Jolt Online Gaming was an online gaming company hosted in Ireland. Its main site provided news, reviews, and interviews concerning upcoming games on consoles and computers, while its gaming network Jolt Online Gaming Network hosted and published free-to-play browser-based games. Notable works included ''Utopia'', ''Utopia Kingdoms'', ''

Legends of Zork A legend is a historical narrative, a symbolic representation of folk belief. Legend(s) or The Legend(s) may also refer to: Narrative * Urban legend, a widely repeated story of dubious truth * A fictitious identity used in espionage Books, co ...

'', and '' NationStates 2''. As of 14 March 2012 Jolt's CEO Richard Barnwell announced through the ''Utopia Kingdoms'' forum that the company would be closing in the next couple of days:

History

Founded in 1999, Jolt Online Gaming was based in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, with

server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...

s across the US. Jolt was known as one of the pioneers of the supply of

rent Rent may refer to: Economics *Renting, an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property *Economic rent, any payment in excess of the cost of production *Rent-seeking, attempting to increase one's share of e ...

able servers to online gaming clans. Jolt was acquired by OMAC Industries, a company based in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, Ireland in June 2008. On 8 November 2009 the website Silicon Republic confirmed that

GameStop GameStop Corp. is an American video game, consumer electronics, and gaming merchandise retailer. The company is headquartered in Grapevine, Texas (a suburb of Dallas), and is the largest video game retailer worldwide. , the company operates 4,5 ...

had acquired a stake in Jolt, making a major, undisclosed investment. The Jolt Online Gaming Network had been noted for releasing

browser-based games A browser game or a "flash game" is a video game that is played via the internet using a web browser. They are mostly free-to-play and can be single-player or multiplayer. Some browser games are also available as mobile apps, PC games, or on co ...

using the names and fictional worlds of older games or

franchise Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...

s. Their business models often employed

micropayment A micropayment is a financial transaction involving a very small sum of money and usually one that occurs online. A number of micropayment systems were proposed and developed in the mid-to-late 1990s, all of which were ultimately unsuccessful. A s ...

systems, as well as basic banner advertisements.

Hosted games

''Championship Manager: Rivals''

''Championship Manager: Rivals'' is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

(soccer) game playable through the

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

. It was officially released on 1 June 2011 by Jolt Online and developed by

Beautiful Game Studios Beautiful Game Studios is a British video game developer based in London, England. The studio was set up in 2003 to take over the development of the ''Championship Manager'' after its former developer Sports Interactive ceased its involvement. ...

. The game is the most successful game that Jolt currently has, with a user base of 30,000

monthly active users Active users is a measurement metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from visitors within a relevant range of time (daily, weekly and m ...

(MAU). Jolt announced updates including

player vs. player Player versus player (PvP) is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between human players. This is often compared to player versus environment (PvE), in which the game itself controls its players' opponents. The terms are mos ...

gaming, which would allow friend's teams to play against each other. With the recent changes the company is experiencing (as of 16 March 2012), the future of ''Championship Manager: Rivals'' is unknown. The game's forum is dow

and the company has not specified how the company's closure will affect the game. There are no noticeable changes in-game, and no downtime reported.

''Earth: 2025''

''Earth: 2025'' was a browser-based massive multiplayer internet-based strategy game, originally created and run by Mehul Patel. It was first officially brought online in 1997 and acquired by Jolt through the 2008 sale of Swirve.com to Omac Industries. In 2008 Jolt acquired this game along with Swirve's ''

Utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...

''. On 4 November 2009 Jolt announced that they would no longer be continuing the game when the current rounds end in December, citing an over abundance of technical problems which allegedly made continuing support untenable.

''Utopia''

''Utopia'' is a browser-based massive multiplayer internet-based strategy game, originally developed by Mehul Patel and run by Swirve.com. It was first officially brought online in 1998 and acquired by Jolt through the 2008 sale of Swirve.com to Omac Industries. In 2009, following repeated

denial-of-service attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connect ...

s on the ''Utopia'' servers, Jolt sold the IP to the

-based Front Square Solutions (Sean Blanchfield and Brian McDonnell) and shut down the old game servers. Front Square relaunched the game a
utopia-game.com
by the end of the year, after rewriting its code base from scratch with identical gameplay. In February 2017, Blanchfield and McDonnell announced the sale of the game to the

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

-based MUGA Gaming, LLC, headed by David Cannata and Jeff Terkowitz.

''Utopia Kingdoms''

''Utopia Kingdoms'' is an online strategy game related to the universe of ''Utopia'' which was released in early 2009 and originally promoted as a kind of sequel. ''Utopia Kingdoms'' allows players to pick a race from the original game and build a kingdom, juggling buildings, resource manufacturing, and high-risk combat. It was made in conjunction with XS Software and is based on their game, ''Khan Wars''. On 16 November 2010 Jolt announced that ''Utopia Kingdoms'' would be discontinued after 31 January 2011, citing lack of development resources. Around the same time, Jolt Online who had already been developing a re-release of Utopia Kingdoms game on

, announced it officially on 11 November 2010 on the game's Facebook page. The original official forum announcement was lost due to data failure on or around 21 December 2010, the forum announced a second "welcome" to current ''Utopia Kingdoms'' players on 22 December 2010, which was thought to be the "official" release of the game, although it was not. Jolt Online's CEO Richard Barnwell communicated that the company's closure will not affect ''Utopia Kingdoms'':

''Legends of Zork''

'' was a casual adventure game that was released in April 2009 that took place in the ''

Zork ''Zork'' is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded and ...

'' universe, a text-based adventure game created in the 1980s for the PC. It was released on April Fool's Day 2009, to mixed reviews, with some saying that it had little to do with the original ''Zork''. Other, more recent reviews of the game were more positive, describing later features added to the game "with puzzles that would make the original Zork developers proud." Finally, on 24 May 2011, two years and one month after its release, Jolt Online announced the game closure to players in-game.

''Hattrick''

Hattrick A hat-trick (commonly known as a hat trick), in various sports, means achieving three goals, three wickets in three deliveries, etc. in a single match. Hat trick, hat-trick or hattrick may refer to: * "Hat Trick" (''Once Upon a Time''), an episod ...

'', a Swedish-based sports game, agreed to allow Jolt to host their game and make it available to more countries including the US, UK, Ireland, and Australia.

''Trukz''

''Trukz'' was a text-based game that allowed the player to create a truck driver and simulate the multitude of struggles cargo truck drivers endure on the road, the goal being upgrading their vehicle with commissions earned from the shipping and earning achievements for playing. The game used

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...

to point out cities they visited or pass on their drives. On 16 November 2010 Jolt announced that ''Trukz'' would be discontinued after 31 January 2011, citing lack of development resources.

''Playboy Party''

''Playboy Party'' was a short lived online game released on

around 30 November 2010. The game was released after Jolt failed to launch the long promised ''Playboy Manager'' game that they had planned in conjunction with

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...

since 2009. The game consisted in the player being a talent agent managing supermodels in an attempt to beat other agents to a prized spot as a Playboy supermodel. It was announced in May 2009 and garnered media coverage from well-known publications such as ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' and ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

''. The original ''Playboy Manager'' website contained the options to pre-register, beta sign-ups and subscription to updates, as well as promotional content. The ''Playboy Party'' game in Facebook was poorly managed, requiring a reset that made players start from scratch on March 31, 2011. It was closed six months later on September 12, 2011.

''NationStates 2''

'' NationStates 2'' was a sequel to the popular society simulation game '' Jennifer Government: NationStates'', which lost its authorization after not meeting its contractual obligations to the owner of the original ''NationStates''. ''NationStates 2'' was unpopular next to its predecessor, suffering from technical issues and was later discontinued. After it was taken down, the owner of ''NationStates'', author

Max Barry Max Barry (born 18 March 1973) is an Australian author. He also maintains a blog on various topics, including politics. When he published his first novel, ''Syrup'', he spelled his name "Maxx", but subsequently has used "Max". Barry is also the ...

reclaimed the domain and encouraged users to return or try the original version which was "now proudly Jolt-free".

References

{{reflist, colwidth=30em Browser-based game websites Mass media companies established in 1999 Mass media companies disestablished in 2012 1999 establishments in Ireland