Griptonite Games - History

History

Steve Ettinger opened the Seattle division of Realtime Associates in February, 1994. After five and a half years developing many console and handheld games, the Seattle division was acquired by KnowWonder, Inc in November 1999. Several staff from the Realtime contingent continued to work on handheld titles, and became the nucleus of what would be dubbed Griptonite Games, one of three internal studios whose names were coined when KnowWonder, Inc. renamed itself Amaze Entertainment. (the other initial studio names were KnowWonder and Adrenium Games). Griptonite's initial focus was on Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and eventually some Nintendo DS games. In 2005, the Griptonite brand was retired and all games produced by the studio fell under the Amaze Entertainment brand. In 2007, Amaze Entertainment and each of its internal studio was acquired by Foundation 9 Entertainment. In 2008, Foundation 9 relaunched the Griptonite brand to distinguish and recognize the studio in the Foundation 9 family; although the name had not been used publicly since 2005, the studio was still widely referred to as Griptonite throughout the game industry. In July, 2009 the Amaze Entertainment 'console' studio was merged into Griptonite, giving the studio capabilities on all platforms in all genres. J.C. Connors is the current studio head, while Steve Ettinger oversees the studio in his role of Studio VP at Foundation 9. On August 2, 2011, Glu Mobile acquired Griptonite Games. Its staff of 200 "approximately doubles" Glu's internal development capacity.