Vicarious Visions

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Vicarious Visions, Inc.

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	1991; 30 years ago (1991)
Founders	Karthik Bala Guha Bala
Headquarters	Albany, New York , U.S.
Key people	Simon Ebejer (Studio Head) Aaron Ondek (CTO)
Number of employees	218
Parent	Activision (2005–2021) Blizzard Entertainment (2021–present)
Website	Official website

Vicarious Visions, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Albany, New York. The studio was acquired by and became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision in January 2005.

After releasing its last game as part of Activision Publishing, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2, Vicarious Visions was moved from that division within Activision Blizzard into Blizzard Entertainment on January 22, 2021. As part of that transition, Simon Ebejer became studio head.^[1]

Studio history[]

The studio was founded by brothers Karthik and Guha Bala in 1991 while they were in high school.^[2] In the late 1990s, Vicarious Visions appointed Michael Marvin, an Albany-based investor and entrepreneur, and founder and former CEO of MapInfo Corporation; and Charles S. Jones, investor, who sat on the boards of various software and industrial companies including Geac and PSDI, to its board of directors. Under their leadership, a sale of the company was negotiated to Activision, earning the original investors over 20x their initial investment.^{[citation needed]} In January 2005, Vicarious Visions was acquired by publisher Activision. In June 2007, Activision closed the Vicarious Visions' office in Mountain View, California.^[3] On April 5, 2016, the Bala brothers announced that they had left the company.^[4] The brothers then founded Velan Studios in November 2016.^[5]

On January 22, 2021, Vicarious Visions was moved by Activision Blizzard from a subsidiary of Activision to a subsidiary of Blizzard Entertainment. Going forward, the more than 200 employees of Vicarious Visions will be employees of Blizzard.^[6] Vicarious had been working with Blizzard for about two years prior to this announcement, and specifically on the planned remaster of Diablo II, Diablo II: Resurrected, and Blizzard felt the move would be best as to have Vicarious' group provide continued support not only on the remaster but also on other Diablo properties including Diablo IV.^[7][8]

Game history[]

Terminus, an online multiplayer space trading and combat simulation game, won two Independent Games Festival Awards in 1999. They became known as a leading developer of handheld games breaking ground by the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series, developing Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS titles in the franchise's main series as well as one spin off. They developed the first three Crash Bandicoot GBA games. Vicarious Visions developed Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro, Ultimate Spider-Man, Crash Nitro Kart, Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, and Doom 3 for the Xbox. Vicarious Visions developed for the Guitar Hero series on the Nintendo DS and Wii platforms. For Guitar Hero: On Tour, Vicarious Visions created the "Guitar Grip" peripheral for the Nintendo DS, which emulates the guitar controller for the portable system.

It was revealed on June 10, 2011, that Vicarious Visions was working on the 3DS version of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure.^[9] On December 8, 2016, Vicarious Visions announced that they were partnering with Bungie to work on the Destiny franchise.^[10]

Game engine[]

Vicarious Visions Alchemy is the company's game engine. It was released in 2002. It was originally called Intrinsic Alchemy and developed by Intrinsic Graphics before being renamed after Vicarious Visions acquired Intrinsic Graphics in 2003.^[11]

Games developed[]

Cancelled games[]

References[]

External links[]

• Official website