THQ Digital Warrington (formerly Juice Games) is a video game developer based in the UK. They were recently acquired by THQ, Inc., publisher of their first console game Juiced. THQ have announced that Juiced sold over 2.0m units. Juice Games was formed from the ashes of Rage Games Limited, which was mostly made up of staff from Digital Image Design (bought out by Rage). The company was headed by industry veteran Colin Bell, until the buy out by THQ, who then assumed the position of General Manager.
Juice Games' most anticipated game, Juiced, was released around May/June 2005 after much delay. Juiced was originally going to be released in November 2004, but its publisher, Acclaim, went out of business and the game went into limbo for a month before being picked up by THQ and published, when the game received mixed response.
Set up in 2003, Juice Games has also launched mobile and interactive TV games, according to their website.
In 2005, Juice Games won the "Best New UK/European Studio" from the Develop magazine awards.
Juice Games released Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights, for release on PC, PSP, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo DS in late October 2007, to healthy critical acclaim. A demo for the Xbox 360 version was released on Xbox Live Marketplace on 19 July 2007. A second, multiplayer demo appeared on 14 September 2007.
Juice Games is currently based in one office in Warrington, UK, and employs over 40 staff. Over 30 staff were laid off as part of THQ's reorganisational operations on 3 November 2008 - this was due to the project the studio was working on was seen by THQ executives as a 'risk' (in line with the rest of the company's family friendly identity). This was revealed to be a project called Stormbirds, featuring a range of customisable jet fighters through a Realtime:uk produced CG video.
Their website currently advertises for staff to work on "an unannounced arcade racing game".[1]
In February 2010, THQ announced Juice Games would be part of a reshuffle, and would now bear the title THQ Digital Warrington. It is said 60 members of staff face redundancies between THQ's US Rainbow studio and Juice Game's studio.[2]
On 11 August 2010, THQ announced THQ Digital Warrington are working on "Red Faction: Battlegrounds" for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.[3]
See also[]
- Rage Software
- Digital Image Design
- Lamborghini
- Stormbirds
References[]
External links[]
- Official site
- Company Page at GameSpot
- Colin Bell at Moby Games
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