Bugbear Entertainment Oy is a Finnish

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

based in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

, founded by Janne Alanenpää in 2000. The company is best known for the '' FlatOut'' series and ''

Wreckfest ''Wreckfest'' is a racing video game developed by Bugbear Entertainment and published by THQ Nordic. ''Wreckfest'' is described as the spiritual successor to the '' FlatOut'' series and a cross between ''FlatOut'', ''Destruction Derby'' and cult ...

''. In November 2018, a majority stake of the company was acquired by

THQ Nordic THQ Nordic GmbH (formerly Nordic Games GmbH) is an Austrian video game publisher based in Vienna. Formed in 2011, it is a publishing subsidiary of Embracer Group. Originally named Nordic Games, as was the parent company, both companies were re ...

History

Bugbear Entertainment was founded in

in 2000 by Janne Alanenpää. On 14 November 2018,

announced that they had acquired 90% of Bugbear for an undisclosed sum, leaving open the option to acquire the remaining 10% later on. At this time, Bugbear had 18 employees and was led by co-founder Alanenpää as

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

and

creative director A creative director (or creative supervisor) is a person who makes high-level creative decisions and, with those decisions, oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos. Creative director positions ar ...

. As of March 2020, Bugbear has 28 employees. All computer games developed by Bugbear are made in the

car simulator Driving simulators are used for entertainment as well as in training of driver's education courses taught in educational institutions and private businesses. They are also used for research purposes in the area of human factors and medical rese ...

genre. One of the well-known developments is the '' FlatOut'' series of games, the first game of which was released in 2004 for the personal computer and the

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...

and

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

game consoles. The games in the series have received various awards from the media and favorable reviews from critics and players. The average review score, according to

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, is 76 out of 100. In addition to the ''FlatOut'' series, the company has developed other game projects such as ''

Rally Trophy ''Rally Trophy'' is a 2001 historic PC rally simulation, developed by Bugbear Entertainment and published by JoWooD Productions for the Microsoft Windows operating system in 2001. Reception ''Rally Trophy'' received "favorable" reviews accordi ...

'', a realistic

rallying Rally is a wide-ranging form of motorsport with various competitive motoring elements such as speed tests (often called ''rally racing),'' navigation tests, or the ability to reach waypoints or a destination at a prescribed time or average speed. ...

simulator. Bugbear also released a new game from the ''

Ridge Racer is a racing game, racing video game series developed and published for arcade systems and home game consoles by Bandai Namco Entertainment, formerly Namco. The first game, ''Ridge Racer (1993 video game), Ridge Racer'' (1993), was originally rel ...

'' series, '' Ridge Racer Unbounded'', which was released in 2012. On June 14, 2018, the company released a new game, ''

'', previously known under the working title ''Next Car Game''. Bugbear used its own ROMU game engine (also known as the Bugbear Game Engine) to develop all games.

Games developed

References

External links

* {{Authority control Finnish companies established in 2000 2018 mergers and acquisitions Companies based in Helsinki THQ Nordic divisions and subsidiaries Video game companies established in 2000 Video game companies of Finland Video game development companies