Bugbear Entertainment Oy is a Finnish

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

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

, founded by Janne Alanenpää in 2000. The company is best known for the '' FlatOut'' series and '' Wreckfest''. In November 2018, a majority stake of the company was acquired by

THQ Nordic THQ Nordic GmbH (formerly Nordic Games GmbH) is an Austrian video game publisher based in Vienna. Formed in 2011, it is a publishing subsidiary of Embracer Group. Originally named Nordic Games, as was the parent company, both companies were r ...

History

Bugbear Entertainment was founded in

in 2000 by Janne Alanenpää. On 14 November 2018,

announced that they had acquired 90% of Bugbear for an undisclosed sum, leaving open the option to acquire the remaining 10% later on. At this time, Bugbear had 18 employees and was led by co-founder Alanenpää as

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

and

creative director A creative director is a person who makes high-level creative decisions; oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos; and directs and translates the creative people who produce the end results. Creat ...

. As of March 2020, Bugbear has 28 employees. All computer games developed by Bugbear are made in the car simulator genre. One of the well-known developments is the '' FlatOut'' series of games, the first game of which was released in 2004 for the personal computer and the

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

and

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 ...

game consoles. The games in the series have received various awards from the media and favorable reviews from critics and players. The average review score, according to

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, is 76 out of 100. In addition to the ''FlatOut'' series, the company has developed other game projects such as '' Rally Trophy'', a realistic

rallying Rallying is a wide-ranging form of motorsport with various competitive motoring elements such as speed tests (sometimes called "rally racing" in United States), navigation tests, or the ability to reach waypoints or a destination at a prescribed ...

simulator. Bugbear also released a new game from the ''

Ridge Racer is a series of racing video games created by Namco and owned by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The first game, ''Ridge Racer (1993 video game), Ridge Racer'' (1993), was originally released in arcades for the Namco System 22 hardware, later ported ...

'' series, '' Ridge Racer Unbounded'', which was released in 2012. On June 14, 2018, the company released a new game, '' Wreckfest'', previously known under the working title ''Next Car Game''. Bugbear used its own ROMU game engine (also known as the Bugbear Game Engine) to develop all games.

Games developed

References

External links

* {{Authority control Finnish companies established in 2000 2018 mergers and acquisitions Companies based in Helsinki THQ Nordic divisions and subsidiaries Video game companies established in 2000 Video game companies of Finland Video game development companies