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Croteam

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Croteam
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryVideo games
FoundedAugust 1992; 32 years ago (1992-08)
Founders
  • Davor Hunski
  • Damir Perović
  • Roman Ribarić
  • Dean Sekulić
Headquarters
Zagreb
,
Croatia
Key people
  • Roman Ribarić (CEO)
  • Davor Hunski (CCO)
  • Damjan Mravunac (CMO)
Products
Number of employees
42[1] (2022)
ParentDevolver Digital (2020–present)
Divisions
  • Croteam Incubator
  • Croteam VR
Websitecroteam.com

Croteam is a Croatian video game developer based in Zagreb. The company was established by Davor Hunski, Damir Perović, Roman Ribarić and Dean Sekulić, four former classmates, in late August 1992. Croteam is best known for Serious Sam, a series of first-person shooters introduced with Serious Sam: The First Encounter in 2001. The company also developed the 2014 puzzle game The Talos Principle and its 2023 sequel The Talos Principle 2. Croteam employed approximately 40 people in 2020 and was acquired by its long-time publishing partner Devolver Digital in October that year.

History

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Chief creative officer Davor Hunski (left) and chief technology officer Alen Ladavac at the 2015 Game Developers Conference

Croteam was founded by Davor Hunski, Damir Perović, Roman Ribarić, and Dean Sekulić.[2][3] Hunski and Ribarić were born and raised in the Utrina neighbourhood of Zagreb and initially met around age 6 at the "Mladost" primary school, which they attended for eight years.[2][4] Perović and Sekulić came from the neighbouring Sloboština [hr] and Sopot, respectively.[2] All four were in Neli Mindoljević's class during their four-year tenure at the "Nikola Tesla" high school in Zagreb, graduating as part of the school's last generation in 1991.[2][5] The brother of another classmate was the first Croat to release a commercial video game. After Hunski and Ribarić learned that the developer made a profit with his endeavour, they decided to develop games for a living.[6] In late August 1992, while studying at separate universities, Hunski and Ribarić teamed up with Perović and Sekulić to found Croteam.[2] Personal computers, such as the Amiga, were expensive at the time, wherefore the team acquired hardware from grey market, duty-free shops.[7] The company initially operated out of Ribarić's apartment in Utrina and later rented an office in the building where Hunski resided with his mother.[2][4] Both rent and hardware were financed by the parents of various employees.[7] Other team members, such as Sekulić, worked from home and shared source code with the others by exchanging floppy disks.[4] Several Croteam employees, including Hunski, were drafted for one-year military conscriptions.[7] Croteam later rented office space from the Brodarski institut [hr].[4]

Croteam's first game was a clone of Sokoban, created to demonstrate that the team could successfully complete a game.[8][9] Having finished that project, the team decided to create an association football game, which later became a clone of Sensible Soccer.[8] The game, Football Glory, entered production in late 1993 and was completed in October 1994.[10] During this time, the Croteam staff was expanded with Admir Elezović, Alen Ladavac, Tomislav Pongrac, and Marko Sekulić.[2] The game was released on 6 November 1994 for the 500, 1200 and 4000 models of the Amiga.[11][10] The company subsequently created an MS-DOS version of the game, which was released in May 1995.[10] Sensible Software, the developer of Sensible Soccer, soon threatened with legal action, wherefore Croteam ceased all development on Football Glory.[9] An indoor soccer version of Football Glory, titled Five-A-Side Soccer, was completed in 1995 and designed for the Amiga 500, 1200, and 4000 systems.[12][13] It was due to be published by Black Legend as Football Glory Indoors but the company was shut down in 1996 due to a declining Amiga games market.[14][15] The game was released by the publisher's surviving German branch in 1996 before that branch shut down as well.[15] Croteam eventually released Five-A-Side Soccer as public-domain software in March 2000.[13]

Also in 1995, the studio began work on Save the Earth, a game created for Turbo Limach Show  [hr], a Croatian children's game show by the Croatian national broadcaster, Hrvatska radiotelevizija. The game was designed for the Amiga 4000 with additional hardware. The development wrapped up in January 1996 and the game was shown on Turbo Limach Show every week between March and July 1996.[10] In mid-1996, Croteam decided that its next game would a 3D first-person shooter game with a dark, horror-themed atmosphere.[2] The company announced the game Flesh in September that year.[16] Davor Tomičić, another former classmate of the four founders, joined Croteam in late 1997.[2][5] In 1998, the theme of the game, which was now known as In the Flesh, was changed to a more bright and open environment, followed by a name change to Serious Sam the year after, upon insistence from Ribarić.[2][6] Damjan Mravunac was hired in 1999 as Croteam's composer and sound effects designer, taking over the latter occupation from Ribarić.[4] He was followed shortly by Dinko Pavičić and Petar Ivanček, completing the development team for Serious Sam.[2]

Serious Sam was released as Serious Sam: The First Encounter by Gathering of Developers in 2001, followed by Serious Sam: The Second Encounter in 2002.[2][9] Both Serious Sam games debuted on Microsoft Windows and utilised Croteam's in-house Serious Engine. In 2002, Serious Sam for the Xbox was released, which consisted of both games with the additional number of cinematics, an updated scores system, combos, multikills, auto-aiming and other console specific features.[2] A sequel, Serious Sam 2 for both PC and Xbox was released on 11 October 2005, using Serious Engine 2.[17][18]

In 2007, development began on Serious Sam 3: BFE, a prequel to the original game. In 2010, Croteam released high definition remakes of the original Serious Sam games with upgraded textures and models, enhanced engine, user interface and audio, and additional features. Serious Sam 3: BFE was released for Windows in November 2011, soon followed by macOS and Linux versions. The Xbox 360 version of Serious Sam 3: BFE was released on Xbox Live Arcade in September 2012, and later made its way to PlayStation 3 via PlayStation Network in March 2014.[2] In December 2014, Croteam released the first-person puzzle game The Talos Principle for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux.[19]

Ladavac left Croteam to join Google's Munich-based branch in October 2019 and work on the Stadia project.[20][21] By the time of Serious Sam 4's late development in 2020, Croteam employed around 40 employees.[4] On 16 October 2020, Devolver Digital acquired Croteam from Ribarić, Sekulić, Elezović, Hunski, and Tomičić.[22][23] At the time, the company comprised five legal entities—Abest d.o.o., Des informatika 2010 d.o.o., Nebo iz sna d.o.o., Nebo media d.o.o, and Plavi slon d.o.o.—which each held portions of Croteam's intellectual property. They were consolidated by merging the latter four into Abest d.o.o. on 1 April 2021, leaving the latter as the sole entity for Croteam.[22]

Croteam Incubator

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In 2015, Croteam launched Croteam Indie, a division to support small indie game development teams based in Croatia with investments and co-production. Croteam's first such co-production was Scum by Gamepires, for which a contract was signed in December 2015.[2] The division was later expanded into a business incubator programme providing teams with office space and technology, as well as occasionally financial support.[24] In March 2018, it was formally announced as Croteam Incubator, at the time with six studios based in the same Zagreb office as part of the programme.[25][26] Among the first games released under the Croteam Incubator banner were I Hate Running Backwards, Tormental, and Battle Bolts. Ribarić acts as the division's president, Nikola Mosettig as vice-president, Damjan Mravunac as chief operating officer, and Zeno Žokalj as marketing and public relations manager.[25][24]

Serious Engine

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For development of Serious Sam: The First Encounter, Croteam developed the Serious Engine (formerly named S-Cape3D), a proprietary game engine, which, while similar to other engines at the time, was designed to render large environments and support a large number of enemies visible at any time.[27] Serious Engine 2 was developed alongside Serious Sam 2, adding in support for a physics engine, refraction, detailed textures, and high dynamic range lighting.[28][29]

Serious Engine 3 was used to support the high-definition remakes of The First Encounter and The Second Encounter for release on Windows and Xbox 360, adding in true high-dynamic lighting support. As Croteam wanted to target more platforms with the release of Serious Sam 3: BFE, Serious Engine 3 was heavily reworked to support seventh-generation consoles, and became Serious Engine 3.5. With the introduction of eighth-generation consoles, Croteam continued to improve the Serious Engine, releasing it as Serious Engine 4, which premiered with The Talos Principle.[30] Serious Engine was also used in Serious Sam 4.[31]

In celebration of Serious Sam: The First Encounter's 15th anniversary in March 2016, Croteam released the source code for the final version of the first iteration of Serious Engine, version 1.10, under the GNU GPL-2-0-only.[32] For The Talos Principle 2, Croteam replaced Serious Engine with Unreal Engine 4, ultimately switching to Unreal Engine 5. The company's lead programmer Goran Adrinek described this in October 2023 as a "permanent transition" away from Serious Engine, which he said could not quickly be expanded with the features of Unreal Engine 5.[33]

Games developed

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Year Title Platform(s) Publisher(s)
1994 Football Glory Amiga, MS-DOS Black Legend
1996 Save the Earth Amiga —
Five-A-Side Soccer Black Legend
2001 Serious Sam: The First Encounter Windows, Xbox Gathering of Developers, Gotham Games
2002 Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
2005 Serious Sam 2 2K Games
2009 Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Stadia, Windows, Xbox 360, Xbox One Devolver Digital
2010 Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter
2011 Serious Sam 3: BFE Linux, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Stadia, Windows, Xbox 360, Xbox One
2014 Sigils of Elohim Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows
The Talos Principle Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Stadia, Windows, Xbox One
2017 Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter Linux, Windows
Serious Sam VR: The Second Encounter
Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope Windows
The Talos Principle VR Linux, Windows
Serious Sam 3 VR: BFE
2020 Serious Sam 4 PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
2023 The Talos Principle 2 PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S

Games co-produced

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Year Title Platform(s) Developer(s) Ref.
Cancelled Evil's Doom Amiga Olympia Software [11]
1994 Embryo Beyond Arts [11]
1995 Inordinate Desire MS-DOS Virtual Arts [11]
2018 I Hate Running Backwards Linux, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One Binx Interactive
2019 Battle Bolts Windows Shot Second
Unity of Command II 2x2 Games
2020 The Hand of Merlin Room-C Games
2022 Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S Timelock Studio [34]
Serious Sam: Tormental Windows Gungrounds
TBA Scum Gamepires

References

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  1. ^ "Annual Report and Consolidated Financial Statements for the year ended 31 December 2022" (PDF). Devolver Digital. 3 May 2023. Archived (PDF) from the original on 18 August 2023. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "About Croteam". Croteam. 2020. Archived from the original on 11 September 2020. Retrieved 11 September 2020.
  3. ^ Jensen, K. Thor (24 September 2020). "How Serious Sam Paved the Way for Global Game Development". PCMag. Archived from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Serious Sam – Behind the Schemes (Croteam). Devolver Digital. 23 September 2020. Archived from the original on 13 December 2021. Retrieved 6 December 2020 – via YouTube.
  5. ^ a b Smolčić Krnić, Roksanda (June 2007). X. gimnazija "Ivan Supek" – Ljetopis (in Croatian). X. gimnazija "Ivan Supek". pp. 174, 219. Archived from the original on 22 March 2021. Retrieved 6 December 2020.
  6. ^ a b Countdown to Serious Sam 4: The Curious Path to Serious Sam 4 (Croteam). Devolver Digital. 17 September 2020. Archived from the original on 13 December 2021. Retrieved 6 December 2020 – via YouTube.
  7. ^ a b c Countdown to Serious Sam 4: Against All Odds (Croteam). Devolver Digital. 20 August 2020. Archived from the original on 13 December 2021. Retrieved 6 December 2020 – via YouTube.
  8. ^ a b Behind the Schemes: Croteam (Serious Sam & The Talos Principle). Devolver Digital. 6 October 2017. Archived from the original on 13 December 2021. Retrieved 6 December 2020 – via YouTube.
  9. ^ a b c Varney, Allen (25 October 2005). "Serious Cro". The Escapist. p. 1. Archived from the original on 7 September 2019. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  10. ^ a b c d "Games". Croteam. 1998. Archived from the original on 21 January 1998.
  11. ^ a b c d "Croteam". Croteam. 1998. Archived from the original on 21 January 1998.
  12. ^ Pedišić, Renato (3 December 2012). "RETRO DOZA #40 – Poznata hrvatska nogometna videoigra – Football Glory" [RETRO DOSE #40 – Famous Croatian football video game – Football Glory]. HCL (in Croatian). Archived from the original on 17 April 2021. Retrieved 6 December 2020.
  13. ^ a b "Who Is Croteam?". Croteam. 2001. Archived from the original on 12 July 2001.
  14. ^ "Wheelspin". The One Amiga. No. 84. EMAP. October 1995. p. 22.
  15. ^ a b Crookes, David (8 August 2019). "From the Archives: Black Legend". Retro Gamer. No. 197. Future Publishing. pp. 50–53.
  16. ^ "Croteam Announces Flesh!". Croteam. 7 September 1996. Archived from the original on 21 January 1998.
  17. ^ Calvert, Justin (23 September 2003). "Serious Sam 2 development update". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 22 September 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  18. ^ Sinclair, Brendan (27 September 2005). "Serious Sam sequel locked and loaded". GameStop. Archived from the original on 21 September 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  19. ^ Matulef, Jeffrey (4 November 2014). "The Talos Principle gets a December release date on Steam". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 27 December 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  20. ^ Taylor, Haydn (4 October 2019). "Croteam co-founder leaves for Google Stadia". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on 4 October 2019. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  21. ^ McAloon, Alissa (4 October 2019). "Croteam co-founder Alen Ladavac departs studio to join Google's Stadia team". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on 6 October 2019. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  22. ^ a b "Devolver Digital, Inc. | AIM Admission Document | November 2021" (PDF). Devolver Digital. 4 November 2021. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 November 2021. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  23. ^ Chalk, Andy (21 October 2020). "Devolver Digital acquires Serious Sam developer Croteam". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 20 March 2021. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
  24. ^ a b Raknić, Damjan (24 April 2018). "Što hrvatskim stvarateljima video igara značI konferencija Reboot Develop – Mogućnost da igru pokažu poznatim dizajnerima neprocjenjiva je" [What the Reboot Develop conference means to Croatian video game creators – The ability to show the game to famous designers is invaluable]. Jutarnji list (in Croatian). Archived from the original on 12 September 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  25. ^ a b "Croteam Incubator is now officially a thing!". Croteam. 29 March 2018. Archived from the original on 30 August 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  26. ^ Heaslip, Stephen (29 March 2018). "Croteam Incubator Hatches". Blue's News. Archived from the original on 30 August 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  27. ^ Mosettig, Nikola; Manansala, Lee (27 December 2018). "War Stories: Serious Sam almost didn't happen—until crates saved the day". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  28. ^ 1UP Staff (11 October 2005). "Serious Sam II Review for PC". 1Up.com. Archived from the original on 4 June 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  29. ^ Bramwell, Tom (1 August 2003). "Croteam working on Serious Sam 2". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 28 September 2018. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  30. ^ Peel, Jeremy (10 June 2014). "Serious-face Sam: Croteam are making a first-person puzzle game called The Talos Principle". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on 28 September 2018. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  31. ^ Martin, Matt (20 June 2018). "Serious Sam 4 has 100,000 enemies on screen, a 128km map, and 16-player co-op". VG247. Archived from the original on 28 September 2018. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  32. ^ Matulef, Jeffrey (17 March 2016). "Serious Sam's engine is now available to all". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 28 September 2018. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  33. ^ Crecente, Brian (18 October 2023). "Inside Croteam's transition from in-house tech to UE5 for The Talos Principle 2". Unreal Engine. Archived from the original on 24 October 2023. Retrieved 24 October 2023.
  34. ^ Croteam. "A joint effort by Timelock Studio and yours truly". Twitter. Retrieved 14 May 2022.
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