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Infogrames

Infogrames

Infogrames Entertainment SA (IESA) is an international holding company headquartered in Lyon, France. It owns controlling interest in Atari, Inc., headquartered in New York, N.Y., USA, and Atari Europe. It was founded in 1983 by Bruno Bonnell and Christophe Sapet in Lyon. Through its subsidiaries, Infogrames produces, publishes and distributes interactive games for all major video game consoles and computer game platforms. According to Bonnell on a television interview, the founders used a mix-and-match computer program to suggest names for their new company, one of which was "Infogramme": a portmanteau of the French words "informatique" (information technology) and "programme" (a computer program). The final choice, "Infogrames", was a slightly modified version of that suggestion, and is properly pronounced "IN-foe-gramz" — it is unrelated to the English word "games". French Infogrames, Inc. was also the name of the official North American subsidiary of Infogrames Entertainment SA. It was founded in 1993 as GT Interactive, and purchased in 1999 by Infogrames. In 2001, Infogrames, Inc. purchased and absorbed Hasbro Interactive, which encompassed Microprose, Atari and Games.com. In 2003, Infogrames, Inc. officially changed its name to Atari, Inc. Since 1996 Infogrames/Atari has acquired many companies in the video games market. In addition to GT Interactive and Hasbro Interactive, they include: Ocean Software, Gremlin Interactive, Accolade, and Shiny Entertainment.

References


- [http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=10847&category=gamers Neowin.net] Category:Computer and video game companies Category:Companies of France

Holding company

A holding company is a company that owns enough voting stock in another firm to control management and operations by influencing or electing its board of directors. Strictly speaking, the term "holding company" might be used to describe any company that owns a majority of shares in another company. Usually, though, the term signifies a company which does not produce goods or services itself, but, rather, whose only purpose is owning shares of other companies (or owning other companies outright). Holding companies allow the reduction of risk for the owners and can allow the ownership and control of a number of different companies. Berkshire Hathaway is one of the largest publicly traded holding companies; it owns numerous insurance companies, manufacturing businesses, retailers, and other companies. Another large holding company of note is UAL Corporation, a publicly traded holding company whose only purpose is to wholly own United Airlines. Sometimes a company intended to be a pure holding company identifies itself as such by adding "Holdings" or "(Holdings)" to its name. This was spoofed by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman in their book Good Omens with the fictional company Holdings (Holdings) Incorporated.

See also


- Bank holding company
- Conglomerate (company)
- Shell corporation
- Big Brother and the Holding Company Category:Companies ja:持株会社



Atari

:For the concept Atari (当たり) in the board game of Go, see Atari (go term). Atari, Inc. is a majority owned subsidiary of Infogrames Entertainment SA (IESA), encompassing its North American operations. Atari develops, publishes and distributes games for all major video game consoles, as well as for the personal computer, and is currently one of the largest third-party publishers of video games in the United States. The company that currently bears the Atari name was founded in 1993 under the name GT Interactive. GT Interactive was acquired by IESA in 1999 and renamed Infogrames, Inc. Infogrames acquired the Atari brand name from its purchase of Hasbro Interactive, which in turn had acquired it from JTS Corporation, which the original Atari had merged with in 1996. Infogrames, Inc. intermittently used the Atari name as a brand name for selected titles before IESA official changed the subsidiary's name to Atari, Inc. in 2003. The original Atari was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and personal computers, and its dominance in those areas made it the major force in the computer entertainment industry in the early to mid-1980s. The brand has also been used at various times by Atari Games, a separate company split off in 1984.

History

1984 Since the early days of coin operated machines, Atari has been responsible for home consoles such as the Atari 2600 (VCS); produced a series of eight-bit computers (Atari 400 & 800); taken part in the 16 bit computer revolution with the Atari ST; made the revolutionary (for its time) 64-bit Atari Jaguar; and released a hand held video game console, the Atari Lynx.

The 1970s: The rise of a video game empire

Atari LynxFounded in the United States in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, Atari could be credited with starting the video arcade industry with the seminal PONG. The home version of PONG, which connected to a television set, was one of the first video game consoles. Atari Inc. was originally called Syzygy, an astronomical term. However, as there already existed at least one company with that name (accounts varying as to whether it was a candle company or roofing company), Bushnell wrote down several words from the game Go, eventually choosing Atari, which often is translated as "to inform an opposing player that he or she is in danger" [http://computermuseum.50megs.com/PONG.htm], but really means only "[this particular stone] can be taken by the opponent"; if spoken towards the opponent at all this is outdated courtesy, not "check!", which means a serious threat to the King in chess. Go has no such piece. The name "Atari" is arguably also rather more memorable in terms of spelling and pronunciation for most markets. In 1973, Atari secretly spawned a "competitor" called Kee Games, headed by long-time partner Joe Keenan, to circumvent the pinball distributor's insistence on exclusive distribution deals. Though the relationship to Atari was discovered in 1974, Joe Keenan did such a good job managing the subsidiary that he was promoted to president of Atari in 1974. Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications in 1976 for an estimated $28–$32 million, using part of the money to buy the Folgers Mansion. He departed from the division in 1979. While part of Warner, Atari achieved its greatest success, selling millions of Atari 2600 consoles. At its peak, Atari accounted for a third of Warner's annual income and became the fastest-growing company in the history of the United States (at the time).

The 1980s: Hurdles ahead

Although the Atari 2600 had garnered the lion's share of the home video game market, it experienced its first stiff competition in 1980 from Mattel's Intellivision, which featured ads touting its superior graphics capabilities relative to the 2600. Still, the 2600 remained the industry standard-bearer, due to its market superiority, and due to Atari featuring (by far) the greatest variety of game titles available. However, Atari ran into problems in the early 1980s. Its home computer, video game console, and arcade divisions operated independently of one another and rarely cooperated. Faced with fierce competition and price wars in the game console and home computer markets, Atari was never able to follow on the success of the 2600. In 1982, Atari released disappointing versions of two highly publicized games, Pac-Man and E.T., causing a pileup of unsold inventory and depressing prices. Also in 1982, Atari settled a court case with Activision, a competing game developer primarily composed of disgruntled Atari ex-employees, officially opening the 2600 to third-party development. The market quickly became saturated, depressing prices further. In addition, in December 1982, Atari executives Ray Kassar and Dennis Groth were investigated for insider trading (later found to be false). Larry Emmons, employee No.3, retired in 1982. He was head of research and development of the small group of talented engineers in Grass Valley, California. The Atari 5200 game console, released as a next-generation follow up to the 2600, was based on the Atari 800 computer (but was incompatible with Atari 800 game cartridges), and its sales never met the company's expectations. It is rumored that in 1983, in response to a massive number of returned orders from distributors, [http://www.snopes.com/business/market/atari.asp Atari buried millions of unsold game cartridges] (the bulk of them consisting of two titles, Pac-Man and E.T.) in a New Mexico desert landfill. Howard Scott Warshaw (the programmer behind E.T., Yars' Revenge, [http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=393 Raiders of the Lost Ark], and [http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=2688 Saboteur]) [http://beepbopboop.heavysixer.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=67 questions the accuracy of this urban legend.] Still, Atari held a formidable position in the world video game market. They were the number one console maker in every market except Japan, whose market belonged to Nintendo, which had released their first game console, the Famicom (known to the rest of the world as the NES) in 1983. The system took Japan by storm, and Nintendo began to look to other markets. They approached Atari and offered a licensing deal: Atari would build and sell the system, paying Nintendo a royalty. The deal was in the works, and the two companies tentatively decided to sign the agreement at the 1983 Summer CES. Unfortunately, at that same show Coleco was showing their new Adam computer, and the display unit was running Nintendo's Donkey Kong. But Atari owned the rights to publish Donkey Kong for computers. Atari CEO Ray Kassar had a fit, accusing Nintendo of double dealing with the Donkey Kong license. Nintendo in turn tore into Coleco, who only had the console rights to the game. In the coming month, Ray Kassar was forced to leave Atari, and executives involved in the Famicom deal were forced to start over again from scratch. These problems were followed by the infamous video game crash of 1983, which caused losses that totaled more than $500 million. Warner's stock price slid from $60 to $20, and the company began searching for a buyer for its troubled division. As for Nintendo, Atari could no longer afford the Famicom deal, and eventually Nintendo would be forced to go it alone. In July 1984, Warner sold the home computing and game console divisions of Atari to Jack Tramiel, the recently ousted founder of Atari competitor Commodore International, under the name Atari Corp. for $240 million in stocks under the new company. Warner retained the arcade division, continuing it under the name Atari Games and eventually selling it to Namco in 1985. Warner also sold the fledgling Ataritel to Mitsubishi. Under Tramiel's ownership, Atari Corp. used the remaining stock of game console inventory to keep the company afloat while they finished development of their 16-bit computer system the Atari ST. In 1985 they released their update to the 8-bit computer line, the Atari XE series, as well as the 16-bit Atari ST line. Then, in 1986, Atari launched two consoles designed under the Warner Atari - Atari 2600jr and the Atari 7800 console (which saw limited release in 1984). Atari rebounded, producing a $25 million profit that year. The Atari ST line proved very successful (but mostly in Europe, not the U.S.), ultimately selling more than 4 million units. It was especially popular among musicians, as it had built in MIDI ports. Still, its closest competitor in the marketplace, the Amiga, outsold it 1.5 to 1. Atari eventually released a line of inexpensive IBM PC compatibles as well as an MS-DOS compatible palm computer called the Atari Portfolio. In 1989, Atari also released the Atari Lynx, a handheld console with color graphics, to critical acclaim. However, a shortage of parts kept the system from being released nationwide for the 1989 Christmas season. As a result, the Lynx lost market share to Nintendo's Game Boy, which had only a black and white display but was widely available. Also in 1989, Atari Corp. sued Nintendo for $250 million, alleging it had an illegal monopoly. Atari lost.

The 1990s: Decline

As the fortunes of Atari's ST and PC compatible computers faded, consoles and software again became the company's main focus. In 1993, Atari released its last console, the Jaguar. After a period of initial success, it, too, failed to meet expectations. It was not nearly as powerful as Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation or Sega's Saturn and lacked the extensive third party support its Japanese competitors had easily secured for their consoles. By 1996, a series of successful lawsuits followed by profitable investments had left Atari with millions of dollars in the bank, but the failure of the Lynx and Jaguar left Atari without any products to sell. In addition, Tramiel and his family wanted out. The result was a rapid succession of changes in ownership. In July 1996, Atari merged with JTS Inc.,a short-lived maker of hard disk drives, to form JTS Corp. Atari's role in the new company largely became a holder for the Atari properties and minor support, consequently the name largely disappeared from the market. Although the original Atari ceased to exist, a large amount of underground development remains for Atari's game systems and computers of the 1970s and 1980s, and many of the retro-gaming conventions (such as World Of Atari, Classic Gaming Expo, Philly Classic, and the Midwest Gaming Classic), focus largely on Atari. There are also websites dedicated to the release of new products for the original Atari consoles and computers, such as AtariAge. In March 1998, JTS sold the Atari name and assets to Hasbro Interactive for $5 million—less than a fifth of what Warner Communications had paid 22 years earlier. This transaction primarily involved the brand and intellectual property, which now fell under the Atari Interactive division of Hasbro Interactive. The brand name changed hands again in December 2000, when French software publisher Infogrames took over Hasbro Interactive. In the meantime, Atari Games was bought out by its employees in 1986, who also founded Tengen to bring their arcade games in to the home. The new Time-Warner eventually started gaining more and more shares in the company until they eventually owned the company completely again by 1994. At that point Atari Games ceased to exist and became part of Time-Warner Interactive. By 1996, Time-Warner sold TWI to WMS Industries, Inc., owner of Midway at the time. WMS brought the properties under Midway (which it now renamed Midway Games Inc.), and re-instated the Atari Games name. In 1998, Midway was sold to its shareholders and spun off as a separate company. Over 1999-2000, Midway held closed door proceedings with Hasbro which ultimately led to Atari Games being renamed Midway Games West. Midway left the arcade industry in 2001, and shut down Midway Games West in 2003 - closing the chapter on what was left of the original Atari arcade division.

The 2000s: Revival and re-release of Atari classics

In October 2001, Infogrames announced that it was "reinventing" the Atari brand with the launch of three new games. On May 7, 2003, Infogrames officially reorganized its US subsidiary as a separate entity known as Atari, Inc. It named its European operations to Atari Europe, and kept the main holdings company as Infogrames Entertainment. 2003 In 2002, Jakks Pacific, a toy making company, released a plug-and-play video game console called the Atari 10-in-1 TV Game, believed by many to arouse interest in the concept of self-contained entertainment devices that did not require separate hardware to operate. It was battery-operated and shaped similarly to an Atari 2600 joystick, and included A/V ports. In 2004, the same company created a device called Atari Paddle Games, in the shape of one of the 2600's "paddle" controllers with appropriate titles included. However, as stated, neither of the games were directly released by Atari. 2004 The same year that the Paddle Games were released, Atari released a TV game of their own which they called the Atari Flashback Console. The device they produced looked like a minute version of the Atari 7800 console originally released in 1984, 20 years previously. The two controllers were small as well, having a joystick and two red buttons on each side. Twenty titles were built into the system. Unlike most plug-and-plays, the Flashback was not powered by batteries, but an (included) AC adaptor instead. The Flashback did fairly well in sales; however, many Atari fans felt disappointed. Many people felt that the device itself was far too small, and the joysticks felt very dissimilar to those of the 7800. Since the games were all recreated on hardware more closely resembling the Nintendo Entertainment System than the 7800, some of the aspects of certain games concerning the sound, graphics, or gameplay were either changed or omitted. Overall, many enthusiasts believed that the Flashback did not capture the true Atari experience. Due to popular demand, Atari released a new version of the Flashback console, titled Atari Flashback 2, in August 2005. Also, in late October 2005, Atari released one of two collections of its classic arcade games only for the Nokia N-Gage console, titled Atari Masterpieces. Atari Masterpieces Volume I includes classic arcade games: Asteroids, Battlezone, Black Widow, Millipede, Missile Command, Red Baron, Lunar Lander and Super Breakout, and features an exclusive interview with Nolan Bushnell. Atari Masterpieces Volume II is scheduled to be released in March 2006.

Atari’s New Titles and Direction

Recently, Atari’s top-selling titles have been the Dragon Ball Z games based on the popular anime license from Toei Animation in Japan. These include the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai series of games for next-generation console systems and the Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku series of games for the Gameboy Advance. These games have topped the best-seller charts for numerous console platforms since the release of Atari’s first Dragon Ball Z game, The Legacy of Goku in 2002, which was the first Dragon Ball game to be made by an American company, Webfoot Technologies, and is one of the best-selling Gameboy Advance games of all time (#16). The best selling Budokai series is developed in Japan by Dimps and includes Dragon Ball Z: Budokai, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi. Following the success of the Budokai and Legacy of Goku series, Atari has released numerous other Dragon Ball titles including Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors, Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors 2, Dragon Ball Z: Sagas, Dragon Ball GT: Transformation and Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout. Atari also released a series of games based on the smash-hit The Matrix movie trilogy including Enter the Matrix and The Matrix: Path of Neo. These titles represent some of the most expensive video games ever developed. Enter the Matrix which was developed by Shiny Entertainment sold 1.38 million units for the Sony Playstation 2 and therefore made the List of best selling computer and video games. Other currently popular titles for Atari include the Rollercoaster Tycoon series.

Major products

Historical


- PONG (several versions)
- Atari 2600
- Atari 5200
- Atari 7800
- Atari XEGS
- Atari Lynx
- Atari Jaguar
- Atari 8-bit family
- Atari ST, Atari STE
- Atari MEGA ST, Atari MEGA STE professional line
- Atari TT
- Atari Falcon
- Atari Transputer Workstation
- Atari Portfolio palmtop computer

Current


- Alone in the Dark
- Boiling Point: Road to Hell
- Backyard Sports
- Dragon Ball Z: Budokai
- Dragon Ball Z: Sagas
- Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors
- Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku
- Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout
- Dragon Ball GT: Transformation
- Driver
- Enter the Matrix
- Neverwinter Nights (Neverwinter Nights 2 in development)
- RollerCoaster Tycoon 3
- Test Drive
- Unreal Tournament
- Godzilla Destroy All Monsters: Melee
- Godzilla: Save the Earth
- Transformers
- Atari Flashback
- Atari Flashback 2 Category:Computer and video game companies

External links


- [http://www.atari.com/ Official worldwide Atari portal]
- [http://www.atari.com/us/ Atari North America]
- [http://www.ataricommunity.com Official Atari Forums]
- [http://www.ataritimes.com/ Atari Times], Supporting all Atari consoles.
- [http://www.atari.org/ Atari.org]
- [http://www.atariage.com/ AtariAge.com]
- [http://www.atarimuseum.com Atari Museum]
- [http://www.atarihistory.de The official site of the Atari Museum for continental Europe]
- [http://www.heartbone.com/comphist/Atari.htm heartbone.com] Condensed Atari History
- [http://movieprop.com/videogames/atari/index.htm Atari Corporate History], a site about the History of Atari from a corporate perspective
- [http://www.retromadness.com/ Computer History Museum] - Museum of home computing and gaming.
- [http://www.atari8.info/index.php?lang=en Atari XL/XE Scene Information Page] - News and infos from the Atari XL/XE fans world.
- [http://www.thedoteaters.com/play1sta2.htm Atari article on The Dot Eaters], covering the birth of Atari
- [http://www.thedoteaters.com/play3sta1.htm Atari VCS/2600 article on The Dot Eaters], early console history, including a complete history of the VCS
- [http://www.thedoteaters.com/play3sta5.htm Atari 5200/7800 article on The Dot Eaters], later pre-crash consoles, including Atari's 8-bit death throes See also: Atari Games Category:Computer and video game companies Category:Home computer hardware companies Category:1980s fads ja:アタリ (ゲーム)

USA

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded1 from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18 (although

Bruno Bonnell

Bruno Bonnell is the co-founder of video game company Infogrames. He founded Infogrames in 1983 in Lyons, France, along with Christophe Sapet. As of 2005, Bonnell was Chairman and CEO of the company, and he and Sapet together controlled about a third of its stock[http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/58/58509.html]. A stockholder vote in late 2003 showed a lack of confidence in Bonnell and some other executives after the company suffered from increasing debts and increasingly complex debt restructuring plans; Bonnell stepped down as CEO (but remained chairman and chief creative officer) in 2004. James Caparro was appointed CEO of Atari in December 2004, but resigned on 2005-06-09; Bonnell returned as an interim CEO, and remains in the position as of November 2005. [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=9423].

Video game publisher

Video game publishers are companies that publish video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer. Most video game publishers also produce and publish computer games, but the term "video game publisher" is often used generically to refer to companies that publish interactive games regardless of the target platform.

Overview

As with book publishers or publishers of DVD movies, video game publishers are responsible for their product's manufacturing and marketing, including market research and all aspects of advertising. They usually finance the game development, sometimes by paying a video game developer (the publisher calls this external development) and sometimes by paying an internal staff of developers called a studio. The large video game publishers also distribute the games they publish, while some smaller publishers instead hire distribution companies (or larger video game publishers) to distribute the games they publish. Other functions usually performed by the publisher include deciding on and paying for any license that the game may utilize; paying for localization; layout, printing, and possibly the writing of the user manual; and the creation of graphic design elements such as the box design. Large publishers may also attempt to boost efficiency across all internal and external development teams by providing services such as sound design and code packages for commonly needed functionality. Because the publisher usually finances development, it usually tries to manage development risk with a staff of producers or project managers to monitor the progress of the developer, critique ongoing development, and assist as necessary. Most video games created by an external video game developer are paid for with periodic advances on royalties. These advances are paid when the developer reaches certain stages of development, called milestones.

Business risks

As businesses go, video game publishing is risky:
- The Christmas selling season accounts for about half of the industry's yearly sales of video and computer games, leading to a concentrated glut of high-quality competition every year in every game category, all in the fourth quarter of the year.
- Product slippage is very common due to the uncertain schedules of software development. Every publisher has suffered a "false launch", in which the development staff assures the company that game development will be completed by date x, and a marketing launch is planned around that date, including advertising commitments, and then after all the advertising is paid for, the development staff announces that the game will "slip", and will actually be ready by date x plus four months. When the game finally appears, the effects among consumers of the marketing launch—excitement and "buzz" over the release of the game and an intent to purchase—have dissipated, and lackluster interest leads to weak sales. These problems are compounded if the game is supposed to ship for the Christmas selling season, but actually slips into the subsequent year.
- There is a consensus in the industry that it has increasingly become more "hit driven" over the past decade, with masses of consumers buying the game that is best in quality and best-marketed in each game genre, and, by comparison, very few buying any other games in that genre. This has led to much larger game development budgets, as every game publisher tries to ensure that its game is #1 in its category.
- When publishing for game consoles, game publishers take on the burden of a great deal of inventory risk. All significant console manufacturers since Nintendo with its NES (1985) have monopolized the manufacture of every game made for their console, and have required all publishers to pay a royalty for every game so manufactured. This royalty must be paid at the time of manufacturing, as opposed to royalty payments in almost all other industries, where royalties are paid upon actual sales of the product—and, importantly, are not payable for games that did not sell to a consumer. So, if a game publisher orders one million copies of its game, but half of them do not sell, the publisher has already paid the full console manufacturer royalty on one million copies of the game, and has to eat that cost.

Investor interest

Numerous video game publishers are traded publicly on stock markets. At present, Electronic Arts is the only third-party publisher present in the S&P 500 diversified list of large U.S. corporations.
- In the early 1990s when the introduction of CD-ROM computer drives caused some hype about a multimedia revolution that would bring interactive entertainment to the masses. All Hollywood movie studios formed "interactive" divisions to leverage their intellectual property in film in this booming new media. Most of these divisions later folded after expensively producing several games that were heavy in "full-motion video" content, but light in the quality of gameplay.
- In the United States, revenue from the sales of video and computer games exceeded revenue from film box-office receipts for the first time in the dot-com days of the late 1990s, when technology companies in general were surrounded by hype. The video game publishers did not, however, experience the same level of rise in stock prices that many dot-com companies saw. This was probably because video game publishing was seen as a more mature industry whose prospects were fairly well understood, as opposed to the typical exciting dot-com business model with unknown but possibly sky-high prospects. While many technology stocks were eventually destroyed in the dot-com crash in the early 2000's, the stock prices of the video game publishers recovered as a group; several of the larger publishers such as E.A. and Take2 achieved historical highs in the mid-2000's.

Selected video game publishers

The top 20 video game publishers, ranked by Game Developer Magazine in September 2005, in order of overall score in six factors: annual turnover, number of releases, average review score, quality of producers, reliability of milestone payments and the quality of staff pay and perks. #Electronic Arts #Activision #Microsoft Game Studios #Nintendo #Sony Computer Entertainment #Ubisoft #Konami #THQ #Sega Sammy Holdings #Take-Two Interactive #Namco #Vivendi Universal Games #Atari #SCi Games #Capcom #Square Enix #Bandai Games #Codemasters #Midway #LucasArts

Other video game publishers


- Brøderbund
- Majesco
- Disney Interactive
- Eurocom
- First Star Software
- Interplay Entertainment
- Myelin Media
- Taito

Notable former publishers


- 3DO (console manufacturer) (defunct)
- Acclaim Entertainment
- Accolade (gobbled up by Atari née Infogrames)
- Atari (console manufacturer) (acquired by Infogrames, which then renamed itself Atari)
- Coleco (console manufacturer) (defunct)
- Crystal Dynamics
- Enix (merged with Squaresoft as Square Enix)
- Epyx
- Gremlin Interactive
- GT Interactive
- Hasbro Interactive (acquired by Infogrames)
- Iguana Entertainment
- Imagic
- Infocom (acquired by Activision)
- Interceptor Micros
- Mattel Electronics (console manufacturer)
- Mattel (computer software)
- Melbourne House (computer games and books)
- Microprose (acquired by Hasbro Interactive)
- Mindscape, Inc.
- MUSE Software
- Origin Systems (acquired by Electronic Arts)
- Penguin Software
- Psygnosis
- Spectrum Holobyte (acquired by Hasbro Interactive)
- Square Electronic Arts L.L.C. (Owned by Square and Electronic Arts. Folded back into Square Soft, Inc. and changed to Square Enix, Inc.)
- Strategic Simulations, Inc. ("SSI")
- Technos Japan Corporation (defunct) (assets acquired by Atlus)
- Taxan
- US Gold
- Virgin Interactive Entertainment Some of these publishers went out of business; others were purchased or merged with a larger company, and no longer do business under this name, or they exist in name only as a brand.

See also


- Console manufacturer Category:Computer and video game development

Video game

:This article is about computer and video games. For the magazine see Computer and Video Games (magazine). Technically, a computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players may interact with in order to achieve a goal (or set of goals). A video game is a computer game where a video display is the primary feedback device. Since nearly all computer games use some sort of visual display, these terms are usually considered interchangeable, and are frequently used as umbrella terms for interactive game software. The phrase interactive entertainment is the formal reference to computer and video games. To avoid ambiguity, this game software is referred to as "computer and video games" throughout this article. However, in common usage, "computer game" refers more specifically to games played on a personal computer, while "video game" (or "videogame") actually refers to both, and "[console name] game" refers specifically to games played on a particular console.
- For specific information regarding "computer games", see personal computer game.
- For specific information regarding "console games", see console game. console game) is held every year in Los Angeles. New projects are shown every year.]]

History

The first primitive computer and video games were developed in the 1950s and 1960s and ran on platforms such as oscilloscopes, university mainframes and EDSAC computers. Arcade games were developed in the 1970s and led to the so-called "Golden Age of Arcade Games". One of the most well-known of these games is Pong. The 1970s also saw the release of the first home video game consoles. The late 1970s to early 1980s brought about the improvement of home consoles and the release of the Atari 2600, Intellivision and Colecovision. The video game crash of 1983, however, produced a dark age in the market that was not filled until the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) reached North America in 1985. The last two decades of game history have been marked by separate markets for games on video game consoles, home computers and handhelds. See the article on Console wars for additional information on that facet of game history.

The future of console gaming

The end of 2005 and first and second quarters of 2006 will see the next generation of console gaming in the form of continuing advances in processor technology, graphics technology, design innovation, and even platform specific gaming community infrastructure. Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft are all participating in this coming year's "technology race". The second generation Microsoft offering, the Xbox 360, will be powered by a multi-core CPU, the PlayStation 3 will be powered by Cell processor technology, and the Nintendo Revolution will allow the gamer to interact with the game via a wireless motion sensing controller, although full technical specifications are yet to be revealed.

Gameplay

Main article: Gameplay In computer and video gaming, gameplay (sometimes called "Game mechanics") is a general term that describes player interaction with a game. It includes direct interaction, such as controls and interface, but also design aspects of the game, such as levels. Although the use of this term is often disputed, as it is considered too vague for the range of concepts it describes, it is currently the most commonly used and accepted term for this purpose when describing video games.

Genres

Main article: Computer and video game genres Games, like most other forms of media, may be categorized into genres based on gameplay, atmosphere, and various other factors. Any individual gamer is likely to favor some types of gameplay over others, these are refered to as video game genres. The most common genres in use today include platformers, adventure, role-playing games (RPGs), first person shooters (FPS), third person shooter (sometimes called shoot 'em ups), sports, racing, fighting (sometimes called beat 'em ups), action (although this term is abused), puzzle, simulation, and real time strategy (RTS), to name a few. It is rare that a game will fall purely into one genre, most games are a combination of two or more genres (e.g action/RPG). Although most genres have 2D counterparts, they are for the most part considered entirely different genres because of the differences in the way 2D and 3D games are played (e.g. Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario 64). The increase in the popularity of online gaming has also resulted in new sub-genres being formed, such as the massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

Gaming platforms

massively multiplayer online role-playing game Today there are many different devices that games may be played on. Personal computers, consoles, handheld systems, and arcade machines are all common. There is an extremely thin line between games played on the computer and those on the console, which is a standardized computer with little or no setup. Many games intended for computer are now just as prevalent on consoles, both of which have many of the same titles. This is due to the fact that video game consoles have drastically increased in computing power and capabilities over the last few years to the point that they can handle games that were formerly only playable with comparatively higher-end computers. During the last generation of gaming, most major computer game releases have coincided with the release of console versions, and titles initially developed for a single platform are often ported to others if they prove to be successful.

Personal Computer

Main article: Personal Computer Games Personal computer games are commonly referred to as "computer games" or "PC games". They are played on the personal computer with standard