Mass Media, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Moorpark, California formed by David Riordan and David Todd.
History Mass Media began in the 1980s at Cinemaware when David Riordan and David Todd worked at the company. In 1991, as Cinemaware was going bankrupt, they formed a production unit at Philips Interactive Media, called Philips P.O.V. Entertainment Group. The company made its big break with Voyeur, a successful interactive movie game that was a huge hit for CD-i and earned critical acclaim.
In 1995, the company was reorganized, becoming more independent and renamed as Mass Media during the production of Thunder in Paradise Interactive. Mass Media soon left Philips in 1995 and the company became an exclusive developer for Time Warner Interactive after David Riordan left Philips for Time Warner.
After Time Warner halted their interactive division and was sold to Midway Games, Mass Media became an independent developer. Mass Media's first game as an independent developer was developing The Game of Life for Hasbro Interactive, which was released in 1998 in association with developer The Collective. The company expanded by luring away staff from the former ashes of the game developer V.R.T.O. (another company formed by ex-Cinemaware alumunus).
In late 1998, the company expanded to work for the Nintendo 64 platform, while the company first met THQ to develop a Bass Masters game for Nintendo 64, and in 2001, supported the Game Boy Advance platform. The company was also an early supporter of Nintendo GameCube's development tools.
In 2003, the company worked with Blizzard Entertainment for porting classic games to Game Boy Advance for development of titles under the Classic Arcade label. The company also developed a party game engine, which was used for Muppets Party Cruise and Shrek: Super Party.
It was acquired by THQ in February 2007 who closed the studio in November 2008. The company started back up immediately, focusing on developing for the Sony platforms, including the PlayStation 3. On the PlayStation 3, they developed content and spaces for its social gaming network PlayStation Home including the games The Midway, The Midway 2, and The Midway 3 which were three game spaces with ten mini-games in each with ten rewards per mini-game. The Green Ticket, used to play the games in the three Midways, was consistently the best selling item in PS Home.
Mass Media has also continued to develop game engine technology for PlayStation 3 and other platforms. Notably this includes one of the first non-Sony PlayStation 3 implementations of fully SPU based GPU rendering command generation, significantly reducing rendering overhead on the main CPU (used in Saints Row 2 and subsequent PS3 titles). In 2018, Mass Media was acquired by 2K.
Games Mass Media has developed over forty titles and currently has additional titles in various stages of development. All of their titles were developed with their development tool set called BOLT. +YearTitlePlatform(s)1992Defender of the CrownCD-iGirl's ClubLords of the Rising SunMystic Midway: Rest in PiecesTetrisZombie Dinos from Planet Zeltoid1993Caesars World of BoxingMystic Midway: Phantom ExpressCD-i, MS-DOSVoyeurCD-i1994Mystic Midway: Rest in PiecesMS-DOSNFL Hall of Fame FootballCD-iVoyeurMS-DOS1995Thunder in Paradise InteractiveCD-i, MS-DOS19963-D TableSportsMS-DOS1998The Game of LifeWindows, PlayStation1999BassMasters 2000Nintendo 64Namco Museum 642000Ms. Pac-Man Maze MadnessDreamcast, Nintendo 64Namco MuseumDreamcastSaban's Power Rangers: Lightspeed RescueNintendo 64StarCraft 642001Namco MuseumGame Boy Advance, PlayStation 2Pac-Man CollectionGame Boy Advance2002Namco MuseumGameCube, XboxPac-Man FeverGameCube, PlayStation 2Shrek: Super PartyPlayStation 2, XboxThe Simpsons SkateboardingPlayStation 22003BlackthorneGame Boy AdvanceJim Henson's Muppets Party CruiseGameCube, PlayStation 2Rock n' Roll RacingGame Boy AdvanceShrek: Super PartyGameCubeThe Lost VikingsGame Boy Advance2004Nicktoons Movin'PlayStation 22005Full Spectrum WarriorThe Bible GamePlayStation 2, Xbox2006Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten HammersPlayStation 22007Tetris EvolutionXbox 3602008Saints Row 2PlayStation 3, Xbox 3602009Marvel Super Hero SquadPlayStation 2, PlayStation PortableSaints Row 2Windows2010DarksidersWindows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360The MidwayPlayStation HomeThe Midway 22011Warhammer 40,000: Space MarineWindows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 3602012Jak and Daxter CollectionPlayStation 3The Midway 3PlayStation Home2013Jak and Daxter CollectionPlayStation Vita2014Ratchet & Clank Collection2015EvolveWindows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One2016Mafia III2017XCOM 2: War of the ChosenPlayStation 4, Xbox One2018Carnival GamesWindows, Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One2022New Tales from the BorderlandsSwitch
References
External links Official website