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Housemarque

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Housemarque Oy
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryVideo games
Predecessors
  • Bloodhouse
  • Terramarque
Founded19 July 1995; 29 years ago (1995-07-19)
Founders
  • Ilari Kuittinen
  • Harri Tikkanen
Headquarters
Helsinki
,
Finland
Key people
Number of employees
110 (2023)
ParentPlayStation Studios (2021–present)
Websitehousemarque.com

Housemarque Oy is a Finnish video game developer based in Helsinki. The company was founded by Ilari Kuittinen and Harri Tikkanen in July 1995, through the merger of their previous video game companies, Bloodhouse and Terramarque, both of which were founded in 1993 as Finland's first commercial developers. Housemarque is the oldest active developer in Finland and has about 110 employees as of 2023. It was acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment in June 2021, becoming a part of PlayStation Studios.

History

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Bloodhouse and Terramarque (1993–1994)

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Bloodhouse and Terramarque were founded in 1993, becoming Finland's first commercial video game developers.[1] Bloodhouse was led by Harri Tikkanen, and released their first game, Stardust in 1993, with a version updated for the Amiga 1200, titled Super Stardust, released the following year.[1] Terramarque was founded by Ilari Kuittinen and Stavros Fasoulas, and hired Miha Rinne in 1994.[1] Fasoulas, at the time, was working on a clone of Bubble Bobble titled Galactic, but failed to find a publisher, wherefore the game ended up on a covermount in British magazine The One.[1] The first game from Terramarque was Elfmania, released in 1994 to mixed reception.[1] The company started work on a second game, P.I.D. (short for Private Investigator Dollarally), to be published by Renegade Software.[1] When the Amiga was discontinued mid-development, production on P.I.D. was halted; when Terramarque members discussed whether the game should be ported to PlayStation, Fasoulas decided not to and quit game programming.[1] A demo of the game has been released, but the game itself was not finished.[1]

Formation of Housemarque and initial games (1994–1997)

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In December 1994, Kuittinen began working closely with Tikkanen, and their two companies formally merged in 1995 to form Housemarque.[1] Housemarque Oy, the legal entity, was registered on 19 July 1995.[2][3] Housemarque is the oldest active video game developer in Finland.[1] Both Bloodhouse and Terramarque were developing games for personal computers (PCs) at the time, with the joint team deciding to focus specifically on the evolving PC gaming market.[1] The company started out by freelancing, and after setting up their first office in the Punavuori area of Helsinki, started hiring employees and ceased freelance work.[1] The first PC games developed by Housemarque were the MS-DOS conversion of Bloodhouse's space shooter Super Stardust (1996), adventure game Alien Incident (1996), and shooter game The Reap (1997), all of which gained favourable reception but failed to succeed commercially.[4][5][6]

Expansion and acquisition by Sony (2014–present)

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At the end of 1997, Housemarque had just 18 employees.[7] In February 2014, Housemarque had over 50 employees.[8] In November 2017, the company announced that it would be stepping away from the arcade genre, which it had incorporated in all of its games since Super Stardust, as it was not generating enough revenue to justify developing further games in the genre.[9] The following April, it announced Stormdivers, a battle royale game, anticipating a 2019 release.[10][11] In December 2018, Housemarque's staff count was approaching 70 people.[12] Housemarque eventually put all of its in-development projects, including Stormdivers, on halt in January 2020. Instead, it shifted its focus on a project the company considered to be its most ambitious thus far and had been in pre-production for three years. At the time, Housemarque had close to 80 staff members.[13]

At the PlayStation 5 reveal event in June 2020, Housemarque announced its first AAA title, Returnal.[14] It was developed for the PlayStation 5 in April 2021,[3][15][16] with the game selling over 560,000 copies by July.[17] Returnal's commercial performance and Housemarque's increased collaboration with Sony Interactive Entertainment for this game led the latter to acquire the studio by 29 June 2021, with Housemarque becoming a part of SIE Worldwide Studios.[18] As of April 2023, the studio has 110 employees.[19] Harry Krueger, the director of Returnal who had been with Housemarque for more than 14 years, left the studio in November 2023.[20] The company intends to move to new offices of 3,000 square metres (32,000 sq ft) within Helsinki by 2024.[21]

Games developed

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Bloodhouse

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Year Title Platform(s) Publisher(s)
1993 Stardust Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS Bloodhouse
1994 Super Stardust Amiga, Amiga CD32 Team17

Terramarque

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Year Title Platform(s) Publisher(s)
1994 Elfmania Amiga Renegade Software
Cancelled P.I.D. Amiga Renegade Software

Housemarque

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Year Title Platform(s) Publisher(s)
1996 Super Stardust MS-DOS GameTek
Alien Incident
1997 The Reap Microsoft Windows Take-Two Interactive
1999 Supreme Snowboarding Infogrames
2002 Transworld Snowboarding Xbox
2005 Gizmondo Motocross 2005 Gizmondo Gizmondo
2007 Super Stardust HD PlayStation 3 Sony Computer Entertainment
2008 Golf: Tee It Up! Xbox 360 Activision
Super Stardust Portable PlayStation Portable Sony Computer Entertainment
2010 Dead Nation PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita
2011 Outland Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Ubisoft
2012 Furmins iOS, PlayStation Vita Housemarque
Super Stardust Delta PlayStation Vita Sony Computer Entertainment
Angry Birds Trilogy PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Activision
2013 Resogun PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita Sony Computer Entertainment
2015 Super Stardust Ultra PlayStation 4
2016 Alienation
2017 Nex Machina Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 Housemarque
Matterfall PlayStation 4 Sony Interactive Entertainment
2021 Returnal PlayStation 5, Microsoft Windows

Cancelled games

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  • Stormdivers

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Kuorikoski, Juho (5 June 2015). Finnish Video Games: A History and Catalog. McFarland & Company. pp. 43–44. ISBN 9781476621197.
  2. ^ "Investors". Housemarque. Archived from the original on 26 August 2018. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  3. ^ a b Schreier, Jason (29 June 2021). "Sony Buys Game Developer of PlayStation Bestseller Returnal". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 5 October 2021. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
  4. ^ JTurunen (1 April 1996). "Super Stardust – Kahdesta en luovu..." Pelit (in Finnish). Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2018.
  5. ^ Paananen, Tytti (1 August 1996). "Muukalaisten yö – Suomalaisia muukalaisia". Pelit (in Finnish). Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2018.
  6. ^ Veijalainen, Kimmo (1 October 1997). "Reap – Tuhosinfoniaa". Pelit (in Finnish). Archived from the original on 25 August 2018. Retrieved 25 August 2018.
  7. ^ "NG Alphas: Shot". Next Generation. No. 40. Imagine Media. April 1998. pp. 62–65.
  8. ^ Nichols, Derek (18 February 2014). "Know your developer: Resogun creator Housemarque". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on 21 August 2018. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  9. ^ O'Connor, Alice (1 November 2017). "Housemarque declare "arcade is dead," ditch the genre". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on 21 August 2018. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  10. ^ O'Connor, Alice (23 April 2018). "Housemarque hint at battle royale flirtation with Stormdivers". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on 21 August 2018. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  11. ^ O'Connor, Alice (21 August 2018). "Housemarque's Stormdivers is a flashy battle royale". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on 21 August 2018. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  12. ^ Kuittinen, Ilari (20 December 2018). "Jumping on the bandwagon: From 'Arcade is Dead' to AAA". Housemarque. Archived from the original on 9 May 2019. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  13. ^ Valentine, Rebekah (23 January 2020). "Housemarque puts all other projects on hold to focus on "most ambitious game to date"". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
  14. ^ Gilliam, Ryan (11 June 2020). "Resogun creators announce PlayStation 5 game, Returnal". Polygon. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  15. ^ Fingas, Jon (11 June 2020). "'Returnal' for PS5 is Housemarque's most ambitious game yet". Engadget. Archived from the original on 7 December 2020. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  16. ^ Gilliam, Ryan (28 January 2021). "PS5 exclusive Returnal delayed to April". Polygon. Archived from the original on 8 February 2021. Retrieved 22 April 2021.
  17. ^ "PlayStation 5 Surpasses 10 Million Units Sold, Remains the Fastest Selling Consolemin Sony Interactive Entertainment History" (Press release). Sony Interactive Entertainment. 28 July 2021. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 6 August 2021.
  18. ^ Leedham, Robert (29 June 2021). "Why PlayStation bought Returnal developer Housemarque: the inside story". British GQ. Archived from the original on 29 June 2021. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
  19. ^ "Speakers 2023". Reboot Develop Blue. Archived from the original on 6 April 2023. Retrieved 1 May 2023.
  20. ^ Kennedy, Victoria (20 November 2023). "Returnal director leaving Housemarque after 14 years". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 29 November 2023. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
  21. ^ McEvoy, Sophie (5 October 2023). "Housemarque is relocating within Helsinki". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on 15 October 2023. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
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