W3D Realms Entertainment ApS is a video game publisher based in Aalborg, Denmark. Scott Miller founded the company in his parents' home in Garland, Texas (US) in 1987 as Apogee Software Productions, to release his game Kingdom of Kroz. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the company popularized a distribution model where each game consists of three episodes, with the first given away free as shareware and the other two available for purchase. Duke Nukem was a major franchise created by Apogee to use this model, and Apogee published Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D the same way.
WAcclaim Studios Manchester was a British video game developer based in Manchester, England. The company was established in 1985 by Richard Kay. They were primarily known for their video games based on movie and comic licences like Marvel Comics, Cutthroat Island, Disney's Beauty and the Beast and the original titles Plok, Solstice, and its sequel Equinox.
WAtod AB/LG Software AB was a video game developer located in Helsingborg, Sweden. It was established in 1987 and formally incorporated as company in 1992 by the game development duo Christofer Nilsson and Thomas Liljetoft and active until 2003 when it was merged with British game developer Warthog Games and renamed to Warthog Sweden. In May 2006, the company was acquired by British publisher and developer Eidos Interactive. Today the company is part of Square Enix who acquired Eidos Interactive in 2009.
WBerkeley Systems was a San Francisco Bay Area software company co-founded in 1987 by Wes Boyd and Joan Blades. It made money early on by performing contract work for the National Institutes of Health, specifically in making modifications to the Macintosh so that it could be used by partially sighted or blind people. Several of these Access programs were licensed by Apple Computer and added to the operating system. Perhaps the most ambitious of these technologies was a program that could read the Macintosh screen, called outSPOKEN, which won a technology award from the Smithsonian in 1990.
WThe Bitmap Brothers are a British video game developer founded in 1987. The company entered the video game industry in 1988 with the scrolling shooter Xenon. They quickly followed with Speedball. Prior to becoming the publisher of their own games, early Bitmap Brothers titles were distributed by Image Works and Konami.
WBullfrog Productions Limited was a British video game developer based in Guildford, England. Founded in 1987 by Peter Molyneux and Les Edgar, the company gained recognition in 1989 for their third release, Populous, and is also well known for titles such as Theme Park, Magic Carpet, Syndicate and Dungeon Keeper. Bullfrog's name was derived from an ornament in the offices of Edgar's and Molyneux's other enterprise, Taurus Impact Systems, Bullfrog's precursor where Molyneux and Edgar were developing business software. Bullfrog Productions was founded as a separate entity after Commodore mistook Taurus for a similarly named company.
WCyan, Inc., also known as Cyan Worlds, Inc., is an American video game developer. Founded as Cyan Productions by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, the company is best known as the creator of the Myst series. The company is located in Mead, Washington, just outside Spokane.
WEmpire Interactive was a British video game developer and publisher based in London. Founded in 1987 by Ian Higgins and Simon Jeffrey, it was acquired by Silverstar Holdings in 2006 and went out of business in 2009.
Wepics Inc. is a Japanese video game software developer located in Tokyo, Japan. Originally established as “GEN CREATIVE HOUSE CO., LTD.” in February 1987, changed company name to “G-Artists Inc.” in March 1991, then to “epics Inc.” in June 2006.
WEutechnyx Limited is a British video game developer based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Since 1997, the company has focused on racing games. They are known for their largely panned video game Ride to Hell: Retribution, work with the largely panned NASCAR The Game franchise, and as a developer on various other racing titles and games.
WFactor 5 GmbH is an independent software and video game developer. The company was co-founded by five former Rainbow Arts employees in 1987 in Cologne, Germany, which served as the inspiration behind the studio's name.
WFill-in-Cafe (フィルインカフェ) was a video game developer that was founded in Japan in 1987. They are best known for creating the Asuka 120% series.
WGameTek was an American video game publisher based in North Miami Beach, Florida known for publishing video game adaptations of game shows in the late 1980s and early 1990s. GameTek was a trade name for IJE, the owner of electronic publishing rights to Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Originally IJE licensed these titles to ShareData of Chandler, Arizona; however, when IJE saw ShareData's success with the titles, IJE decided to publish the titles themselves, resulting in the founding of GameTek.
WGrandslam Interactive Ltd. was a video games software house based in Britain. It was formed in late 1987 from the ashes of Argus Press Software by former Argus Managing Director, Stephen Hall and close friend David C. Dudman. Grandslam developed and published many games for home computers during the 1980s and 1990s. Originally based in central London, the offices were relocated to Croydon in 1990.
WKAZe Net Co., Ltd. is a video game industry developer headquartered in Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan.
WKrisalis Software Limited was a British video game developer and publisher founded by Tony Kavanagh, Peter Harrap, and Shaun Hollingworth in 1987 under the name Teque Software Development Limited as a subsidiary label until the official company name was changed to Krisalis Software in 1991. The company was restructured in April 2001 with a new management team of Tony Kavanagh, Tim James and Simeon Pashley and reused the original name of Teque Software development.
WMaxis is an American video game developer and a division of Electronic Arts (EA). The studio was founded in 1987 by Will Wright and Jeff Braun, and acquired by EA in 1997. Maxis is best known for its simulation games, including The Sims, Spore and SimCity.
WPapyrus Design Group, Inc. was a computer game developer founded in 1987 by David Kaemmer and CEO Omar Khudari. Based in Watertown, Massachusetts, it is best known for its series of realistic sim racing games based on the NASCAR and IndyCar leagues, as well as the unique Grand Prix Legends. Papyrus was acquired by Sierra On-Line in late 1995 and Omar Khudari left Papyrus soon after that. Dave Kaemmer left Papyrus in late 2002, just before the release of NASCAR Racing 2003 Season (NR2003).
WRockstar North Limited is a British video game development company and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Edinburgh. The company was founded as DMA Design in Dundee in 1987 by David Jones, soon hiring former classmates Mike Dailly, Russell Kay, and Steve Hammond. During its early years, DMA Design was backed by its publisher Psygnosis, primarily focusing on Amiga, Atari ST and Commodore 64 games. During this time, they created successful shooters such as Menace, and Blood Money, but soon turned to platform games after the release of Lemmings in 1991, which was an international success and led to several sequels and spin-offs. After developing Unirally for Nintendo, DMA Design was set to become one of their main second-party developers, but this partnership ended after Nintendo's disapproval of Body Harvest.