Overview
Westwood Studios was founded in 1985 by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle. Westwood was based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Originally, Westwood worked on porting 8-bit games to 16-bit consoles (such as the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST). They worked with such companies as Epyx and Strategic Simulations. After these ventures, Westwood released their first original game, Mars Saga, in 1988. Their first real success, however, came in 1990, with the release of Eye of the Beholder, a role-playing game in the Dungeons & Dragons franchise.
Westwood was sold in 1992 to Virgin Interactive, where they became well-known for Dune II, The Legend of Kyrandia, and Lands of Lore. Dune II is also credited with the creation of the real-time strategy genre. Westwood's biggest success came in 1995, with the release of Command & Conquer. The game has since spawned numerous sequels and spin-off franchises (for example, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3). The franchise has since become well-known for its intense action and purposely cheesy cutscenes.
In 1998, Westwood was purchased by Electronic Arts for approximately $122.5 million. Some Westwood employees did not respond well to this acquisition, and moved on to form Petroglyph Games. Westwood later became Westwood Pacific, after EA merged Westwood with a studio based in Irvine, California. Westwood Pacific helped develop or developed several games, such as Nox and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2.
Westwood was shut down in 2003 when it failed to meet the commercial expectations that EA had for it. Westwood was liquidated, and many employees moved on to EA Los Angeles (which has gone on to developed many titles in the Command & Conquer franchise). Westwood's last game was a PC MMORPG titled Earth & Beyond.
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