Headquarters Prague, Czech Republic Founded May 1999 | Number of employees 250 Type of business Private | |
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Industry Computer and video games
Interactive entertainment Key people Marek Španěl (CEO), Ondřej Španěl Products Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis
ARMA series
DayZ Subsidiaries Altar Games
Black Element Software
Centauri Production Video games ARMA 3, ARMA 2, DayZ, ARMA: Armed Assault, ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead Profiles | ||
Arma 3 apex sneak peek with developer bohemia interactive sponsored
Bohemia Interactive a.s (BI), also known as Bohemia Interactive Studio (BIS), is an independent developer and publisher of video games, based in Prague, Czech Republic. Founded in 1999, the company's CEO is Marek Španěl, who is also the co-owner of the company.
Contents
- Arma 3 apex sneak peek with developer bohemia interactive sponsored
- Operation Flashpoint
- Enforce game engine
- Bohemia Interactive Simulations
- Training programs
- Staff arrest on Lemnos
- References
Bohemia Interactive is a member of IDEA Games, which functions as a publisher and consultant for several independent developers.
Operation Flashpoint
Bohemia's release of Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis in 2001 into the international market won BI several prestigious awards. At London's ECTS show of 2001, BI won the "Best PC Game Developer of the Year" award. In addition, BI was also awarded "Rookie Studio of the Year" at GDC 2002.
The debut game of BI, published by Codemasters, immediately became the top selling game in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, Czech Republic and other countries. After this success BI prepared a special US version of the game which launched in September 2001 and it also became one of the best selling games in the USA.
After OFP was released, the official expansion packs came onto the game market, officially titled Red Hammer and Resistance which brought significant engine updates. The development team continued (until 2005) to support the game with regularly released upgrades and patches over the Internet.
An Xbox version of Operation Flashpoint containing both original and the resistance campaign was released in November 2005. It was released under the name Operation Flashpoint: Elite.
Enforce game engine
Enforce is a proprietary computer game engine developed by Black Element Software and now Bohemia Interactive. Enforce was used for Alpha Prime. Bohemia Interactive restarted the use of this game engine with Carrier Command: Gaea Mission in 2012. Later in 2013 it appeared again to develop Take On Mars; which was started around the time Carrier Command was released.
Enforce was originally developed by Insanity development team. They originally worked on a game called Enforce but it was later cancelled but was used as a basic for the engine. Insanity later transformed into Black Element Software and used the engine for Shade: Wrath of Angels (originally known as Nefandus). Developers compared it to Unreal Engine. The studio later used the engine for Alpha Prime and the in Carrier Command: Gaea Mission that was developed under Bohemia Interactive as Black Element Software was acquisitioned.
Bohemias latest game developed with Enforce Take On Mars released a Workbench editing suite v.0.3 allowing for the user to create any content for Take On Mars, and possibly Carrier Command: Gaea Mission .
Bohemia Interactive Simulations
Bohemia Interactive Australia (BIA) is a spinoff studio and was formed by BI and David Lagettie, where the joint development of a special military training simulation program, VBS1, began in December 2001. After thorough testing and field use (in cooperation with United States Marine Corps), VBS1 was made available in the fall of 2002 for qualified government clients and military organizations. On 21 May 2004, VBS1 underwent limited public distribution. On 14 August 2004 it was released for North America; distribution was handled by Coalescent Technologies. In 2008 most of development operations were moved to Prague, Czech Republic under newly formed Bohemia Interactive Simulations. Subsequently, BIA was integrated as Asia-Pacific arm of Bohemia Interactive Simulations and Pete Morrison, previously Lead Developer, was appointed CEO. The company was acquired by The Riverside Company, a New York-based private equity firm, in January 2013.
Training programs
Staff arrest on Lemnos
As reported by Greek media on 10 September 2012, two Czech nationals were arrested on Lemnos and charged with espionage. They claimed to be working for Bohemia Interactive collecting pictures and video footage for the development of Arma 3. The individuals, Ivan Buchta and Martin Pezlar, were confirmed employees of Bohemia Interactive, but the company officially stated that they were on the island "with the sole purpose of experiencing the island's beautiful surroundings".
According to Greek law, taking photographs et cetera of military installations is strictly prohibited for reasons of national security and that the issue of the game causing potential threats to Greek national security was brought officially to the Greek Parliament and was discussed before in 2011. After the arrest incident, Bohemia Interactive shut down access to a thread named Greek Military started on 1 August 2012, on their official forum warning them and discussing legal and other problems concerning photographing and realistically depicting Greek military installations.
As of 15 January 2013, the detained BI employees were released on bail of 5000 Euro each. The employees returned home to their families and await further legal action.