- Source: Gamescience
- Source: Game Science
Gamescience is an American game company that produces role-playing games and game supplements.
History
Gamescience Corp. was started by Phillip E. Orbanes in 1965. In that year, the company published the wargame Vietnam which was reviewed in issue #4 of Strategy and Tactics (S&T) magazine. In 1967 the company published another wargame which Mr. Orbanes designed called Confrontation, which was reviewed in S&T issue #6. In 1968, the company published the wargame, The Battle of Britain designed by Lou Zocchi, which was reviewed in S&T #13. The company was sold before Mr. Orbanes left college.
Gamescience was founded by Lou Zocchi.
Gamescience published the board game The Battle of Britain (1968), the wargames MiG Killers (1977), and Strike Team Alpha (1978), and the role-playing games Star Patrol (1977; originally called Space Patrol), Superhero: 2044 (1977), the second edition of Empire of the Petal Throne (1984), and TWERPS (1987).
Gamescience also produces dice, including several types of nonstandard dice.
References
Game Science Interactive Technology Co., Ltd. (Chinese: 游戏科学; pinyin: Yóuxì Kēxué) is a Chinese video game development and publishing company, best known for its first internationally released AAA game, Black Myth: Wukong (2024). It is headquartered in Shenzhen with an additional office in Hangzhou.
History
In 2014, Game Science was founded in Shenzhen by seven ex-Tencent Games employees. They had previously worked on a free-to-play MMORPG called Asura Online which was based on The Legend of Wukong, an online novel adapted from Journey to the West.
Game Science released the mobile games 100 Heroes and Art of War: Red Tides before they started the development of Black Myth: Wukong in 2018. The decision to develop an AAA game, according to operations director Lan Weiyi, came after the realization that there were more Steam users from China than the US. Game Science decided to have a team focused on mobile games and a team focused on single-player games. The Black Myth project's development team moved from Shenzhen to Hangzhou due to "slower pace and lower living costs".
In August 2020, Game Science released the first trailer of Black Myth: Wukong as a way to recruit more talent for the company. At the time, the game's development team had 30 members. Due to the trailer going viral, Game Science received over 10,000 resumes. Some were from AAA gaming companies with candidates even from outside of China who were willing to apply for a Chinese working visa at their own cost. A day after the trailer's release, there were people showing up at the door of the company asking for a job. The development team expanded to 140 employees according to the game's credit list.
The South China Morning Post reports that Hero Games acquired a 19% stake in Game Science through its wholly-owned subsidiary Tianjin Hero Financial Holding Technology in 2017, but sold the stake in 2022 with payment partly outstanding. When asked about their ownership and relationship by VentureBeat, Hero Games' Dino Ying said that he could not comment on that. As reported in March 2021, Tencent increased its stake in Game Science to 5%. They aimed to help their former employees on some projects, but committed to not interfering with the operation and decision-making of Game Science.
In 2023, IGN released a report that alleged a history of sexism within the company, included screenshots of personal posts by company figures on Chinese social media and suggestive 2015 company hiring posters as evidence. Chinese outlets HK01 and GameLook criticized IGN's report, saying that the article uses examples taken out-of-context and vulgar but not sexist. HK01 reported that the posts had been mistranslated and that the anonymous criticism quoted by the article can not be verified. Game Science declined to address questions about the allegations. Hero Games CEO Dino Ying commented that Game Science tries not to get into distractions.
Black Myth: Wukong sold 20 million units in its first month, making it one of the fastest-selling games of all time.
Games and products
References
External links
Official website