Elixir Studios was a British

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 ...

History

The company was founded on 7 July 1998 by

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, formerly a prominent figure at

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. After failing to secure

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

at acceptable terms, Hassabis had pitched his startup to 15 different

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, eventually signing a three-game deal with

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. At its height, Elixir had employed around sixty people, and was based in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. It aimed to be an independent developer, creating its own intellectual properties rather than licensing established ones. The company's first game, '' Republic: The Revolution'', was released in

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, and a second game, '' Evil Genius'', was released in

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. In 2005, however, the company announced that it would be closing. This followed the cancellation of development on a major project due to its "perceived high-risk", which had been underway for two years. The company, citing "the current risk averse publishing climate", concluded that its goal of exploring new territory was not possible. In a press release, Hassabis said: "It seems that today's games industry no longer has room for small independent developers wanting to work on innovative and original ideas. ... is was the sole purpose of setting up Elixir and something we could never compromise on." Elixir stated that it had sufficient resources to pay redundancy packages to its staff and ensure that the company was wound down in an orderly manner.

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bought Elixir's intellectual property in March 2006, including '' Evil Genius''.

Games

References

Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game development companies Video game companies established in 1998 Video game companies disestablished in 2005 Defunct companies based in London 1998 establishments in England 2005 disestablishments in England {{UK-videogame-company-stub