Pirate Software
| File:Pirate Software (game developer) logo.png The primary logo used since the company's founding. | |
| ISIN | 🆔 |
|---|---|
| Founded 📆 | March 7, 2016 |
| Founder 👔 | Jason Thor Hall |
| Headquarters 🏙️ | Tacoma |
Area served 🗺️ | |
Key people |
|
| Members | |
Number of employees | 3 |
| 🌐 Website | https://gopiratesoftware.com |
| 📇 Address | |
| 📞 telephone | |
Pirate Software is an American video game developer based in Washington. Founded in 2016 by Jason Thor Hall, the studio is best known for their flagship game Heartbound, which was released into Steam Early Access on Christmas Day of 2018. Their other two published titles include Champions of Breakfast, a bullet-hell shooter released in June 2016, and Kill The Moon, a roguelike run-and-gun which remains in Early Access development pending the completion of Heartbound.
History[edit]
Pirate Software was founded in March 2016 as a sole proprietorship by Jason Thor Hall,[1] who, after quitting multiple positions in offensive security at employers that included the U.S. Department of Energy and Blizzard Entertainment, decided to pursue indie game development.[2] Soon after founding the company, the studio's artist Bradie Shaye Rehmel and sound designer JP Baas were brought on for the first commercially released game from the studio: Champions of Breakfast,[3] with Baas later being replaced by Stijn van Wakeren (who, along with Rehmel, remain the only other full-time employees to this day).[4]
- Developer Jason Thor Hall, in an interview to Gamasutra
Champions of Breakfast would move from concept to commercial release in 24 days as a way for the team to gain experience with the engine and the logistics of publishing a video game.[5] The game, priced at just under $3, found favor amongst reviewers upon its launch, and retains a "very positive" rating on Steam.[6]
In the months immediately following the release of their first game, the studio began working on their flagship title, Heartbound, many nods to which can be found in Champions of Breakfast as easter eggs. Heartbound was initially greenlit on Steam in December 2016,[7] slated for release into Steam early access in 2017. Pirate Software then launched a Kickstarter campaign for the game on February 24, 2017, which met its funding goal less than two days[5] and finished on March 26 raising $19,272 of its $5,000 goal. Nearly a year later, Heartbound released into Steam early access on Christmas Day of 2018,[8] featuring the first of the game's five acts and an expansion to the game's companion alternate reality game.[9]
Due to the mechanical and visual similarities with smash-hit indie title Undertale, many comparisons would be drawn between the two games, leading to a controversy involving popular YouTuber MatPat regarding the game's standalone nature instead of its existence in reference to Undertale.[10]
Over the next five years, Heartbound would continue development, with much of it streamed live on the studio's Twitch channel.[11] Due to the increased scope of the game brought on by the Kickstarter campaign's stretch goals, as well as members of the studio becoming afflicted with COVID-19 in early 2020,[12][13] the game continues to suffer numerous delays, remaining in active development as of July 2022. To assuage the concerns of backers becoming anxious about the title's lengthy development process, the studio began releasing monthly update videos in 2022.[14]
In early 2021, Pirate Software began petitioning Twitch on their UserVoice and Twitter to restore the "Game Development" streaming category,[15] which, though it had existed previously, was rolled into the "Science & Technology", resulting in a reduction of average followers per hour. [16] Pirate Software argued that due to the lack of specificity in Twitch's search system, their content was made more difficult to find. Several months after the suggestion became one of the most popular threads on Twitch's UserVoice, it was added back to the platform.[17]
Games[edit]
| Year | Game | Release Status |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Champions of Breakfast | Released |
| 2018 | Heartbound | Early Access |
| 2021 | Kill the Moon | Early Access |
References[edit]
- ↑ "Trademark/Service Mark Principal Register". United States Patent and Trademark Office. 2016-02-05. Retrieved 2022-06-08.
- ↑ "Why the developers behind PAX 10 game 'Heartbound' live stream their production process". GeekWire. 2019-08-20. Retrieved 2022-06-08.
- ↑ "StreamBee Podcast - Challenges of Streaming Game Development". StreamBee (in čeština). Retrieved 2022-06-08.
- ↑ Pirate Software (2021-04-06). Champions of Breakfast (in English, German, and Russian). Steam.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link) Search this book on
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Paek, Jessica (2019-01-10). "Thor, Pirate Software: Leaving AAA to go Indie". Game Developer. Retrieved 2022-06-10.
- ↑ "Champions of Breakfast on Steam". store.steampowered.com. Retrieved 2022-06-10.
- ↑ "Steam Greenlight::Heartbound". steamcommunity.com. Retrieved 2022-07-01.
- ↑ "Heartbound (App 567380)". SteamDB. 2018-12-25. Retrieved 2022-06-08.
- ↑ Welhouse, Zach. "Heartbound Interview". RPGamer. Retrieved 2022-07-02.
- ↑ "Undertale Creator and Game Theory's MatPat Clash on Twitter Over Misleading Heartbound Stream". DualShockers. 2019-01-05. Retrieved 2022-07-01.
- ↑ Wilde, Thomas (2019-08-20). "Why the developers behind PAX 10 game 'Heartbound' live stream their production process". GeekWire. Retrieved 2022-07-02.
- ↑ "Pirate Software on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2022-07-01.
- ↑ "Pirate Software on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2022-07-01.
- ↑ "Monthly Updates". Pirate Software. Retrieved 2022-07-01 – via YouTube.
- ↑ "Pirate Software on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2022-07-02.
- ↑ Nesterenko, Oleg (2021-09-03). "Twitch introduces new "Software & Game Development" streaming category, boosting gamedev content discoverability". Game World Observer. Retrieved 2022-07-02.
- ↑ ""Software & Game Development" – A new streaming category". Twitch Developer Forums. 2021-09-02. Retrieved 2022-07-02.
External links[edit]
This article "Pirate Software (game developer)" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Pirate Software (game developer). Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
_logo.png){kind=link}