Factor 5
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|
| Private | |
| Industry | Video game industry |
| Fate | Closed, properties sold |
| Founded | 1987 1996 (US branch) |
| Defunct | May 2009 (US branch), January 2011 (German branch) |
| Headquarters | Cologne, Germany San Rafael, California, USA (US branch) |
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Key people
|
Achim Moller, CEO Julian Eggebrecht, President (US branch) |
| Products |
Lair Rogue Squadron series Turrican series MusyX: Dolby Sound Tools DivX For Games SDK |
| Website | Official website |
Factor 5 GmbH was an independent software and video game developer. The company was originally co-founded by five former Rainbow Arts employees in 1987 in Cologne, Germany, which served as the inspiration behind the studio's name.
In order to have a stronger relationship with Factor 5's North American partners like LucasArts, Factor 5, Inc. was established in the US in May 1996 with legal support from LucasArts, and in late 1996 the core of the development team in Germany was relocated to the North American company headquarters in San Rafael, California.Julian Eggebrecht, one of the five initial co-founders, served as President of Factor 5's US branch.
The US company closed in May 2009, following the closure of Brash Entertainment, with which the company had multiple contracts. The original German company, headed by CEO Achim Moller, remained active due to its unrelated business policy and operations with the North American company.
However, in January 2011, Moller liquidated Factor 5 GmbH, and all game licenses were transferred to "Eggebrecht, Engel, Schmidt GbR".
The programming group which would eventually become Factor 5 had originally formed in the 1980s, in what cofounder Julian Eggebrecht described as a culture of hacking and multimedia programming on the local demo scene. Eggebrecht attended the Filmhochschule in Munich to become a movie director, and all the other members studied computer science.
While its founders were still university students, Factor 5 started out in game development as a part-time activity under partnership with Rainbow Arts for the Amiga computer. There, they had their earliest moderate success with Katakis, an R-Type clone of impressive technical performance. Due to the game's obvious similarity to R-Type, rights holder Activision Europe delivered an ultimatum: either Factor 5 accept a contract to perform the official R-Type conversion for the Amiga home computer, or receive a lawsuit for rights infringement. According to Julian Eggebrecht, this was because "Activision couldn't find any programmers" however the opportunity was "a dream come true".
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Wikipedia