Criterion Games
Criterion Games is a British video game developer based in Guildford. Founded in January 1996 as a division of Criterion Software, it was owned by Canon Inc. until Criterion Software was sold to Electronic Arts in October 2004. Many of Criterion Games' titles were built on the RenderWare engine, which Criterion Software developed. Notable games developed by Criterion Games include racing video games in the Burnout and Need for Speed series. As of April 2017, Criterion Games employ approximately 90 people. History Background and foundation (1993–1996) David Lau-Kee, the founder and leader of Canon Inc.'s European research arm, established Criterion Software as a wholly owned subsidiary of Canon in December 1993 and assumed the managing director role for it. At the time, Canon was seeking to establish a multimedia tool development business, while Lau-Kee had been working on interactive 2D image processing techniques and was looking to extend this to 3D image processing and, in turn, "out-and-out" 3D graphics. Adam Billyard, who served as its chief technology officer, is also credited as a co-founder. Criterion Software's 3D texture mapping and rendering programme, RenderWare, was first released in 1993 as a software library for the C programming language and was adopted