Panic Button, LLC is 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

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

. Founded in late 2007, the studio is best known for their

ports A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...

of AAA video games from other platforms to the

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

console. Panic Button also does contract work on other platforms, including 4K updates for

PlayStation 4 Pro The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in E ...

and

Xbox One X The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

History

Panic Button was founded by Craig Galley, D. Michael Traub, Russell Byrd, and Aaron Smischney. The four had worked together at video game publisher

Acclaim Entertainment Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game publisher based in Glen Cove, New York. Originally formed by Greg Fischbach, Robert Holmes and Jim Scoroposki out of an Oyster Bay storefront in 1987, the company established a worldwide ...

before joining developer

Inevitable Entertainment Midway Studios Austin (formerly known as Inevitable Entertainment) was a video game developer established by former Acclaim Studios Austin employees, founded as Inevitable Entertainment in 2000 and acquired by Midway Games in 2004. Responsible f ...

. Inevitable Entertainment was eventually acquired by

Midway Games Midway Games Inc., known previously as Midway Manufacturing and Bally Midway, and commonly known as simply Midway, was an American video game developer and publisher. Midway's franchises included ''Mortal Kombat'', ''Rampage (series), Rampage'' ...

and renamed Midway Studios Austin, after which the studio was procedurally stripped of its game development duties and was tasked with streamlining Midway's development tools and technology instead. Wishing to return to game development, the four founders left the studio and established Panic Button in

, at the end of 2007. Galley and Traub are still active with the company as of July 2018. Panic Button started out experimenting with motion-based games, and for the next few years, they developed several exclusive games for the

Nintendo Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

and the

Kinect Kinect is a line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB cameras, and infrared projectors and detectors that map depth through either structured light or time of flig ...

peripheral for

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...

. However, interpreting the user's intent in motion games proved difficult and unreliable for them. In 2011, Adam Creighton joined Panic Button, becoming a co-owner in the company and its

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

. He instituted a focus change in the studio, wherein it turned towards port development. In 2012, Panic Button collaborated with fellow Austin company

Twisted Pixel Games Twisted Pixel Games, LLC is an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. Originally a contractor, Twisted Pixel releases games based on its own intellectual property, intellectual properties such as ''The Maw (video game), The Maw'' ...

to make their first port for their game ''

Ms. Splosion Man ''Ms. Splosion Man'' is a Platform game, platform video game developed by Twisted Pixel Games, and was released on Xbox 360 on July 13, 2011 as well as Windows Phone. It is the sequel to 2009's Splosion Man''. The game takes place directly afte ...

''. Porting games became their main source of revenue for the next few years, although they also released their own properties such as ''

Astro Duel Deluxe ''Astro Duel'' is a shoot 'em up game developed by Rusty Moyher and published by Wild Rooster. It was originally released on iOS in June 2014 and Windows in February 2016. A Nintendo Switch port titled ''Astro Duel Deluxe'' developed by Panic ...

'' in 2017. The company's

port of ''

Rocket League ''Rocket League'' is a vehicular soccer video game developed and published by Psyonix. The game was first released for Windows and PlayStation 4 in July 2015, with ports for Xbox One and Nintendo Switch being released later on. In June 2016, ...

'' made Panic Button better known in the industry in 2017. Their Switch ports of ''

Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * ...

'' and '' Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus'' followed with similar positive responses the next year and turned Panic Button into a studio in demand. The company had started working with the Switch hardware around 2012 (including early development tech), earlier than any other studio, and they work closely with Nintendo and

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

. Panic Button sees the source of its success in collaborating closely with the original content makers to ensure faithful ports within the constraints of the hardware, while adding non-gimmicky elements that improve the port, such as including touch or motion controls for the Switch. To keep a diverse portfolio, Panic Button partnered with

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

to bring the VR title ''To the Top'' from

Oculus Oculus (a term from Latin ''oculus'', meaning 'eye'), may refer to the following Architecture * Oculus (architecture), a circular opening in the centre of a dome or in a wall Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Oculus'' (film), a 2013 American ...

and

HTC Vive VIVE, sometimes referred to as HTC Vive, is a virtual reality brand of HTC Corporation. It consists of hardware like its titular virtual reality headsets and accessories, virtual reality software and services, and initiatives that promote appl ...

PlayStation VR The PlayStation VR (PS VR, known by its code name Project Morpheus during development) is a virtual reality headset developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, which was released in October 2016. It is fully functional with the PlayStation 4 an ...

in 2018; more VR ports may come should the opportunity arise. The studio also intends to keep building their own internal properties, saying "We don't plan to reinvent the genres for the games we're making, but we want to create some very tight, well-crafted love letters to these particular genres that we think will be fun and enjoyable and replayable for folks." Creighton left Panic Button in May 2019 to form his own studio, Enduring Games.

Games developed

References

External links

* {{Official website 2007 establishments in Texas American companies established in 2007 Companies based in Austin, Texas Privately held companies based in Texas Video game companies based in Texas Video game companies established in 2007 Video game companies of the United States Video game development companies