Pistol Shrimp Games

Not to be confused with Alpheidae, family of crustaceans commonly known as pistol shrimp.
Pistol Shrimp Games
FoundedApril 5, 2022; 2 years ago (2022-04-05)
FoundersFred Ford, Ken Ford, Paul Reiche, Dan Gerstein
Websitepistolshrimpgames.com

Pistol Shrimp Games is a video game studio created by Fred Ford, Ken Ford, Paul Reiche and Dan Gerstein after leaving Toys for Bob in 2021.[1] The company was started on April 5, 2022.[2]

History

In 2017, Fred Ford, Paul Reiche, Ken Ford and Dan Gerstein decided to start developing Ghosts of the Precursors, the sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters.[3][4] Due to disagreements between the trademark owner of Star Control and the ownership of the intellectual property within the games previously sold under the trademark, game development was halted. When a settlement was reached, development continued in the fall of 2020.[5]

The main goal of the company was the creation of Free Stars: Children of Infinity, the sequel to the original Star Control game series.[6] The development started in 2021, with the non-offical creation of the company. They could not use the name Star Control for a sequel, because the rights to the name belong to Stardock.[7]

The studio was offically created on April 5, 2022.[2]

In order to create awareness of the franchise's new name, Pistol Shrimp released The Ur-Quan Masters as Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters for free on Steam on February 19, 2024.[8]

Pistol Shrimp created an engine called Simple for the development of their new game, taking as basis other game engine known as Godot.[9][10]

Paul Reiche and Ken Ford left Pistol Shrimp summer 2023.[11]

References

  1. ^ Sinclair, Brendan (October 3, 2023). "Pistol Shrimp and the importance of owning what you make". Game Industry. Retrieved April 29, 2024.
  2. ^ a b Gerstein, Dan (April 5, 2022). "Announcing Pistol Shrimp Games". Pistol Shrimp.
  3. ^ Reiche, Paul. "Our Story". Pistol Shrimp Games.
  4. ^ Wood, Austin (October 11, 2017). "25 years later, Star Control 2 is getting a direct sequel". PC Gamer.
  5. ^ Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III (June 17, 2021). "I Seriously Considered Adding A Cow To This Image". Dogar And Kazon.
  6. ^ Chalk, Andy (April 20, 2024). "The long-awaited sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters hits its crowdfunding target in less than four hours, and they're not kidding about that $4.4 million stretch goal". PC Gamer. Retrieved April 29, 2024.
  7. ^ Hutchinson, Lee (June 12, 2019). "Stardock and Star Control creators settle lawsuits—with mead and honey". ArsTechnica. Retrieved April 29, 2024.
  8. ^ McWhertor, Michael (February 12, 2024). "PC sci-fi classic Star Control returns as Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters". Polygon. Retrieved April 29, 2024.
  9. ^ Pistol Shrimp. "Simple - A downloadable game engine for Windows". itch.io. Retrieved April 29, 2024.
  10. ^ Gerstein, Dan (September 20, 2024). "No Longer Waiting for Godot". Pistol Shrimp Games.
  11. ^ Gerstein, Dan (Summer 2023). "Bidding Adieu to Paul and Ken". Pistol Shrimp. Retrieved April 29, 2024.