When was Daydream Software founded?
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Daydream Software is a defunct Swedish video game developer founded in 1994. They released four games (with another in the works) before closing in 2003.
Daydream Software
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Daydream Software was founded in 1994 in Umeå, Sweden. Its starting team of five was headed by lead designer Nigel Papworth on the principle that they would develop their own games without working with other major publishers to develop commissioned games.
Daydream Software
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Their first game was "Safecracker", a point and click adventure game published by DreamCatcher Interactive. The game had a tumultuous production, starting when GT Interactive bought initial publisher Warner Interactive Europe. Daydream Software went public in late 1996. The company's goal was to increase its economic and decision-making freedom, and to secure the ability to select a publisher at the end of each game's development rather than at the beginning. President Jans Phersson-Broburg argued that self-financing Daydream's future games with money from Swedish investors, instead of obtaining "funding linked to specific projects" from publishers, would offer the developer more stability, flexibility and room for growth. For Daydream's public launch, roughly 20 million kr worth of shares, or 45.5% of the company, were offered to investors in Sweden. The initial public offering was a success, and Daydream opened on the Stockholm Stock Exchange's Stockholm Börsinformation (SBI) list in January 1997. Daydream was eventually able to buy back the rights to "Safecracker".
Daydream Software
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Daydream Software went public in late 1996. The company's goal was to increase its economic and decision-making freedom, and to secure the ability to select a publisher at the end of each game's development rather than at the beginning. President Jans Phersson-Broburg argued that self-financing Daydream's future games with money from Swedish investors, instead of obtaining "funding linked to specific projects" from publishers, would offer the developer more stability, flexibility and room for growth. For Daydream's public launch, roughly 20 million kr worth of shares, or 45.5% of the company, were offered to investors in Sweden. The initial public offering was a success, and Daydream opened on the Stockholm Stock Exchange's Stockholm Börsinformation (SBI) list in January 1997. Around the time that Daydream Software launched its initial public offering, Warner Interactive was purchased by GT Interactive.
Safecracker (video game)
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Daydream Software was put through liquidation in February 2003 before closing in 2004. Most employees moving on to form a new development company: Resolution Interactive, which focused on iPhone games. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2012.
Daydream Software
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Daydream is a virtual reality (VR) platform developed by Google that is built into the Android mobile operating system (versions "Nougat" 7.1 and later). Compatible phones that follow the platform's software and hardware specifications (and are thus designated "Daydream-ready") are used in the Google Daydream View VR headset. The Daydream platform was announced at the Google I/O developer conference in May 2016, with the first VR headset released on November 10, 2016. Daydream is the company's second VR platform following Google Cardboard, which was a low-cost system intended to encourage interest in VR and was built into compatible mobile apps rather than the operating system itself.
Google Daydream
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Daydream's next game was a more ambitious title called "Clusterball", a futuristic sports game released in late 2000 for PC computers after a successful run as a downloadable title on Real.com. The game garnered mixed to positive reviews but low sales for the company.
Daydream Software
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In January 1998, Daydream Software announced "Project II" as "Traitors Gate" and scheduled its public unveiling for the following month, at the Milia festival in Cannes. Employment agency Octagon Entertainment, with which Daydream had signed after buying back "Safecracker"s rights from GT Interactive in November 1997, was set to begin locating distribution partners for "Traitors Gate" in February. Finished contracts were not forecast until May. As with "Safecracker", the plan was to work with a different local distributor in each territory. Jan Phersson-Broberg reported interest from distributors after Milia, but reiterated to investors that no deals would be signed before May, when a playable game demo was planned to launch at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). While the game was initially set for a late-1998 launch, by June of that year the release had been pushed back to early 1999. Distribution agreements remained pending after the game's E3 presentation.
Traitors Gate (video game)
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"Traitors Gate" was commercially successful and became Daydream Software's top-selling game. It sold 48,000 units worldwide by the end of May 2000, and was a hit in Spain, which accounted for 22,000 sales by April 10. The game spent over three months in the top 10 of Spain's sales charts. However, it was a commercial failure in Germany, where it sold 4,000 copies; and in the United Kingdom, which bought 3,000 units. It also failed in Italy. The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) traced "Traitors Gate"s country-by-country success rate to the quality of Daydream's distribution partners in each region. By September 30, worldwide sales of the game had risen to roughly 120,000 copies. Daydream told investors that the jump from May came due to "increased marketing efforts by us and our distributors."
Traitors Gate (video game)
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At the 1998 European Computer Trade Show (ECTS), Daydream landed distributors for "Traitors Gate" in eight countries. By the end of September, completion of the game was scheduled for fall; development costs had climbed to 8.06 million kr by late November. In January 1999, Daydream announced a release date of April, and confirmed K.E. Media as the game's distributor in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Deals with companies in France, Italy, Britain and the Netherlands were secured by February. However, as the year progressed, "Traitors Gate" encountered a four-month delay to fall 1999. This event was blamed by Daydream on numerous software bugs, caused by the game's "size and complexity". It proceeded to appear at E3 1999, and development costs rose to 10.6 million kr by the end of May, with 2.03 million of this figure depreciated through capitalization. Papworth estimated the final budget for "Traitors Gate" as between $1 and $2 million in United States currency.
Traitors Gate (video game)