Former type Private Fate Dissolved Number of locations 3 offices (2006) Ceased operations 2006 | Industry Video game industry Defunct 2006 (2006) Number of employees 2,006 | |
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Products Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing Headquarters Santa Monica, California, United States Founded 2000, Santa Monica, California, United States Video games Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, Gettysburg: Civil War Battles | ||
Stellar stone defunct game developers in 5 games pt 56
Stellar Stone LLC, doing business as Stellar Stone Group (commonly referred to as Stellar Stone), was a video game developer founded in 2000 and based in Santa Monica, California. The company developed games offshore in Russia and Ukraine, with a small staff and low budget. The co-owner of Stellar Stone was Sergey Titov, CEO of TS Group Entertainment, who licensed his Eternity game engine to Stellar Stone in exchange for a substantial portion of the company.
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The company developed a total of seven games, most of which are little-known. Their best-known title was Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, a 2003 video game considered to be one of the worst games ever made. Every game in Stellar Stone's portfolio was published by GameMill Publishing, with the exception of their first title, Taxi Racer, which was published by BestBuys Interactive. Stellar Stone ceased operations and closed down in 2006.
History
Stellar Stone was founded in Santa Monica, California in 2000. The company was headquartered Santa Monica with management offices located in Los Angeles, Nevada and London, England. The company's development teams were stationed offshore in Russia and Ukraine. This allowed them to produce games at the cheap price of at least $15,000, compared to costs three to five times higher in price with other European or United States-based developers.
All of Stellar Stone's games were built on the Eternity game engine by Sergey Titov, CEO of TS Group Entertainment, who licensed it to Stellar Stone in exchange for a "large chunk of the company." According to Titov, the company "[wanted] to do things cheap and [was] not willing to pay even 200-300K" to create an engine on their own. Despite being the co-owner of Stellar Stone, Titov claims he "didn't have much design and development input or any power to stop [the company's games] from being released."
Stellar Stone ceased business in 2006. Referring to the company's employees and staff, Titov said "I have no idea where all these people went. Not that I care about it either." Their Internet domain, www.stellarstone.com, is no longer active, and is since being cybersquatted. Titov went on to produce and publish more games that were to be critically panned, such as Hammerpoint Interactive's The War Z, produced and published by Titov's OP Productions, which was banned from Valve Corporation's Steam just two days after its initial release.