Budcat Creations, LLC was an American

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

Iowa City, Iowa Iowa City, offically the City of Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It is the home of the University of Iowa and county seat of Johnson County, at the center of the Iowa City Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the time ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and was a wholly owned subsidiary of

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

, though they formerly had partnerships with

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

and

Majesco Entertainment Majesco Entertainment Company (formerly Majesco Sales Inc.) is an American video game publisher and distributor based in Hazlet, New Jersey. The company was founded as Majesco Sales in Edison, New Jersey in 1986, and was a privately held company ...

. They were largely responsible for porting titles to non-target consoles. They had worked on a number of blockbuster gaming franchises, among them ''

Guitar Hero ''Guitar Hero'' is a series of music rhythm game video games first released in November 2005, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing primarily lead, bass guitar, and rhythm guitar across numerous songs. Player ...

'', ''

Madden NFL ''Madden NFL'' (known as ''John Madden Football'' until 1993) is an American football video game series developed by EA Tiburon for EA Sports. It is named after Pro Football Hall of Fame coach and commentator John Madden and sold more than 130 m ...

'', and ''

Medal of Honor The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States Armed Forces' highest military decoration and is awarded to recognize American soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, guardians and coast guardsmen who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor. ...

''. They have also produced a few original titles, including '' Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy'' and ''

The New York Times Crosswords ''The New York Times Crosswords'' is a video game released on May 22, 2007, for the Nintendo DS. Features *Use the stylus to write the letters using handwriting recognition, with keyboard optional. *1,000 puzzles with varying levels of diffic ...

''.

History

Budcat was founded by Jason Andersen and Jonah Stich who met on the precursor to AOL, via a shared interest in the Apple IIgs. A few months into the companies initial year, Isaac Burns joined as a partner. Isaac, and Jason met in High School, in their hometown of Iowa City, IA. The company went on to produce a string of sports titles for EA over the next five years, including entries in the NASCAR Thunder, ''NHL Hockey'' series, and FIFA Manager series, as well as the

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 ...

version of ''

Psychonauts ''Psychonauts'' is a 2005 platform video game developed by Double Fine Productions. The game was initially published by Majesco Entertainment and THQ for Microsoft Windows, Xbox and PlayStation 2. In 2011, Double Fine acquired the rights for t ...

'' for

. In 2005, Budcat moved to its ultimate location in Iowa City in order to facilitate expanding their offices. Budcat worked in partnership with

, and

on multiple titles before being purchased by

Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. It was founded in July 2008 through the merger of Activision, Inc. (the publicly traded parent company of Activision Publishing) and Vivendi ...

on November 10, 2008, where they mostly worked on the ''

'' brand. Budcat Creations was shuttered by Activision Blizzard on November 16, 2010."Activision shuts down Bizarre and Budcat studios"
/ref>

Games

References

External links

* {{Authority control Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Video game companies established in 2000 Video game companies disestablished in 2010 Defunct companies based in Iowa Former Vivendi subsidiaries Defunct Activision subsidiaries 2000 establishments in Iowa 2010 disestablishments in Iowa