Park Place Productions

Founded: 1989^[1]

Headquarters:

San Diego, California, United States

This short article is in need of work. You can help Sega Retro by adding to it.

Park Place Productions was an American video game development studio known for working closely with Sega of America on a number of early first-party Genesis sports titles.

Company

By 1993 Park Place was one of the largest independent software houses, with development contracts for the likes of Electronic Arts, Acclaim Entertainment and Sony Imagesoft, however the company overstretched, taking on too many contracts and hiring too many inexperienced people^[1] and by December 1993 after many missed deadlines (which in turn led to litigation from one customer, RazorSoft), revealed that it would not be able to pay its staff^[2]. At this point the company's founders, Troy Lyndon and Michael Knox, had gone their separate ways and were publicly criticising each other's handling of the business.

Reportedly Sony Imagesoft stepped in to rescue the company, but Knox wouldn't surrender majority control^[3]. Instead, it was alleged that Sony encouraged the staff of Park Place to resign without notice and come and work at their new development division, to finish the ESPN titles originally tasked with Park Place to produce^[1].

Knowing their futures were in doubt, two days after Christmas 1993, 27 developers left Park Place in favour of Sony Imagesoft, with Knox stating that 50 former colleagues were now working over there^[4]. The mass desertion left the company with around 30 unfinished games and $2 million USD in debt^[4].

This mass exodus to Sony Imagesoft prompted Park Place to sue Sony, accusing the company of performing a hostile takeover and alleging that as well as staff, employees took "hardware, software and proprietary source codes^[1]" to their new employer^[5]. Park Place sought $390 million USD in damages^[5], but at this point all development at the company had ceased.

Softography

Mega Drive

(1990)
(1991)
(1991)
(1991) (as Park Place Production Team)
(1991) (as Park Place Production Team)
(1992)
(1993)
(1993)
(1994)
(1994)
(1994)
(unreleased)
(unreleased)
(unreleased)
(unreleased)

Game Gear

(unreleased)

Mega-CD

(1993)

References

[:File:ElectronicGames2_US_20.pdf_p11-1] 1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 Electronic Games (1992-1995), "May 1994" (US; 1994-04-21), page 11

[:File:ElectronicGames2_US_20.pdf_p10-2] Electronic Games (1992-1995), "May 1994" (US; 1994-04-21), page 10

[:File:ElectronicGames2_US_20.pdf_p12-3] Electronic Games (1992-1995), "May 1994" (US; 1994-04-21), page 12

[:File:GamePlayers_US_0703.pdf_p10-4] 4.0 ^4.1 Game Players, "Vol. 7 No. 3 March 1994" (US; 1994-0x-xx), page 10

[:File:EGM_US_092.pdf_p18-5] 5.0 ^5.1 Electronic Gaming Monthly, "March 1997" (US; 1997-0x-xx), page 18

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]