Jackbox Games
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Formerly called
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Jellyvision Games, Inc. |
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| Private | |
| Industry | Video game industry |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Founder | Harry Gottlieb |
| Headquarters | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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Mike Bilder (CEO) |
| Products | You Don't Know Jack |
| Website | jackboxgames |
Jackbox Games, Inc. (formerly Jellyvision Games, Inc.) is a Chicago-based video game developer, known for the You Don't Know Jack series (YDKJ) of trivia quiz-based video games. As a subsidiary of Jellyvision, the company was previously incorporated as Jellyvision Games, until the formal separation of the games development unit from interactive video advertising division. The company was reincorporated to Jackbox Games in June 2013.
From 1995 to 1998, Jellyvision published numerous versions of YDKJ for personal computers, and attempted to enter the marketplace with console-based versions of the game, but found these to be unsuccessful. Jellyvision became Jellyvision Labs, working on communication software for business clients.
In 2008, as the popularity of networked consoles and mobile devices became popular, Jellyvision Labs opted to spin out a games division, naming it Jellyvision Games, LLC, headed by Mike Bilder. The new division looked to revitalize YDKJ for these new systems, subsequently releasing an iOS application and, in partnership with THQ, a console version in 2011. Near the end of 2011, the company was incorporated as Jellyvision Games, Inc. Since then, the company has developed a Facebook version of the game, allowing them to continuously provide new trivia; later the product expanded to include a standalone mobile application that allows data sharing and competition with the Facebook version. The game was awarded the "Social Game of the Year" at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards.
The studio was rebranded as Jackbox Games in June 2013, and announced that it would continue to focus on developing social games for current platforms including mobile devices and home entertainment devices like Roku and Ouya. Versions of YDKJ were subsequently released on both Roku and Ouya, then later on the Amazon Fire TV. During this time, the company introduced a unique feature that allowed the game to be played using smartphones and tablets as controllers, rather than actual game controllers.
Jackbox released more apps including Clone Booth (a humorous photo-manipulation app) and the games Lie Swatter (a find-the-lies game of wacky facts) and Word Puttz (a mini-golf themed word game), before turning its attention back to consoles with its 2014 release of Fibbage: The Hilarious Bluffing Party Game. Fibbage first appeared on the Amazon Fire TV but soon after was released as a digital-only title on Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in September 2014. Fibbage also uses the phones-as-controllers technology, allowing players to type in bluffs to fool other players, and allowing up to 8 players to play in one room (no actual physical controllers are used to play the game). Fibbage is hosted by YOU DON'T KNOW JACK's familiar host, Cookie Masterson.
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Wikipedia