W5th Cell is an independently owned video game developer founded in 2003 as 5th Cell Media, LLC. led by Jeremiah Slaczka and Marius Falhbusch. The company is most well known for creating the Drawn to Life and Scribblenauts series.
WAvalanche Studios Group is a Swedish video game developer and publisher based in Stockholm. It is a parent company that includes Avalanche Studios, Expansive Worlds, and Systemic Reaction. Founded by Linus Blomberg and Christofer Sundberg in March 2003, Avalanche Studios focuses on developing open world projects and bases them on their proprietary Apex game engine. The company is best known for developing the Just Cause game series.
WBeautiful Game Studios is a British video game developer based in London, England. The studio was set up in 2003 to take over the development of the Championship Manager after its former developer Sports Interactive ceased its involvement. Beautiful Game Studios was majorly restructured in November 2009, losing 80% of its staff.
WThe Behemoth is an American video game development company that was created in 2003 by John Baez, artist Dan Paladin, and programmers Tom Fulp, Brandon LaCava, and Nick Dryburgh. Dryburgh and LaCava later left the company. The Behemoth development studio is located in San Diego, California. The company is known for producing simple games with Paladin's signature 2D style. Its games are also known for their heavy arcade inspirations, especially among their early games, emulating genres common on the Neo Geo in particular.
WBlue Omega Entertainment was an American film and video game company, located in Annapolis, Maryland.
WCapybara Games is an independent game studio based out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The studio was founded in 2003 from a collection of Toronto IGDA members. The company is most known for developing 2011's Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP and 2014's Super Time Force.
WDestan Entertainment is a computer game developer from Poland established in 2003. It cooperates with Teyon, video games producer and online publisher.
WDigital Chocolate, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher headquartered in San Mateo, California. It was founded in 2003 by Trip Hawkins, the founder of video game companies Electronic Arts and The 3DO Company. The company focused on developing games for Java ME-based mobile phones, iOS, and Microsoft Windows, and made some non-entertainment titles. Its marketing motto was Seize the minute.
WFlagship Studios was a computer game company founded by Bill Roper along with Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer, and David Brevik, former high level Blizzard North executives. The core personnel of Flagship Studios had been collaborating as a team since 1993 when they founded Condor Studios and in addition to creating the Diablo franchise many were key high level executives in the development of Warcraft, StarCraft and World of Warcraft games. Flagship Studios was formed following the resignation en masse of Blizzard North management following a dispute with Blizzard Entertainment parent company Vivendi regarding the potential fate of the company, development team, and titles, which were in doubt at that time. Flagship Studio's primary target platform for their games was the PC.
WFrima Studio is a Canadian digital entertainment studio. Headquartered in Quebec City, Quebec and founded in 2003, the company develops video games across a variety of platforms. Frima also produces animation for television and film.
WHigh Impact Games was an American video game developer based in Burbank, California, formed in 2003 by former members of Insomniac Games and Naughty Dog. In 2007, the company released Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters for the PlayStation Portable, with a PlayStation 2 port released the next year, and Secret Agent Clank in 2008, also for the PlayStation Portable. On November 3, 2009, the company released its third game, Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, for the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 2. The game was based on the Jak & Daxter series made by Naughty Dog. In 2010, High Impact Games was developing a remake of Crash Team Racing for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii, but the game was canceled by Activision before the prototype initial. In 2011 an environmental artist, who had worked on some games, revealed that High Impact Games was working on a new project for the Wii. This game was revealed to be Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension.
WInfinity Plus Two, previously Infinite Interactive, is a video game developer with headquarters in St Kilda, Victoria, Australia. The company was founded by Steve Fawkner in 1989. After a long alliance with SSG, resulting in the development of the Warlords series of games, Steve moved on to make Infinite totally independent in 2003. Infinite Interactive was one of the first developers to port a full custom game engine to the iPhone in 2009. However due to Publisher issues it was not until much later that any properties were released on the iOS platform. In 2011, the company was acquired by fellow Australian developers Firemint, creators of Flight Control and Real Racing - however, in late 2012 Infinite Interactive announced their return as an independent developer.
WKerberos Productions Inc. is a video game developer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The company was formed in 2003 by former employees of Rockstar Vancouver.
WKheops Studio was an independent video game development studio created in September 2003. Its games were published by Microïds, which acquired the brand and intellectual property as insolvency assets of Cryo Interactive in 2002. The company was co-founded by Benoît Hozjan, who also served as the creative director for the studio and Stéphane Petit, who served as technical director. Kheops developed adventure games for the PC platform and released several major successful games. The studio is best known for creating games that have been described by the developer as "cultural entertainment", that is, games which are heavily drawn from historical or literary sources to include a mixture of history and fiction. After filing for bankruptcy, the studio was closed down in January 2012.
WKing.com Limited, trading as King and also known as King Digital Entertainment, is a Maltese video game developer and publisher based in St. Julian's, Malta that specialises in social games. King gained fame after releasing the cross-platform title Candy Crush Saga in 2012, considered one of the most financially successful games utilising the freemium model. King was acquired by Activision Blizzard in February 2016 for US$5.9 billion, and operates as its own entity within that company. King is led by Riccardo Zacconi, who has served in the role of chief executive officer since co-founding the company in 2003. Gerhard Florin took over Melvyn Morris's role as chairman in November 2014. As of 2017, King employs 2,000 people.
WMileStone Inc. was a Japanese video game developer. The team was composed mostly of ex-Compile developers who left to form their own company. They were best known for shoot 'em up games developed for the Dreamcast and its arcade counterpart, the Sega NAOMI.
WNintendo Software Planning & Development Division, commonly abbreviated as Nintendo SPD, was a Japanese research, planning and development division housed inside the Nintendo Development Center in Kyoto, Japan. The division had two departments: Software Planning & Development Department, which primarily co-produced games with external developers; and Software Development & Design Department, which primarily developed experimental and system software. The division was created during a corporate restructuring in September 2003, with the abolition of the Nintendo R&D1 and Nintendo R&D2 departments.
WNovarama Technology is a Spanish video game developer based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It is notable for its Invizimals video game series.
WOuterlight Limited was a British video game developer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company was incorporated by Christopher "Chris" Peck, Ailsa Jeannette Bates and Edward "Ed" Wilson, at the United Kingdom's Companies House, on 10 March 2003. Their first game was The Ship a mod for Half-Life, released for free in 2004. The game was reworked as a standalone title, under the name The Ship: Murder Party, and released commercially, independently via Steam, in July 2006. Peck described the time of The Ship's development as "a costly and soul destroying two years chasing publishing deals and failing". Retail versions of the game were distributed by Merscom and Mindscape, in North America and Europe, respectively.
WPetroglyph Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Las Vegas. It was founded in 2003 by Joe Bostic, Michael Legg and Steve Tall, programmers formerly of Westwood Studios, after that company was closed down earlier that year.
WQ Entertainment is a Japanese video game developer. The studio creates, produces, and publishes digital entertainment content across multiple game consoles, PC broadband and mobile units. It was founded on October 10, 2003 by Tetsuya Mizuguchi, formerly of Sega, and Shuji Utsumi, former founding member of Sony Computer Entertainment America, Senior VP of Sega Enterprises, Ltd., and head of Disney Asia.
WRedtribe was an Australian video game developer that was co-founded in 2003 by game developer and entrepreneur Chris Mosely and Samantha Robson. Chris Mosely was previously the CEO and founder of Blue Tongue Entertainment in 1995. RedTribe was the first Australian developer to release a game on the Xbox 360 & Wii in Australia & New Zealand.
WRelentless Software was a British video game company formed in 2003 that was based in Brighton. The company was best known for developing 12 games in the BAFTA award-winning and multi-million selling Buzz! franchise from 2005 to 2010. Relentless released its first self-published title, Blue Toad Murder Files on PC and PSN in 2009 and Quiz Climber Rivals, for iPhone in 2011. Relentless has also developed Air Band and Mutation Station, for the Kinect Fun Labs series. In 2012 it released Kinect Nat Geo TV, after which co-founder David Amor left the studio. In 2014 the studio released Murder Files: The Enigma Express on iOS, Google Play, Google Chrome and Kindle Fire. In 2016 the studio was shut down. The studio was working on an unannounced title for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One prior to its closure.
WRovio Entertainment Oyj is a Finnish video game developer based in Espoo. Founded in 2003 by Helsinki University of Technology students Niklas Hed, Jarno Väkeväinen and Kim Dikert, the company is best known for the Angry Birds franchise. The company currently operates studios in Espoo, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Montreal.
WS2 Games was a video game development company which was founded by Marc "Maliken" DeForest, Jesse Hayes, and Sam McGrath, based in Rohnert Park, California. They also had a development location in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
WSumo Digital Ltd. is a British video game developer based in Sheffield, England and the principal subsidiary of Sumo Group. The company was founded in 2003 by four former members of the management team of Infogrames Studios and, as of 2018, employs more than 700 people.
WSuperbrothers is a video game, illustration, and design studio based in Quebec, Canada, most known for their work with Capybara Games and Jim Guthrie on the 2011 iOS release Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. Superbrothers contributed artwork and concepts to Sound Shapes (2012) by Queasy Games, a videogame for PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation 4.
WTeam Bondi Pty. Limited was an Australian video game developer based in Sydney. The company was founded by creative director Brendan McNamara, formerly of Team Soho, in 2003. The studio's first and only title, the action-adventure game L.A. Noire, was announced in July 2005. The development was originally funded and overseen by Sony Computer Entertainment Australia, although all publishing duties later switched hands to Rockstar Games. L.A. Noire was released by Rockstar Games, initially for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in May 2011, to both commercial and critical success. Despite the positive reception, Team Bondi faced several allegations of poor working conditions by several former employees, causing controversy for the studio and leading Rockstar Games to part ways with Team Bondi following L.A. Noire's release. As a result of this, the developer saw itself unable to sign a publishing deal for a new game that was being written by McNamara.
WTHQ Studio Australia was one of the subsidiaries of electronic game publisher THQ. Based in Brisbane Australia, the studio have developed titles for the Sixth and Seventh generation of games consoles and managed the development of handheld versions of their games utilizing smaller local and interstate development studios.
WVenom Games Limited was a British video game developer based in Gateshead, England. The studio was established by Peter Johnson in 2003 and succeeded Rage Newcastle. Take-Two Interactive acquired the company in 2004, where it became part of the 2K label in 2005 and was closed down in July 2008.
WWhite Birds Productions was a French video game developer. White Birds was founded by Benoît Sokal, Olivier Fontenay, Jean-Philippe Messian and Michel Bams in August 2003. White Birds specialised in adventure games but also handled other work, such as synthetic image creation, comics and merchandising.
WWolfire Games is an American independent video game development company founded by David Rosen. Wolfire Games develops video games for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
WZen Studios is a Hungarian video game developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software with headquarters in Budapest, Hungary and offices in the United States. It is known for its game franchises, Pinball FX and Zen Pinball, as well as CastleStorm, a tower defense hybrid which received the Apple Store's Editor’s Choice award. The company is considered "synonymous with licensed pinball tables," having produced dozens of tables with characters and themes from the Star Wars and Marvel universes, films like Guardians of the Galaxy, TV series like Archer, South Park, Family Guy and Bob's Burgers, and video game franchises such as Plants vs. Zombies, Portal, Street Fighter, and The Walking Dead.