles. Jagex

236-593: 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

354-455: A tie-in video game on its maker's other website, FunOrb , Armies of Gielinor , and the novels Betrayal at Falador , Return to Canifis and Legacy of Blood . Players are represented in the game with customisable avatars . RuneScape does not follow a linear storyline; rather, players set their own goals and objectives. Players can choose to fight non-player character (NPC) monsters, complete quests , or increase their experience in

472-696: A "small software company based in England who specialise in producing top-quality Java-games for webpages." That same year they began work on the MMORPG RuneScape , which was released in January 2001. In December 2001, Andrew Gower, Paul Gower, and Constant Tedder launched Jagex in its current incarnation, with Tedder as its CEO . Jagex formally acquired the Jagex name from Andrew Gower in 2001. RuneScape grew dramatically; one year after its release over

590-764: A $ 500 million investment in Citigroup by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal , a member of the Saudi royal family . Carlyle developed a reputation for acquiring businesses related to the defense industry. In 1992, Carlyle completed the acquisition of the Electronics division of General Dynamics Corporation, renamed GDE Systems, a producer of military electronics systems. Carlyle would sell the business to Tracor in October 1994. Carlyle acquired Magnavox Electronic Systems ,

708-488: A $ 7.5 billion buyout of QwestDex, the third-largest corporate buyout since 1989. QwestDex's purchase occurred in two stages: a $ 2.75 billion acquisition of assets known as Dex Media East in November 2002 and a $ 4.30 billion acquisition of assets known as Dex Media West in 2003. R. H. Donnelley Corporation acquired Dex Media in 2006. Shortly after Dex Media, other larger buyouts would be completed, signaling

826-570: A 5.5% holding in Carlyle's management company for $ 175 million. The investment was valued at about $ 1 billion by 2007 at the height of the 2000s buyout boom. In September 2007, Mubadala Development Company , an investment vehicle for the government of Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates , purchased a 7.5% stake for $ 1.35 billion. In February 2008, California legislators targeted Carlyle and Mubadala, proposing

944-479: A bill that would have barred CalPERS from investing money "with private-equity firms that are partly owned by countries with poor records on human rights." The bill, which was intended to draw attention to the connection between Carlyle and Mubadala Development, was later withdrawn. In May 2012, Carlyle completed an initial public offering of the company, listing under the symbol CG on the NASDAQ . The firm, which at

1062-463: A controlling interest in the company. However, in an interview, Gerhard stated that Insight took their 55% stake 13 months prior in December 2010. On 11 September 2014, Mark Gerhard announced his resignation from Jagex by 2015. On 2 April 2015, Rod Cousens was appointed CEO of Jagex following his departure from Codemasters. In July 2016 Jagex was purchased by Hongtou, a Chinese investment company, which

1180-452: 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

1298-421: A deal for an undisclosed amount, which The Daily Telegraph estimated was greater than the $ 530 million Macarthur had paid for it previously. After announcement of this, Plutos Sama Holdings filed a legal complaint asserting that the sale of Jagex from Shanghai Hongtou to Macarthur was invalid due to past issues over business dealings with Shanghai Hongtou. Plutos Sama stated in their complaint they had put in

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1416-571: 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

1534-410: 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

1652-403: 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

1770-406: 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

1888-472: A hi-scores page for the players who donated. For every 10 million gold pieces from the community, Jagex donated $ 2 to a range of charitable causes. In July 2014, Jagex helped raise awareness about the illegal poaching of black and white rhinos by adding rhinoceros pets and trivia questions to RuneScape . This campaign was partnered with United for Wildlife. Jagex raised over £445,000 in 2020, focusing on mental health and diversity and inclusion. Jagex own

2006-675: A major customer, began dropping sharply. In addition, in the recession of 2008–2009, Freescale's chip sales to automakers fell off, and the company came under great financial strain. Earlier that year, in January 2006, Carlyle together with Blackstone Group , AlpInvest Partners , Hellman & Friedman , KKR and Thomas H. Lee Partners acquired Nielsen Company , the global information and media company formerly known as VNU in an $ 8.9 billion buyout. Also in 2006, Carlyle acquired Oriental Trading Company which ultimately declared bankruptcy in August 2010 as well as Forba Dental Management,

2124-438: A million free accounts had been registered. The game was originally supported by advertisements, however, the dot-com bubble meant that there were fewer advertisers. The new company created a paid version of the game with extra features, to support hosting costs and continued development. The pay-to-play version of RuneScape was released on 27 February 2002. It gained 2,000 subscribers in the first hour and 5,000 subscribers in

2242-446: A poll to determine the level of support for releasing this game passed 50,000 votes (totaling 449,351 votes), followed by a free-to-play version on 19 February 2015. Old School RuneScape receives regular content updates, which must be voted on by its players before they can be added to the game. On 17 July 2017, Jagex announced the development of a mobile version of Old School RuneScape . On 16 September 2015 Jagex released DarkScape ,

2360-437: 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

2478-547: A resurgence in private equity. Lou Gerstner , former chairman and CEO of IBM and Nabisco , replaced Frank Carlucci as chairman of Carlyle in January 2003. Gerstner would serve in that position through October 2008. The hiring of Gerstner was intended to reduce the perception of Carlyle as a politically dominated firm. At the time, Carlyle, which had been founded 15 years earlier, had accumulated $ 13.9 billion of assets under management and had generated annualized returns for investors of 36%. Carlyle also announced

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2596-649: 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,

2714-453: A sandbox building tactical first-person shooter (FPS) game went into closed beta. On 5 March 2015, Jagex announced that Block N Load would be released for PC on 30 April 2015. FunOrb was a casual gaming site created by Jagex. Launched on 27 February 2008, it was the company's first major release after RuneScape . All of the games were programmed in Java. FunOrb was permanently shut down on

2832-445: A separate version of RuneScape which featured open-world player versus player combat. DarkScape was originally released with most of RuneScape's content, but received separate content updates. DarkScape was completely free to play, with some additional benefits reserved for paying subscribers. On 29 February 2016 it was announced that DarkScape would close on 28 March due to lack of interest. On 11 December 2014, Block N Load ,

2950-1785: A series of leveraged buyout and growth capital investment funds with specific geographic or industry focuses. Carlyle invests primarily in the following industries: aerospace , defense & government services, consumer & retail, energy, financial services, health care , industrial, Real Estate , technology and business services , telecommunications & media , and transportation . Carlyle's Corporate Private Equity segment advises 23 buyout and 10 growth capital funds, with $ 75 billion in Assets Under Management ("AUM") as of March 31, 2018. Carlyle's Real Assets segment advises 11 U.S. and internationally focused real estate funds, two infrastructure funds, two power funds, an international energy fund, and four Legacy Energy funds (funds that Carlyle jointly advises with Riverstone). The segment also includes nine funds advised by NGP. The Real Assets segment had about $ 44 billion in AUM as of March 31, 2018. Carlyle's Global Credit segment advises 53 funds that pursue investment opportunities across distressed and special situations, direct lending, energy credit, loans and structured credit and opportunistic credit. The Global Credit segment had about $ 34 billion in AUM as of March 31, 2018. Carlyle's Investment Solutions segment advises global private equity through its subsidiary, AlpInvest Partners . AlpInvest manages fund of funds programs and related Co-investments and Secondary investments across more than 340 fund vehicles. The Investment Solutions segment has approximately $ 63 billion of assets under management as of December 31, 2022. AlpInvest Partners

3068-407: 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

3186-446: A sole bid to acquire Hongtou, including Jagex, around August 2020, but this deal never was complete, but as it should have gone through, they are the rightful owners of Jagex. In July 2022, Jagex acquired US games company Pipeworks Studios . In December 2022, Jagex acquired Croatian studio Gamepires, which was best known for developing Scum . In February 2024, CVC Capital Partners Fund VIII and Haveli Investments purchased Jagex from

3304-403: 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

3422-535: A subadvisor to the Carlyle Group's $ 776 million buyout fund focused on South America. In March 2022, the Carlyle Group acquired Dainese - an Italian motorcycle kit and clothing company from Investcorp . Following this in May 2022, the Carlyle Group announced the acquisition deal of US government contractor for cyber security and IT defence, ManTech International . The deal, worth $ 3.9 billion, will include

3540-697: 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

3658-412: A wholly-owned subsidiary. In October 2017, the Carlyle Group announced that its founders would remain executive chairmen on the board of directors but step down as the day-to-day leaders of the firm; they named Glenn Youngkin and Kewsong Lee to succeed them, as co-CEOs, effective January 1, 2018. In October 2017, the Carlyle Group made a $ 500 million investment in the brand Supreme valuing

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3776-482: 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,

3894-449: 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

4012-533: 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

4130-472: Is one of the largest private equity investment managers globally with over $ 63 billion under management as of December 31, 2022, invested alongside more than 325 private equity firms. Founded in 2000, AlpInvest had historically been the exclusive manager of private equity investments for the investment managers of two of the world's largest pension funds Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP (ABP) and Stichting Pensioenfonds Zorg en Welzijn (PFZW), both based in

4248-494: 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

4366-474: 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

4484-604: 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

4602-530: The Flash -based War of Legends , the company name was said to stand for "Just About the Game Experience". As RuneScape gained users, Jagex grew. By 11 December 2003, RuneScape had 65,000 paying members, and Jagex had 29 employees. On 4 May 2007, RuneScape had over 6,000,000 active free accounts and over 1,000,000 active pay-to-play subscribers. By July 2012, Jagex had over 500 employees. Initially,

4720-456: 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

4838-516: 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,

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4956-528: 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

5074-494: The Netherlands . In 2011, Carlyle acquired AlpInvest and has integrated the business, including its leading fund-of-funds and secondary platforms, significantly expanding Carlyle's global asset management business. Since its acquisition in 2011, AlpInvest has grown its investor base from its two original Dutch pension sponsors to more than 450 institutional investors globally. AlpInvest pursues investment opportunities across

5192-775: The New York Stock Exchange in December 2001, then sold the rest of the stock in April 2004. In more recent years, Carlyle has invested less in the defense industry. Carlyle's 2001 investor conference took place on September 11, 2001. In the weeks following the meeting, it was reported that Shafiq bin Laden , a member of the Bin Laden family , had been the "guest of honor", and that they were investors in Carlyle-managed funds. Later reports confirmed that

5310-504: 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

5428-552: 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." The Carlyle Group The Carlyle Group Inc. is an American multinational company with operations in private equity , alternative asset management and financial services . As of 2023,

5546-424: The $ 1.6 billion acquisition of Hawaiian Telcom from Verizon in May 2004. Carlyle's investment was immediately challenged when Hawaii regulators delayed the closing of the buyout. The company also suffered billing and customer-service issues as it had to recreate its back-office systems. Hawaiian Telcom ultimately filed for bankruptcy in December 2008, costing Carlyle the $ 425 million it had invested in

5664-458: The $ 27.5 billion (including assumed debt) acquisition of Kinder Morgan , one of the largest pipeline operators in the US. The buyout was backed by Richard Kinder , the company's co-founder and a former president of Enron . In September 2006, Carlyle led a consortium, comprising Blackstone Group , Permira and TPG Capital , in the $ 17.6 billion takeover of Freescale Semiconductor . At

5782-450: The 7th of August 2018. The site was mainly targeted towards the "hard casual", "deep casual" or "time-pressured" gamer market. 8Realms was an HTML-based empire-building massively multiplayer online strategy game developed by Jagex. It was the company's first internally developed MMORTS , and second published MMORTS after War of Legends . The 8Realms closed beta was released on 5 May 2011; players were given advanced access to

5900-643: The Bin Laden family had invested $ 2 million into Carlyle's $ 1.3 billion Carlyle Partners II Fund in 1995, making the family relatively small investors with the firm. However, their overall investment might have been considerably larger, with the $ 2 million committed in 1995 only being an initial contribution that grew over time. These connections would later be profiled in Michael Moore 's Fahrenheit 9/11 . The Bin Laden family liquidated its holdings in Carlyle's funds in October 2001, just after

6018-574: The Carlyle Group acquired a majority stake in Jagex , a British video game development studio known for the massively multiplayer online game RuneScape . In May 2021, the Carlyle Group entered a partnership agreement with SPX Capital to enter the Brazilian market. The Carlyle Group's employees would join SPX Capital to establish its private equity strategy. SPX Capital would also become

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6136-512: The Carlyle Group acquired a majority stake in Minneapolis-based sanitizing machine maker Victory Innovations. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. At the end of September 2020, Youngkin retired from the firm, stating his intention to focus on community and public service efforts; this left Lee as sole CEO. Youngkin would later go on to be elected Governor of Virginia in the state's 2021 gubernatorial election. In January 2021,

6254-515: The Carlyle Group for £910 million. Since 2004 Jagex has made donations to a number of national and international charities, as well as running charity auctions for signed merchandise. Jagex has donated artwork and prizes to the MMO Calendar, which raises funds for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital . In 2013, Jagex introduced the "Well of Goodwill" to RuneScape , which allowed players to gift in-game items or wealth to charity, featuring

6372-446: 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

6490-467: The September 11 attacks, when the connection of their family name to the Carlyle Group's name became impolitic. Buyouts declined after the collapse of the dot-com bubble in 2000 and 2001. But after the two-stage buyout of Dex Media at the end of 2002 and 2003, large multibillion-dollar U.S. buyouts could once again obtain high-yield debt financing and larger transactions could be completed. Carlyle, together with Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe , led

6608-510: The United States, Europe , Asia and Latin America . Metropolitan was sold in 2021 to BentallGreenOak . Carlyle has been actively expanding its investment activities and assets under management through a series of acquisitions and joint-ventures. In March 2008, Carlyle Capital Corporation – established in August 2006 for the purpose of making investments in U.S. mortgage-backed securities – defaulted on about $ 16.6 billion of debt as

6726-535: 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

6844-572: 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

6962-429: The available skills. Players interact with each other through trading, chatting , or by participating in mini-games and activities, some of which are competitive or combative in nature, while others require cooperative or collaborative play. Old School RuneScape is a separate incarnation of RuneScape released on 22 February 2013, based on a copy of the game from August 2007. It was opened to paying subscribers after

7080-596: The business. Carlyle was founded with $ 5 million of financial backing from T. Rowe Price , Alex. Brown & Sons , First Interstate Equities, and the Richard King Mellon family. In the late 1980s, Carlyle raised capital deal-by-deal to pursue leveraged buyout investments, including a failed takeover battle for Chi-Chi's . The firm raised its first dedicated buyout fund with $ 100 million of investor commitments in 1990. In its early years, Carlyle also advised in transactions including, in 1991,

7198-541: The closed beta by invitation and through the game's Facebook page. On 28 May 2012, Jagex announced they were closing the game, stating that "it has become clear that the game doesn't meet our high expectations for success." On 11 October 2012 Jagex announced it was developing a racing game on Facebook called Carnage Racing . The game runs on the Unity game engine and was released in November 2012. Jagex announced Chronicle: RuneScape Legends at RuneFest 2014 for launch in

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7316-431: 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

7434-427: The coming year. It allows players to build their own adventure with cards using characters from RuneScape . On 25 November 2015 Chronicle entered closed beta, and it was released on Steam on 26 May 2016. On 8 May 2018, it was announced that the game would be removed due to "multiple technical issues" combined with a dwindling player base. The servers for the game remained running until 6 August 2018. War of Legends

7552-515: The company at $ 1 billion. In 2020, the investment was acquired by VF Corporation , which owns The North Face , Timberland , and Vans for $ 2.1 billion. On October 14, 2019, the Carlyle Group and private equity firm Stellex Capital Management announced it had completed the acquisition and merger of shipbuilder Vigor Industrial LLC, Portland, Ore., and MHI Holdings LLC, a ship repair and maintenance company based in Norfolk, Va. The terms of

7670-546: The company had $ 426 billion of assets under management. Carlyle specializes in private equity , real assets , and private credit . It is one of the largest mega-funds in the world. In 2015, Carlyle was the world's largest private equity firm by capital raised over the previous five years, according to the PEI 300 index. In the 2024 ranking however, it had slipped to sixth place. Founded in 1987 in Washington, D.C. ,

7788-490: The company has nearly 2,200 employees in 28 offices on four continents as of December 2023 . On May 3, 2012, Carlyle completed a US$ 700 million initial public offering and began trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Carlyle was founded in 1987 as an boutique investment bank by five partners with backgrounds in finance and government: William E. Conway Jr. , Stephen L. Norris , David Rubenstein , Daniel A. D'Aniello and Greg Rosenbaum . The founding partners named

7906-551: The company was self-funded; however, in October 2005, Jagex received an investment from Insight Venture Partners . On 23 October 2007, Geoff Iddison, former European REO of PayPal , replaced Constant Tedder as CEO. Iddison resigned as CEO in January 2009, replaced by Mark Gerhard, who had been Jagex CTO before his appointment. Jagex became a member of the United Kingdom's game developer trade body, TIGA , on 15 April 2009. Richard Wilson, TIGA's CEO, described Jagex as "one of

8024-540: The company's first HTML based game, was designed to work on the iPad . On 14 March 2011, Jagex announced a partnership with Hasbro to create a Transfomers Universe MMO based on the Transformers intellectual property that was due to launch in North America, Latin America, Europe, New Zealand and Australia in 2013. The game entered open beta on 4 July 2014, but it was announced on 16 December 2014 that

8142-526: The company. As the activity of the large private equity firms increased in the mid-2000s, Carlyle kept pace with such competitors as KKR , Blackstone Group , and TPG Capital . In 2005, Carlyle, together with Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and Merrill Lynch completed the $ 15.0 billion leveraged buyout of The Hertz Corporation , the largest car rental agency from Ford . The following year, in August 2006, Carlyle and its Riverstone Holdings affiliate partnered with Goldman Sachs Capital Partners in

8260-416: 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

8378-508: 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

8496-483: The deal were not disclosed. On June 2, 2020, the Carlyle Group and T&D Holdings reported that they had concluded their purchase of a 76.6% stake in Fortitude Group Holdings, the latter of which comprises Fortitude Re, and American International Company Inc. Also in June 2020, Unison had been purchased by the Carlyle Group and Unison management strategic investment company. In September 2020,

8614-444: 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

8732-417: 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

8850-467: 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

8968-570: The entire spectrum of private equity including: large buyout , middle-market buyout , venture capital , growth capital , mezzanine , distressed and sustainable energy investments. New York , Amsterdam , London , Hong Kong , San Francisco , Indianapolis , Singapore and Tokyo with over 100 investment professionals and over 175 employees. Carlyle had previously acquired a real estate fund of funds group, Metropolitan Real Estate, to provide investors with access to multi-manager real estate funds and strategies with more than 85 fund managers in

9086-480: The external development studio. On 10 May 2011 Jagex announced that it was working with the New York-based children's media company Herotainment to publish a new browser-based game called Herotopia , which was released on 25 May. According to Jagex the game will be a "virtual world which provides kids with a fun and enjoyable experience they can make their own." The game is now closed. On 1 November 2012 it

9204-677: The firm after the Carlyle Hotel in New York City (named for Thomas Carlyle ) where Norris and Rubenstein had planned the new investment business. Rubenstein, a Washington -based lawyer, had worked in the Carter Administration . Norris and D'Aneillo had worked together at Marriott Corporation ; Conway was a finance executive at MCI Communications . Rosenbaum left in the first year and Norris departed in 1995. Rubenstein, Conway and D'Aneillo remain active in

9322-453: The firm to buyout shares at $ 96 a share, representing a 32% premium to ManTech's closing price on February 2, 2022. The acquisition aimed to increase the firms steady stream of recurring revenue. In August 2022, the Carlyle Group acquired Abingworth , a transatlantic bioscience investment firm. In November 2022, it was announced the Carlyle Group has acquired the international marketing agency, Incubeta. In February 2023, Harvey Schwartz

9440-516: 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

9558-451: The first week, making it one of the largest Java pay-to-play games in the world at the time. In 2007, RuneScape achieved one million subscribers; 11 years after launch, the company touted 200 million accounts. Until the release of War of Legends in 2010, the company used the slogan "Java Gaming Experts" as it had only produced games written in Java up to that point. Following the launch of

9676-501: The forced liquidation of mortgage-backed assets caused by the Carlyle margin calls and other similar developments in credit markets, on March 11, 2008, the Federal Reserve gave Wall Street's primary dealers the right to post mortgaged-back securities as collateral for loans of up to $ 200 billion in higher-grade, U.S. government-backed securities. On March 12, 2008, BBC News Online reported that "instead of underpinning

9794-599: The formation of a new Mediterranean-focused oil and gas company, led by former BP CEO Tony Hayward , after acquiring Energean 's assets in Egypt, Italy, and Croatia for up to $ 945 million. For the first 25 years of its existence, Carlyle operated as a private partnership controlled by its investment partners. In 2001, the California Public Employees' Retirement System ( CalPERS ), which had been an investor in Carlyle managed funds since 1996, acquired

9912-451: The game would be cancelled and the beta shut down on 31 January 2015. Stellar Dawn was an upcoming browser-based sci-fi themed MMORPG under development by Jagex. Originally known as MechScape , the project was scrapped and renamed after it was decided that the completed project did not meet the standards of the original design brief . The project was overhauled and formally announced as Stellar Dawn on 14 July 2010 when Jagex released

10030-404: 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

10148-429: The global credit crunch brought about by the subprime mortgage crisis worsened for leveraged investors. The Guernsey -based affiliate of Carlyle was very heavily leveraged, up to 32 times by some accounts, and it expected its creditors to seize its remaining assets. Tremors in the mortgage markets induced several of Carlyle's 13 lenders to make margin calls or to declare Carlyle in default on its loans. In response to

10266-457: 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

10384-431: 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

10502-645: The military communications and electronic-warfare systems segment of Magnavox, from Philips Electronics in 1993. Carlyle sold Magnavox for about $ 370 million to Hughes Aircraft Company in 1995. Carlyle also invested in Vought Aircraft through a partnership with Northrop Grumman . Carlyle's most notable defense industry investment came in October 1997 with its acquisition of United Defense Industries . The $ 850 million acquisition of United Defense represented Carlyle's largest investment to that point. Carlyle completed an IPO of United Defense on

10620-472: The mortgage-backed securities market, it seems to have had the opposite effect, giving lenders an opportunity to dump the risky asset" and that Carlyle Capital Corp. "will collapse if, as expected, its lenders seize its remaining assets." On March 16, 2008, Carlyle Capital announced that its Class A Shareholders had voted unanimously in favor of the Corporation filing a petition under Part XVI, Sec. 96, of

10738-537: The most successful game developers in the world, not just the UK. Jagex has developed extraordinarily popular games and is at the leading edge in terms of online safety and security." In December 2010 The Raine Group and Spectrum Equity Investors invested in the company, while Insight increased their investment. Andrew Gower, Paul Gower, and Constant Tedder left the board of directors at that time. In January 2012, Insight increased its stake in Jagex from 35% to 55%, giving it

10856-559: 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

10974-448: 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

11092-540: 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

11210-513: The official Stellar Dawn website. On 10 August 2010 the first official Stellar Dawn teaser was released. The game was slated for a 2011 launch, but in March 2012 Jagex announced that development had been paused in favour of Transformers Universe and RuneScape . RuneScape: Idle Adventures was an idle game set in the RuneScape universe developed by Hyper Hippo Productions . A closed beta

11328-473: The owner of Small Smiles Dental Centers , the largest US chain of dental clinics for children. In 2011, Carlyle acquired AlpInvest Partners in a joint venture with the firm's management, entering into a new line of business managing fund of funds, secondary investments and co-investments. Two years later, in 2013, Carlyle acquired the remaining ownership stake in AlpInvest after which that business became

11446-694: 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,

11564-414: 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

11682-429: 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

11800-415: 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

11918-511: The rights to the online space warfare game, Planetarion . They have done so since 2010, but have little to do with the game despite making big promises to the community following their acquisition of the IP. They license out the IP to a third party who continue to develop the game with the community. Planetarion has been going since 1999 and has a loyal player base. RuneScape is a fantasy MMORPG released in January 2001 by Andrew and Paul Gower. It

12036-545: 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

12154-541: The time managed about $ 147 billion of assets, raised $ 671 million in the offering. Following the IPO, Carlyle's three remaining founding partners, Rubenstein, D'Aniello and Conway retained the position as the company's largest shareholders. In June 2017, Carlyle took its non-traded BDC, TCG BDC, Inc., public in the first business development company IPO since 2014. The firm is organized into three business segments: Carlyle's Corporate Private Equity division manages

12272-405: The time of its announcement, Freescale would be the largest leveraged buyout of a technology company ever, surpassing the 2005 buyout of SunGard . The buyers were forced to pay an extra $ 800 million because KKR made a last-minute bid as the original deal was about to be signed. Shortly after the deal closed in late 2006, cell phone sales at Motorola Corp., Freescale's former corporate parent and

12390-484: 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,

12508-487: 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

12626-508: 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

12744-678: 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

12862-504: 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

12980-466: Was an MMORTS set in a world of ancient Chinese mythology , which was released on 19 January 2010. It was Jagex's first MMORTS, the company's first externally developed game, the first game published by Jagex not to be written in Java, and the company's first microtransactional game. The game was shut down on 22 December 2014, and on 29 January 2015 Jagex announced that the game would not come back online due to security issues that could not be resolved by

13098-496: Was announced that Jagex would publish the sandbox game Ace of Spades . The game was released on Steam on 12 December 2012. The game's servers were shut down on 6 March 2019. On 1 July 2021, Jagex announced it was publishing a loot shooter called Space Punks , developed by games studio Flying Wild Hog . It launched in early access on the Epic Games Store on the 14 July. On 21 October 2021, Jagex announced it

13216-651: Was appointed CEO of the group, replacing Kewsong Lee, who left the position abruptly the previous summer following a power struggle with the co-founders. In 2023, the Carlyle Group has invested in Anthesis Group a premier provider of sustainability services for businesses. In September 2023, it was announced Carlyle initiated a tender offer to acquire the Tokyo -headquartered paper and ink chemicals manufacturer, Seiko PMC from its parent company DIC Corporation for $ 221 million. In June 2024, Carlyle announced

13334-724: 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

13452-756: Was opened on Steam on 23 April 2016, then was subsequently shutdown on 15 May 2017 due to lack of users. 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

13570-637: Was originally a graphical browser game implemented on the client-side in Java , and incorporates 3D rendering . The game has over 200 million registered accounts, and is recognised by the Guinness World Records as the world's most popular free-to-play MMORPG. RuneScape takes place in the world of Gielinor, a medieval fantasy realm divided into different kingdoms, regions, and cities. Each region offers different types of monsters, resources, and quests to challenge players. The game's fictional universe has also been explored through

13688-432: Was owned by U.S. investors between 2012 and 2016, by Chinese investors from 2016 to 2020, by Macarthur Fortune Holding LLC in 2020, by The Carlyle Group from 2020 to 2024, and is presently owned by CVC Capital Partners . After initially creating the Jagex name and logo for their projects, brothers and computer programmers Andrew Gower and Paul Gower began trading under the Jagex name in 1999, describing Jagex Software as

13806-492: Was publishing a Runescape -inspired idle game called Melvor Idle . The game is being developed in partnership with its previous solo developer Brendan Malcolm, of Games By Malcs. It left early access a month prior to the partnership announcement. Jagex released its first mobile game, Bouncedown , for the iPhone and iPod Touch on 3 December 2009, followed by StarCannon on 15 April 2010, Miner Disturbance on 8 June 2010, and Undercroft on 23 September 2010. 8Realms ,

13924-486: Was subsequently acquired by Zhongji Holdings, which later changed its name to Fukong Interactive Entertainment. Jagex remained under Hongtou within Fukong's structure until it was sold to Macarthur Fortune Holding, a US-based asset management company, in April 2020 for $ 530 million . Phil Mansell became Jagex' CEO in January 2017. The Carlyle Group acquired a majority stake in the firm in January 2021 from Macarthur in

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