heatwave-interactive posts

An MMO game that was canceled before it was even released will finally be launching to the public very soon. Developer Heatwave Interactive has announced that the Greek mythology-themed game Gods and Heroes will open to the public on June 21. Pre-orders for the game are being taken at its official web site. Those who pre-order will get access to the game a week earlier and get a couple of exclusive in-game items.

Gods and Heroes was first announced way back in 2005 by Perpetual Entertainment. After being development for a couple of years the game was put on "indefinite hold" in October 2007. A few months later Perpetual shut its doors. Heatwave Interactive announced its plans to revive the game in February 2010.

Today seems to be a day to reveal beta tests for games. Today the sparse web site for the upcoming MMO Gods and Heroes set up a way to sign up to beta test this long-in-development game. There's no word on what the beta will contain or when it will begin.

This game was first announced in 2005 by Perpetual Entertainment but was later put on "indefinite hold" by the developer in late 2007. Perpetual shut down for good in early 2008 and it seemed at the time the game went with it. In February 2010 Gods and Heroes got a new life as Heatwave Interactive announced it had acquired the rights to the game.

[Via Blue's News]

An MMO that got shut down before its release by a developer that went out of business a few months later is now being revived over two years later. Heatwave Interactive announced today they have bought the rights to Gods and Heroes, the Greek-Roman mythology themed MMO that was previously in development by the now defunct Perpetual Entertainment.

First announced in 2005 by Perpetual, the game got its release date pushed back several times before Perpetual put the game on "indefinite hold" in October 2007 (even though the game was being advertised in PC gaming magazines at the time). Perpetual itself, which was also the first developer of Star Trek Online, shut down in January 2008.

It now appear that some of the co-founders of Perpetual got together again to form a new company called PlayGrid, a technology company for making MMO games. Heatwave Interactive has bought a source code license from PlayGrid, two game engines and all the rights to Gods and Heroes. There's no word on when the revived Gods and Heroes will launched. Our sister site Massively has posted up a brief Q&A with Heatwave on the acquisition.

Austin-based Heatwave Interactive has been around for a couple of years now but the game developer-incubator hasn't really reveal what projects it plans to create. That changed this week with the announcement of Platinum Life, described as a online title that's centered around the hip-hop music culture.

Heatwave states that the game will have players start as an unsigned music artist and have them work their way to the top of the hip-hop music business. The game has already signed real life hip-hop music artist T.I. to lend his likeness to the game. Heatwave says the game is still in its early development stages and plans to sign other music artists to contribute to Platinum Life.

Austin base game developer Heatwave Interactive continues to hire a broad section of game developers for its start-up operation. This week the company announced several more hires to their business, including one that's a little bit of a surprise

The surprise new team member is Bart Sears who has joined Heatwave as its Senior Concept Artist. Comic book readers will likely recognize the name as Sears has had a long career drawing titles for Marvel, DC and many other publishers. Among Heatwave's other hires is Dave Prout, formerly a co-founder of Spark Unlimited who is now Heatwave's new Director of Development. Heatwave has a number of unannounced game projects in the works but the first isn't expected to be released until 2010.

Several months ago we reported that the Austin-based game developer Heatwave Interactive had secured $7.5 million in venture capital funding. This week the developer announced who was going to be handling all that money. Patrick Goodwin, formerly the CFO and Treasurer of Valve, has been named as the new CFO of Heatwave.

Also announced as joining the team is Paul Fullwood, formerly of the now defunct Hasbro Interactive, who will be Heatwave's senior VP of business development. Also Jenny Bendel, formerly the marketing manager of ArenaNet. has joined Heatwave as its director of marketing. Heatwave has a number of unannounced game projects in the works but the first isn't expected to be released until 2010.

So what is Heatwave Interactive? It's an Austin, Texas game development studio that was first formed back in February 2007 by Anthony Castoro, formerly a game designer and producer at Electronic Arts and the head of Codemasters' MMO division. Today, business blog VentureBeat is reporting that Heatwave Interactive has secured $7.5 million in venture capital funding.

Heatwave's development plan is to create ideas for games and make they up to their prototype stage. Castoro states, "There is also a lot of game development talent that can't get a relationship with a game publisher. We hope to stand out with our business model." At the moment the studio is working on three projects but the first game may not be released until 2010.