Pixar artists form game studio
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Five veterans of Oscar-winning animation studio create Steel Wool Games; first title Flyhunter expected to release this summer.
A handful of artists at Disney's Oscar-winning animation studio Pixar who worked on movies like Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Finding Nemo have created a game studio called Steel Wool Games (via Edge).
Cofounders Sequoia Blankenship, Joshua Qualtieri, Jonathan Hoffman, Andrew Lee Dayton, and Jason Peter Topolski make up the Steel Wool Games executive team. The studio counts nine additional employees, according to its website.
The five current Pixar artists have not left the award-winning animation studio, but rather are holding both jobs: creating movies during the day and games at night.
Steel Wool Games is aiming to release its first title--Flyhunter--this summer. Platforms were not specifically mentioned, though the company said it plans to develop multi-platform games.
Dayton described the studio's style to Edge as "Grimsical," noting the company's ambition to to "create worlds that are funny and whimsical but dipped in gritty tones."
Flyhunter will be published by Ripstone, the studio behind PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita game Big Sky Infinity, among others.
As for Pixar, the outfit is currently working on films Monster's University, The Good Dinosaur, and a Finding Nemo sequel.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
62 comments
I hope they get creative with their talent and don't just throw out a bunch of money making crap for kids
1 Like @uglypinkmoose Not sure as to what level of context you meant that as, but if it's stuff that doesn't talk down to kids and actually has classic yet innovative game play mechanics that won't be hard to pick up but still enough to keep older players from feeling bored... Then yeah, no crappy games geared toward what twistedly outdated look as to what Disney's percieved notion as to what kids should be treated to.
This industry needs to start making games that parents can buy that isn't loaded with sex and gore all the damn time. World needs devs that ain't afraid of tackling more of what Nintendo seems to be the only one offering.
film makers aren't rly good games makers. we don't wana a game all about how it cool it looks, we wana a game that about how cool it game-play. hope they remember that
There is this film where a man's wife is brutally murdered by a serial killer and the attack leaves his son physically disabled. Then in a twisted turn of events the son gets kidnapped and the father has to chase the kidnapper 1000s of miles with the help of a mentally disabled woman. Finding Nemo lol
interesting
I just hope they don't go to the EA/activision side of the force, god knows we have enough sith developers running around
Well, if their games become as generic and lacking in visual diversity as the movies
This will suck balls.
1 Like @deckmaster2004 You've got major issues in taste.. I know everyone has their own opinions and all.... but you're an exception.
1 Like @warhawk-geeby @deckmaster2004
No? Literary aspect aside (even for children focused studios it sucks major ass). Pixar and Dreamworks have been recycling material for years now. An easy example would be the googly eyes every single character in any of their animations possesses or the simplistic textures they give to everything.
Surely you could try to call those a trademark or even a design choice as to not overload children with details, but, the fact remains that there is few variety in their artistic design.
You can take a quick look at children films from good animation houses like WETA digital's "The adventures of Tintin or Industrial Light & Magic's "Rango" to accentuate the horrible lack of artistic diversity on Pixar's recent films (most of them being sequels)
Ofc they still make good animated films ocasionally but most of their recent works fail at the visual level IMHO.
Please do excuse my poor english.
FUCK U GS U have changed your GUI once again i cant read my comments posted yesterday.
"The five current Pixar artists have not left the award-winning animation studio, but rather are holding both jobs: creating movies during the day and games at night."
Now that's dedication! Kudos
Hmm not sure who a video game made by Pixar artists would be but as their movies have been enjoyable I might just try it out
3 Like "creating movies during the day and games at night"...hope they don't burn themselves out, sleeping is kinda important :)
1 Like Interesting timing with the industry suffering what is, by all facts and circumstances, a recession but here's hoping their creativity contributes to recovery.
1 Like @BlendThree New studios like this and indie studios are doing a lot to help the industry right now.
2 Like Don't know if it's their goal but I'm hoping for stuff along the line of psychonauts, at least in terms of their focus on humour.
6 Like Hey Pixar guys, grab this idea: A super smash bros style game with Toy Story characters.
2 Like Well, at leat we can assume the games will have great graphics, sounds, and a decent story. Just hope they can pull off the gameplay.
7 Like Hard not expect anything but greatness based on this. I wish them the best of luck with their first game, and will definitley be on the look out for updates.
@obsequies Laughable statement... So you're saying no idea is worthwhile unless Jobs came up with it? Ha.
1 Like @Pyrosa @obsequies Jobs created Pixar.... I don't see why it couldn't be possible if he had part of the idea for making games with it too...
@RPG_Fan_I_Am Steve Jobs didn't care about games especially after the Pippin fail. Don't forget that Bungie presented Halo as a Mac exclusive before Microsoft bought them. Jobs didn't care about the futur of Bungie or games on Mac.
@tframp420He bought Lucas arts computer graphics division, Created Pixar as an independent company, and hired them all to work there. You can read about it on their website.
1 Like @RPG_Fan_I_Am @Pyrosa @obsequies Steve Jobs didn't create Pixar, he bought/invested in it.
@Pyrosa @obsequies that's exactly what I said. you should just edit your comment before its too late. I didn't say it would only be interesting if jobs was on board..I said it would be interesting if he had something to do with it. Your apple phobia makes you sound like a complete hipster
Just as long as they dont automatically jump into this curse of gaming, mobile/social gaming and suddenly start bragging about it. Lets have some REAL games from them please.
These people must not like to do anything more than work and sleep. Good on them. Will keep one eye open for their first release.
3 Like I don't know how I feel about this. I mean I LOVE Pixar to death but making movies and making games are two very different things. A very wise man once said "Asking a movie maker to make a game is like asking a sausage maker to suck off a pig. Theres an obvious connection but they require two totally different skillsets and it will just end up leaving a bad taste in someones mouth".
@vault-boy I agree to an extent. How will the graphics team cope with real time graphics instead of the great amount of detail you can throw at a rendering farm? How will they cope with design? Programming? Mechanics? Game narrative which is inherently different from movie narrative theory?
1 Like They probably saw what studio Ghibli did with Ni no Kuni and thought we could do that. Then poof new game studio.
@JustinRiden @vault-boy Oh, ya I'm not saying it is definitely going to be bad and there have been a couple of success stories, but I'm still worried none the less. I do hope it turns out well, though.
I wouldn't expect them to, because there's a big difference between prerendered CGI and real-time graphics processing. ;) I'm more interested in what kinds of character designs, stories and settings they will produce.
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