Stellar Stone
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| Former type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer games |
| Founded | Santa Monica, California (2000) |
| Defunct | Santa Monica, California (2006)(Disbanded) |
| Headquarters | Santa Monica, California, United States |
| Area served | United States |
| Key people | Sergey Titov (Co-owner)[1] |
| Products | Taxi Racer, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, Midnight Race Club: Supercharged! |
Stellar Stone was a video game developer founded in 2000 and based in Santa Monica, California. The company published their first game, Taxi Racer, in 2000, but were best-known for developing Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, a 2003 video game considered to be one of the worst games ever made.
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[edit] History
Stellar Stone was founded in Santa Monica, California, in 2000.[2] The company was headquartered in the city, with management offices in Los Angeles and London.[2] The company's developers were stationed in Russia[2] and Ukraine.[1] This allowed Stellar Stone to produce games at the cheap price of at least $US 15,000, compared to costs three to five times higher in price with other European or United States-based developers.[2]
Stellar Stone's first title, Taxi Racer, released exclusively in Europe in 2001, was published by European company Best Buys Interactive;[3] the game's engine was developed by Sergey Titov of TS Group Entertainment, who developed his engine for Stellar Stone in exchange for a substansial portion of the company.[1]
The company ceased business in 2006.[1] Their Internet domain, Stellarstone.com, appears to no longer be active, and is now commercially cybersquatted.
Although the domain Stellarstone.com is closed, fans of the company and Stellar Stone's infamous Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing video game have made a site with the domain Stellarstone.org. The site is a blogspot site and has a web forum and IRC chat network. Even though this site is not official, some people are taking it seriously by leaving hostile comments in the sites blog posts.
[edit] Games
Stellar Stone developed a total of eight known games,[4] including three games based on the American Civil War. These games were all produced by the US-based company GameMill Publishing, with the exception of Taxi Racer, which was produced by Best Buys Interactive. All of the games developed by the company used the proprietary game engine Eternity, developed by company co-owner Sergey Titov of TS Group Entertainment.[1] Their best-known release was the infamous Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, which received overwhelmingly negative review scores for being "blatantly unfinished in nearly every way".[5] The game was a pre-alpha release[1] and, despite Stellar Stone's release of a patch, is still considered to be of very poor quality.[6]
[edit] Reception
Reception and critique for the company of Stellar Stone has generally been negative, mainly due to the company's release of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing,[7] which received almost unanimously negative reviews from critics,[7] being named "the worst game ever made",[8] "only good as a joke",[9] and "completely broken and blatantly unfinished in nearly every way."[10] Brad Hicks of SwankWorld stated, "What was Stellar Stone thinking when they gave the go ahead to release this game? Do they have any quality assurance at all? This game is an embarrassment to them, as well as the people who produced it. Their website claims to "provide our clients with best of gaming technologies and cut their development expenses, allowing them to concentrate on product rather than on technology hustles of development." Looks like nobody concentrated on the product on this go around. I don't know what kind of money there were going to lose if they gave the game more development time so they could crank out something of even middling quality. People say PC gaming is dead, and games like this are starting to prove that."[11]
The game has been consistently listed among the worst video games of all-time by GameSpot,[12] Metacritic,[13] and GameRankings.[14][15] Despite poor reception, sales for the company have been moderate;[12][1] Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing sold approximately 20,000 copies,[12] while Gettysburg: Civil War Battles and Ultimate Civil War Battles: Robert E. Lee vs. Ulysses S. Grant, combined, sold over 100,000 copies in the United States.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Q and A with Sergey Titov". you'rewinner.com. 2008-09-21. http://www.yourewinner.com/index.php?action=stitovinterview. Retrieved 2010-05-04.
- ^ a b c d "Stellar Stone LLC :: Company". Stellar Stone. Archived from the original on 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20040415033140/stellarstone.com/company.html. Retrieved 2010-04-23.
- ^ "Taxi Racer for PC - Technical Information, Game Information, Technical Support". GameSpot. 2010-06-09. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/driving/taxiracer/tech_info.html?tag=tabs%3Bsummary. Retrieved 2010-06-09.
- ^ Stellar Stone LLC catalogue listing on Milkportal.org
- ^ GameSpot.com review of Big Rigs, Jan 15 2004
- ^ Big Rigs Patch release at GameSpot
- ^ a b "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/bigrigsovertheroadracing. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ Satterfield, Shane (2004-03-23). "Games You Should Never Buy". X-Play. Archived from the original on 2005-04-06. http://web.archive.org/web/20050406001445/http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/features/484/Games_You_Should_Never_Buy.html. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ Wadleigh, Matt (2004-03-22). "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing Review - PC". Thunderbolt Games. http://www.thunderboltgames.com/reviews/viewreview.php?rid=381. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ Navarro, Alex (2004-01-14). "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing for PC Review". GameSpot. http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/driving/bigrigsotrr/review.html. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ Hicks, Brad. "Big Rigs Over the Road Racing (PC) Review". SwankWorld. http://www.swankworld.net/Games/PC/bigrigs/bigrigsreview.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ a b c "Flat-Out Worst Game". GameSpot's Best and Worst of 2004. GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/bestof2004/day3w_12.html.
- ^ "Search Results from Metacritic.com". The Worst Games of Metacritic. Metacritic. http://apps.metacritic.com/search/process?ty=3&ts=&tfs=game_all&sb=4&release_date_s=&release_date_e=&metascore_s=1&metascore_e=100&x=11&y=8. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing". GameRankings. http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/919220-big-rigs-over-the-road-racing/index.html. Retrieved 2009-05-31.
- ^ [1]
