Vicious Cycle Software
 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software & Programming |
| Headquarters | Morrisville, North Carolina |
Key people | Eric Peterson, Founder/President and CEO Wayne Harvey, Founder/VP/CTO Dave Ellis, Founder/Senior Game Designer |
| Website | www.viciouscycleinc.com |
Vicious Cycle Software is a video game development company based in Morrisville, North Carolina, United States.
History
Vicious Cycle was founded in 2000 by Eric Peterson, Dave Ellis, Marc Racine and Wayne Harvey after layoffs at the local MicroProse development studio (then a Hasbro Interactive studio) forced several game developers into finding other work. Racine resigned as Vice President and Director of Production in the Spring of 2005 to pursue other ventures. Ellis left the company in the Summer of 2000, but returned in 2005 to take a position as game designer. Vicious Cycle has released titles for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and PlayStation Portable systems as well as the Microsoft Windows platform.
In 2005, Vicious Cycle announced the opening of their Monkey Bar Games division. Monkey Bar Games is focused on providing mass-market games to gamers of all ages. Thus far, Monkey Bar Games has released video games incorporating licensed characters from Ben 10, Dora the Explorer, and Curious George. A game was also released in late 2006 to coincide with the release of the Flushed Away animated feature film.
Also in 2005, Vicious Cycle announced the release of their Vicious Engine game engine. The Vicious Engine is a complete game development middleware solution for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo GameCube, Wii, and Microsoft Windows. The Vicious Engine is one of the first game engines to offer full support for the PSP and Wii platforms.
On June 20, 2007, Vicious Cycle was acquired by D3 Publisher, making Vicious Cycle Software a subsidiary of D3Publisher of America and a second‐tier subsidiary of D3 Inc.[1] Vicious Cycle and D3Publisher released Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on February 26, 2009. On October 1, 2009, D3P and Vicious Cycle Software announced they would be bringing Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond to Xbox LIVE Arcade for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and the PlayStationStore for PlayStation3 computer entertainment system this winter.[2]
The second version of the Vicious Engine, Ve2, was released on March 25, 2009 at the Game Developers Conference. It specifically features improvements for next-gen consoles, especially the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.[3]
Products
Vicious Cycle develops Vicious Engine, a game engine, which supports a variety of game platforms. They've also developed a number of video games.
| Title | System(s) | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Robotech: Battlecry | PS2, GameCube, and Xbox | 2002 |
| Dinotopia: The Sunstone Odyssey | GameCube and Xbox | 2003 |
| Robotech: Invasion | PS2 and Xbox | 2004 |
| Spy vs. Spy | PS2 and Xbox | 2005 |
| Dora the Explorer: Journey to the Purple Planet | PS2 and GameCube | 2005 |
| Curious George | PS2, GameCube, Xbox and PC | 2006 |
| Flushed Away | PS2 and GameCube | 2006 |
| Marvel Trading Card Game | PSP and PC | 2007 |
| Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords | PSP, PS2 and Wii | 2007 |
| Dead Head Fred | PSP | 2007 |
| Ben 10: Alien Force | Wii, PS2 and PSP | 2008 |
| Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard | Xbox 360 and PS3 | 2009 |
| Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond | XBLA and PSN | 2010 |
| Despicable Me: The Game -- Minion Mayhem | PS2, PSP and Wii | 2010 |