Type Private Founded 1999 | Industry Video game industry Founder Ed Del Castillo | |
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Key people Ed Del Castillo, Holly Newman Products Battle Realms, LotR: War of the Ring, D&D: Dragonshard, Desperate Housewives: The Game, Rise of the Argonauts, Thor: God of Thunder, Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter, Deadline Hollywood: The Game, Instant Jam, Paper Galaxy, etc. Headquarters Pasadena, California, United States Video games Battle Realms, Rise of the Argonauts, Battle Realms: Winter of t, Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard, The Lord of the Rings: War of th | ||
History of liquid entertainment
Liquid Entertainment is a small American independent video game developer based in Pasadena, California. The studio was co-founded in 1999 by Ed Del Castillo and Michael Grayford, and is led by president Del Castillo and CEO Holly Newman.
Contents
Overview
Liquid’s first game was Battle Realms, published by Crave Entertainment and Ubisoft in November 2001 to critical acclaim. Battle Realms is a real-time strategy PC game for Windows that features an unconventional approach to resource management and unit development. It was well received by reviewers, many of whom praised its at-the-time state of the art 3D engine and East Asian-inspired setting and aesthetics but sale numbers were disappointing. It was nominated in the Best PC Strategy game of 2002 by The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, but did not win and was chosen for Computer Gaming World's Top 10 Games of E3 2001. Battle Realms was followed up with a stand-alone expansion pack, Battle Realms: Winter of the Wolf in April 2002. Winter of the Wolf was received with less enthusiasm than Battle Realms by the gaming community; some reviewers compared it unfavorably to 2002's blockbuster real-time strategy titles Warcraft III and Age of Mythology.
Since the release of Winter of the Wolf, Liquid has developed two real-time strategy PC games based on intellectual property licenses: In November, 2003, Sierra released The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring, based on Vivendi Universal's license to Tolkien's literary works, and in October 2005 Atari published the Dungeons & Dragons PC game Dragonshard. Dragonshard has since been re-released on GOG.com.
In October 2006, Buena Vista Games released Desperate Housewives: The Game, a life simulation computer game adaptation of the popular television series Desperate Housewives. Desperate Housewives: The Game won PC Gamer Adventure Game of the Year for 2007. Many reviewers praised it as a well-written and faithful adaption of the television series although it did not do well commercially.
Liquid’s next game Rise of the Argonauts, released in December 2008 and published by Codemasters, is a Greek mythology-themed action role-playing game for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 that was very poorly received for its technical problems, derivative art direction and repetitive gameplay. In 2011 Sega published Liquid’s second console game for Xbox 360 and PS3 Thor: God of Thunder that coincided with Marvel Studios’s release of the film Thor in May 2011.
In 2012 Liquid pivoted into developing casual games for Facebook. They are InstantJam, a music rhythm game for Facebook, Deadline Hollywood: Game based on the popular Hollywood news blog Deadline.com by Nikki Finke and Paramount Digital Entertainment for Facebook and iOS and Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter, a turn based strategy game published by Atari on Facebook.
Later in 2013 and 2014 they continued their pivot into mobile games with titles like Karateka (console and mobile), Cuddle Pets, Paper Galaxy, and Max Steel. By the end of 2014, Ed & Holly decided to downsize Liquid to it's current position as a holding company and consultancy; selling off some of it's holdings, licensing some of its technology, and keep the rest for future opportunities.
Liquid currently manages a number of properties that are available online and has Battle Realms greenlit on Steam. They are looking for the right team to finish the conversion and launch it.