WildWorks

History

Beyond Games was founded in 1992 by Kris Johnson. The first release from the company was BattleWheels for the Atari Lynx, winner of the 1993 Consumer Electronics Show Innovations Award. Their follow-up, CyberVirus was planned for release the following year, but abandoned due to sagging sales of the platform. Assets and code were sold to Songbird Productions, who completed and published the game in 2002.

Games

''Animal Jam''

In December 2014, WildWorks released a 3D mobile app in the Animal Jam Classic universe, made with Unity, upgraded graphics and items, and new story called Animal Jam (formerly Animal Jam - Play Wild!). In 2016, it was announced that Animal Jam received over one million downloads despite having no paid user acquisition. Animal Jam has been the number one downloaded iPad game for kids 9–11 in 35 countries, the number one downloaded iPad educational game in 20 countries, and the number one top iPad game for kids 9–11 in 54 countries. As of late 2020, Animal Jam and Animal Jam Classic had 3.3 million monthly active users and a lifetime total of 130 million registered players in 200 countries.

''Animal Jam Classic''

The studio's flagship title was Animal Jam Classic (formerly Animal Jam). Animal Jam Classic is a virtual world for children, being developed within a partnership with the National Geographic Society. Users are placed in an online world called Jamaa, and are presented with a number of games, spaces to interact with other players, and light edutainment features in the form of games and fun facts within the game's world. The game offers additional interactive educational resources for children, teachers and parents. In early 2016, Animal Jam Classic was named the fastest growing game site in the US with over 50 million users registered worldwide.

''Fer.al''

On April 24 2019, WildWorks announced Feral at UDEN #22 (stylized as "Fer.al"), a MMO game based around fantasy and myth. Unlike Animal Jam Classic and Animal Jam, Feral was going to be directed at a 13+ audience as stated at UDEN. Feral was in Closed Beta from December 11, 2019 until May 20, 2020. It went into Early Access from May 20 but never reached full release.

On February 17 2022, wwadmin, the administrative account of WildWorks in the Feral Discord server, announced they were shutting down the game. The game was to reopen on February 19 for 24 hours, but due to violation of Feral's Terms of Service, the reopening was pushed to March 26 and shortened to 3 hours. Feral formally ceased operations on March 26 after a 3-hour shutdown period.

''Cinder''

Cinder was a 2021 Solana-based NFT MMO game, created using the engine and assets of the now-defunct WildWorks title Fer.al. The game is populated with avatars referred to as the Cinder Fae, whose traits are procedurally generated for sale as NFT character tokens. At launch, the initial mint contained 4,444 Cinder Fae NFTs for sale on the Solana marketplace. According to the Cinder white paper, the WildWorks team began beta testing in April 2020. At some point, the part of WildWorks creating Cinder branched off and formed Cinder Studios.

On February 8, 2023, Cinder's servers suddenly shut down without warning, along with its website. An employee reported that Cinder Studios was shut down. There have been no official announcements about Cinder's shutdown.

List of Titles

As Beyond Games

• Vehicular combat game
• Published by Beyond Games
• Fighting game
• Published by Atari Corporation
• First-person shooter
• Published by Accolade
• Vehicular combat game
• Published by Infogrames
• Racing video game
• Published by THQ

As Smart Bomb Interactive

• Snoopy vs. the Red Baron
• Snoopy Flying Ace
• Tunnel Town
• Animal Jam Jump
• Pac-Man World Rally
• Bee Movie Game
• Dash Tag
• Tag with Ryan

Technology

The studio also developed Bombshell, an engine and toolset for the development of high-fidelity interactive entertainment. The studio previously received first-round funding from the Canopy Group.

References

References

1. "Error - Business Search - Utah.gov".
2. [https://web.archive.org/web/20060724044631/http://games.ign.com/objects/827/827888.html IGN] at [[IGN]] Review
3. "WildWorks extends Animal Jam to more global players with Worldpay".
4. "Nazara Technologies Pvt Ltd Acquires Wildworks: Know Details".
5. (1995). "Company Profile". [[Beyond Games]].
6. (2004). "CyberVirus". Songbird Productions.
7. Hawken, Kieren. (October 6, 2016). "From the Archives: Beyond Games". [[Imagine Publishing]].
8. Bieniek, Chris. (April 1993). "Video-Game Previews: BattleWheels; 1993 Winter CES Overview - A Look At Some Of The Show's Best". [[Larry Flynt Publications]].
9. Smith, Clinton. (Summer 1993). "CES NEWS; BattleWheels". Clinton Smith.
10. pcwzrd13. (June 30, 2018). "Interview with Kris Johnson, Founder of Beyond Games, Developer of the Cancelled Redline Arena".
11. "Animal Jam's Instagram photo: "Today is a special day in the history of Animal Jam! It has been nearly 10 years since the launch of Animal Jam; in recognition of this…"".
12. (2020-09-11). "WildWorks' Animal Jam online playground hits 130 million registered players after a decade".
13. "Press Release {{!}} WildWorks {{!}} News".
14. "UDEN #22 - WildWorks Studio + Networking".
15. Octokoi. "Fer.al is Shutting Down".
16. "fer.al".
17. "Mac McCann on LinkedIn: It has been 15 years, almost to the day, that I started as an intern in… {{!}} 29 comments".
18. (June 1993). "Electronic Gaming Monthly Presents The Games Of June 1993...Appearing In Local Stores Now!". Sendai Publications.
19. (September 15, 1995). "Jaguar Online STR InfoFile: Online Users Growl & Purr! — CATnips.... Jaguar Tidbits of news from Don Thomas". STR Electronic Publishing Inc..
20. (March 24, 1999). "New Releases". [[ZDNET]].
21. (July 2, 2001). "INFOGRAMES, INC. CRASHES INTO STORES ON SONY PLAYSTATION 2 WITH MOTOR MAYHEM". [[Infogrames]].