Cyberlore Studios, Inc. was an American

video game developer A video game developer is 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 business with em ...

based in

Northampton, Massachusetts The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence, Massachusetts, Florence and ...

History

The company was founded in 1992 by Lester Humphreys, Ken Grey, and Herb Perez. Since 1992, they produced

expansion pack An expansion pack, expansion set, supplement, or simply expansion, is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game, video game, collectible card game or Miniature wargaming, miniature wargame. An expansion may introduce new rules ...

s for '' MechWarrior 4'', '' Heroes of Might and Magic II'', and '' Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal''. They also produced '' Playboy: The Mansion'' (2005), a simulation game based on the life of

Hugh Hefner Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of ''Playboy'' magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles. Hefner extended the ''Playboy ...

and ''

Playboy ''Playboy'' (stylized in all caps) is an American men's Lifestyle journalism, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, available both online and in print. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, funded in part by a $ ...

'', and a

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

version of the classic board game ''

Risk In simple terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the effects/implications of an activity with respect to something that humans value (such as health, well-being, wealth, property or the environ ...

''. Their most notable game is '' Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim'', whose original concept was created by Jim DuBois, who worked for the company as a senior designer. The company grew from six employees in 1992 to thirty employees in 2000. In 2005, Cyberlore ceased development of general entertainment games after the collapse of their publisher, Hip Games, and the subsequent layoff of two-thirds of their staff. The company refocused on the

serious game A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to video games used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, he ...

corporate training market, under the new company name o
Minerva Software

Published games

*'' Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse'' (1994) *'' Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall'' (1995) *'' Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal'' (1996) *'' Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Price of Loyalty'' (1997) *'' Deadlock II: Shrine Wars'' (1998) *'' Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim'' (2000) *'' Majesty: The Northern Expansion'' (2001) *'' MechWarrior 4: Black Knight'' (2001) *'' MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries'' (2002) *'' Risk: Global Domination'' (2003) *'' Playboy: The Mansion'' (2005)

References

External links

Cyberlore Studios
Video game development companies Video game companies established in 1992 Video game companies disestablished in 2005 Defunct video game companies of the United States Defunct companies based in Massachusetts {{US-videogame-company-stub