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Team17

Coordinates: 53°39′50″N 1°30′13″W / 53.663862°N 1.503660°W / 53.663862; -1.503660
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Team17 Digital Ltd
Company typePrivate limited company
IndustryVideo game industry
Founded1990
HeadquartersWakefield, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom
ProductsVideo games
Number of employees
~75[1]
Websiteteam17.com

Team17 Digital Ltd, founded as 17-Bit Software and later named Team17 Software Ltd, is a British video game developer. They are best known for creating the Worms and Alien Breed video game series. Most of their early releases were on the Amiga home computer system and featured trademark smooth scrolling, and detailed cartoonish art. Team17 now develops for Microsoft Windows, Android, iOS and video game consoles.

History

The company was originally called 17-Bit Software, which grew out of the Microbyte retail chain in 1987, and specialised in cataloguing, producing and publishing an Amiga public domain software library.[2] 17-Bit Software was controversial as it sold demos from the Amiga demoscene which were not released as public domain, without having any agreements with the demo groups, or attempting to reimburse them as most were busy with pirate games BBS. Having said this, the early 17 Bit Software Club was actually submission based since internet was not about for most people. Cracktro intros for the early intro packs largely submitted by the coders in 1988. The intro disk later saw the start of the Amiga mega demo to some extent. During the formation of Team17, Martin Brown actively recruited coders and artists from the Amiga demo scene, to program games for Team17. Few demo disks were ever sold, most sales were made for freeware games and utility disks such as the virus checkers.

In 1990, a group of developers called Team 7[3] approached 17-Bit to publish their new game. They combined to form Team17,[4] and in 1991 published the fighting game Full Contact for the Amiga. Team17's intention was to produce a game that made use of the Amiga's unique capabilities and was not just a port of an Atari ST game. Team17 then went on to develop further Amiga games, including Alien Breed, Body Blows, Assassin, Project-X and Superfrog. Team17 also published titles in the UK for other developers such as AUDIOS and Eclipse UK. Almost all early titles were the result of liaising with freelance developers; there were few in-house developers.

File:Team 17 logo.png
Team17's Amiga era logo

In 1995, Team17 entered into an agreement with Ocean Software whereby Ocean would co-publish Team17's titles worldwide. The first title to be released under this agreement was Alien Breed 3D for the Amiga and Amiga CD32 systems. The second title was Worms, Team17's biggest success to date, and Team17's first multiple format release; the game was published in late 1995 and early 1996 for the Amiga, PC MS-DOS, Apple Macintosh, PlayStation, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Atari Jaguar, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Sega Saturn, with a version planned for release on the Virtual Boy, although this was cancelled following the poor release of the console in Japan. Worms outsold FIFA 96 and Tomb Raider, topped the UK all-formats video game chart and won several awards. Team17 developed several of the console ports themselves, the others were produced by East Point Software.

File:Team17logo2006.jpg
Logo used on all games from Worms 3D to Worms Crazy Golf

Since the release of Worms, the franchise has gone on to be very successful, selling over 12 million units worldwide. This all-platform success contributed towards Team17's decision to cease publishing Amiga titles in 1997, as the platform had long been in a state of decline. They released Worms: The Director's Cut exclusively on the Amiga as a swan song. Team17 then focused on the PC market, releasing titles such as Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy (although this game was then adapted and released for the Amiga by ClickBoom) and Addiction Pinball, although they also produced some console-exclusive titles such as X2.

In 2003, Team17 released Worms 3D for the PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube, the first title in the franchise that brought the game into three dimensions. Team17 went on to release Worms 4: Mayhem in 2005 for PC, PS2 and Xbox. For the handheld DS and PSP consoles, Team17 developed Worms: Open Warfare in 2006, and Worms: Open Warfare 2 in 2007, both published by THQ. Team17 brought Worms to Xbox Live in 2007, this new release being largely based on Worms: Open Warfare, but featuring online multiplayer and downloadable content; this game also made it to the PlayStation Network in 2009 with some additional content.

Team17 developed not only their own titles during the 2000s, but also wrote games for other publishers' franchises. They made Army Men: Major Malfunction in 2006, ported Lemmings to the PSP, and created Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust in 2009. During this period, they were also short-listed for the "British developer of the year" by The Golden Joystick Awards.[5] In 2009, Team17 returned to their own franchise with the launch of Alien Breed Evolution for the Xbox Live Arcade,[6] later ported to the PlayStation Network and the PC under the new title Alien Breed: Impact. In 2010, Team17 released Worms Reloaded and Worms: Battle Islands for Wii and PSP was announced with THQ. In 2013, Team17 released Worms 2: Armageddon on Google Play for Android.[7]

Team17 is still an independent games studio with dozens of staff members. This makes it one of the longest surviving independent developers, now into its 35th year.

Games

Canceled games

  • King of Thieves an action game described as a pirate-themed variation of Alien Breed.
  • Witchwood, an action-adventure game in the style of The Legend of Zelda or Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse about a young hero's quest to destroy an evil witch.[8][9]
  • Worms Battle Rally, an entry in the Worms series that was in development from 2003 to 2004.[10]

Amiga Power dispute

During the 1990s, Team17 had a feud with gaming magazine Amiga Power. Amiga Power had a fairness policy of giving a 50% score to an average game, instead of 73% to keep game producers happy,[11] a practice the company saw as inherently wrong. Team17 put several easter eggs in their games. For example, typing "AMIGAPOWER" into Alien Breed 2 would display a message criticising Amiga Power's review policy;[12] computer players at the easiest difficulty setting in Arcade Pool, F17 Challenge and Kingpin: Arcade Sports Bowling were named after Amiga Power staff members.[12] Two of Amiga Power former writers, Stuart Campbell and Jonathan Nash, claim that a Team17 staff member made allegations of bribery and corruption in French magazine Amiga Concept.[13] Team17 refused to supply review copies of games to Amiga Power, even demanding reviewers at its sister magazine Amiga Format sign declarations stating that they would not share their review copies with Amiga Power.[12] In response to Amiga Power reviews of Kingpin and ATR: All Terrain Racing, Team17 filed a libel action demanding the magazine stop "lying about their games".[14]

References

  1. ^ "Team17 About Us". Team17. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  2. ^ "Amiga PD-disks".
  3. ^ "Miami Chase - Amiga Game / Games - Download ADF, Music - Lemon Amiga".
  4. ^ "Team 7 - Team17 - English Amiga Board".
  5. ^ "Golden Joysticks UK Developer Of The Year: Team17". Edge Online.
  6. ^ "Exclusive: All New Alien Breed Confirmed".
  7. ^ Team17 Digital Limited. "Worms 2: Armageddon - Android Apps on Google Play".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ "Secret Service Magazine (May 1995)".
  9. ^ "PC.Games.N029.1995.02-fl0n".
  10. ^ "Worms Battle Rally [PS2 XBOX GC - Cancelled]". Unseen 64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!.
  11. ^ http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/ap2/info/marks.html
  12. ^ a b c http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/ap2/dissent/vendetta.html
  13. ^ http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/ap2/mags/concept.html
  14. ^ http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/ap2/dissent/Team17_lawsuit.html
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