GT Interactive Entertainment - Press News

GT INTERACTIVE LAUNCHES CAVEDOG ENTERTAINMENT, NEW INTERNAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT STUDIO

Cavedog To Create Premier Interactive Entertainment Led By Award-Winning Game Designer Ron Gilbert

New York, NY, February 5, 1997 -- In a major step that elevates its internal software development efforts, GT Interactive Software Corp. (NASDAQ: GTIS) today announces the launch of Seattle-based Cavedog Entertainment, GT's first internal premier interactive entertainment software development studio and an offshoot of Humongous Entertainment. Led by award-winning game designer, industry veteran and Humongous Entertainment Creative Director Ron Gilbert, Cavedog's first title, Total Annihilation, will be available in the fourth quarter of this year. The studio plans to develop approximately three titles annually.

Humongous Entertainment, a GT Interactive subsidiary, develops original titles for the global children's market while GT Interactive also develops software for the global games market through its recent acquisition of Time Warner Interactive Europe, as well as for the value-priced software market through the MN-based WizardWorks Group.

"We are proud to unveil Cavedog Entertainment, a new, innovative and creative software development studio that we believe is on its way to becoming one of the industry's premier producers of interactive entertainment," said Ron Chaimowitz, president and chief executive officer of GT Interactive. "GT Interactive is committed to building original, internally created products, and the establishment of Cavedog is yet another step toward achieving our goal of 40 percent internally developed products."

In a dual role Gilbert will continue to serve as Humongous Entertainment's Creative Director while branching out to drive Cavedog's development of premier interactive entertainment. The recent appointment of industry veteran Scott Wallin as Humongous Entertainment Director of Development allows Gilbert to expand the focus of his creative vision to the new efforts of Cavedog. Wallin's strong interactive development experience includes tenure as Executive Producer of children's interactive entertainment at Paul Allen's Starwave Corp., and the design and production of more than 50 software titles across more than a dozen game platforms including IBM PC and CD-ROM as well as those from Nintendo, Sega and 3DO.

"As an offshoot of Humongous Entertainment, we are building on our considerable resources and talent while tapping into the creativity of our expanding team of the best game designers, programmers and artists in the industry," said Gilbert. "Cavedog is a place for the most talented people in the industry to come together to build amazing games, leveraging their game design experience and ideas to create the next level of interactive entertainment."

An internationally renowned game designer, Gilbert has created award-winning, standard-setting interactive games for more than a decade. As co-founder and Creative Director of Humongous Entertainment, Gilbert is the creative vision behind Freddi Fish and Pajama Sam, the company's award-winning children's software titles. Prior to Humongous, Gilbert designed such classic games as the Maniac Mansion and the Monkey Island series during his tenure at LucasArts Entertainment. Both award-winning games have been cited among PC Games magazine's "Top Most Influential Games of All Time." Gilbert is also responsible for creating the LucasArts Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion (SCUMM) system, a critically acclaimed, high-level proprietary game engine.

Total Annihilation, Cavedog's first release in late 1997, is an intense real-time combat strategy game being crafted by designer and lead programmer Chris Taylor. Taylor's successful track record includes creating interactive hits Hardball II, 4D Boxing and Triple Play '96. Cavedog's integrated online network play for all of its CD-ROM games will be driven through a website to be launched in the near future at https://www.cavedog.com. Cavedog's second release in late 1997 will be a first-person, multiplayer flight-experience game while a third Cavedog release is slated for early 1998.

# # # Headquartered in NY, with offices in London, Paris, Hamburg, San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix and Minneapolis, GT Interactive Software Corp. is a leading global publisher of entertainment, edutainment and value-priced software marketed under the GT Interactive, Humongous Entertainment, Cavedog, MacSoft and WizardWorks brands, for IBM-compatible and Macintosh computers as well as the Nintendo, Sony and Sega gaming systems. Among GT Interactive's best-selling titles are Duke Nukem 3D and Quake. GT Interactive is publicly traded on the NASDAQ National Market System under the symbol GTIS.

[Homepage] [Back issues] [Send E-Mail]