As designer and lead developer of the Battlecruiser series of games, Derek Smart released the first Battlecruiser title in late 1996.
Released in Beta, by its then publisher, Take 2 interactive, in early 1998, 3000AD regained rights to the franchise after an out-of-court settlement with Take2 over its premature release. Upon completion of the settlement, BC3K, (which had been patched and mostly fixed - for free and without funding, between late 1996 and early 1998), was released for free on the Internet, where it remained in the top 10 Internet download charts for over 13 weeks and remained in the top 20 for over 80 weeks.
The popularity of the title and indeed its free Internet release, prompted Interplay to take notice and in June 1998, gained the North American rights to Battlecruiser 3000AD v2.0.
This version was released by Interplay in December of 1998 and in its first qtr of sales, sold in excess of 45K units. A DOS title. In 98-99. Competing with multi-million dollar budget WIN9x titles. Think about that for a minute.
GT Interactive later picked up the European rights and released BC3K v2.08 in late 1999.
Followed by Jack Of All Games into Australia, New Zealand and Asian territories in early 2000.
To date, the BC franchise has in excess of 200K+ gamers worldwide. Not a lot by industry standards, but a lot, considering that the BC series caters to a smaller hardcore niche audience.
After almost two years, development on the third title in the series, Battlecruiser Millennium, (BCM)is in the final stages of Beta and is expected to go Gold in June 2001.
Through an exclusive 90-day deal with one of the largest game retailers in North America, BCM is targeted, once again, at its hardcore audience, being its "safe haven", if you will.
The MMOG spin-off of BCM, Galactic Command Online, (GCO), is also in development and scheduled to enter live trials in early 2002.
3000AD, Inc is also entering the console market
with its development of two titles for the XBox. Twlight Breach, a futuristic space sim, using the BCM suite of engines and Prowler, a futuristic first person shooter using both the BCM suite of engines and the Serious Sam engine by Croteam.
3000AD Inc is a 100% virtual company. After sustaining severe financial losses due to the ill-fated release of BC3K in 1996, Derek Smart closed up shop and moved his operation to a home office in order to minimize operating expenses and to regroup. Due to the hardcore and dedicated nature of the BC development process, 3000AD is still mostly a virtual company, hiring the best and dedicated resources from around the world. Each individual is allowed to excel at what they do best and this shows in all the BC titles, especially the upcoming ground breaking BCM.
The Battlecruiser series of games are critically acclaimed as some of the most ambitious, advanced and hardcore games, ever developed. You can obtain more info about our exciting company, products, partners etc at the links below.
You can obtain the BCM demo in several gaming print mags, beginning with their June/July 2001 issues, e.g. Computer Games Magazine (June 2001), Computer Gaming World (July 2001), PC Zone UK (June 2001), PC Gamer UK (June 2001 and July 2001).
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