Kaboom Studios Limited (formerly Geoff Brown Holdings Limited) was a British

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

established by Geoff Brown in January 1997 to pursue

video game development Video game development (or gamedev) is the process of developing a video game. The effort is undertaken by a developer, ranging from a single person to an international team dispersed across the globe. Development of traditional commercial PC a ...

investment.

History

In December 1996, Geoff Brown acquired a 75% stake in

Silicon Dreams Studio Silicon Dreams Studio Limited was a British video game developer based in Adderbury, England. History Silicon Dreams Studio was founded by Geoff Brown in March 1994 as the in-house development team for video game publisher U.S. Gold, also fo ...

for at least . Silicon Dreams Studio was founded by Brown in March 1994, as in-house development team for his publishing company,

U.S. Gold U.S. Gold Limited was a British video game publisher based in Witton, Birmingham, England. The company was founded in 1984 by Anne and Geoff Brown in parallel to their distributor firm, CentreSoft, both of which became part of Woodward Brown Ho ...

, until the entire

CentreGold Square Enix Limited (formerly Domark Limited and Eidos Interactive Limited) is a British subsidiary of the Japanese video game company Square Enix, acting as their European publishing arm. The company formerly owned ''Tomb Raider'', which was in ...

umbrella (including U.S. Gold and Silicon Dreams) was sold to

Eidos Interactive Square Enix Limited (formerly Domark Limited and Eidos Interactive Limited) is a British subsidiary of the Japanese video game company Square Enix, acting as their European publishing arm. The company formerly owned ''Tomb Raider'', which was in ...

in April 1996. In January 1997, Brown also acquired

Attention to Detail Attention to Detail Ltd (ATD) was a British video game developer based in Hatton. Founded by University of Birmingham graduates in September 1988, it was acquired by Kaboom Studios in January 1997. The studio shut down in August 2003 due to f ...

, and opened Geoff Brown Holdings to manage the majority ownerships in the two studios. A

motion capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mo-cap or mocap, for short) is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robo ...

studio, Audiomotion, was established under the Geoff Brown Holdings umbrella in 1997, and

Pivotal Games Pivotal Games Limited was a British video game developer based in Corston, England. History Pivotal Games was founded in March 2000, by fifteen employees formerly of Pumpkin Studios (the developer of ''Warzone 2100''), led by Jim Bambra, Ni ...

, another developer, was acquired by the company in August 2000. In 2003, Kaboom Studios faced major financial issues, resulting in the closure of Attention to Detail and Silicon Dreams Studio on 28 August 2003 and 3 September 2003, respectively. Meanwhile, Audiomotion's Mick Morris performed a

management buyout A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout became noted phenomena of 1 ...

for the company, in order for Audiomotion to "reboot" itself and avoid closure. Kaboom Studios went into

receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver—a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights"—especially in ca ...

on 9 September 2003, with all assets being transferred to

Ernst & Young Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewaterh ...

, of which the still-active Pivotal Games was put up for sale. On 29 September 2003,

SCi Games SCi Entertainment Group plc (formerly The Sales Curve Limited and SCi (Sales Curve Interactive) Limited) was a British video game publisher based in London. The company was founded in 1988 by Jane Cavanagh and floated on the stock exchange in 1 ...

acquired Pivotal Games from Ernst & Young for a total of .

References

Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game companies established in 1997 Video game companies disestablished in 2003 Eidos {{UK-videogame-company-stub