Digital Anvil

Digital Anvil was a video game studio founded April 8, 1996 with funding from Microsoft and Advanced Micro Devices by brothers Chris Roberts and Erin Roberts, along with Tony Zurovec, Marten Davies, Craig Cox, John Miles, Eric Peterson and Robert Rodriguez.

History

Chris Roberts wanted to make (not specifically direct) movies and built Digital Anvil with that in mind. He loved his experience directing the Wing Commander games and recognized that CG VFX was about to boil over. He reached an impasse with Electronic Arts because he didn't want to make a yearly Wing Commander game for the duration of his next contract. Meanwhile Electronic Arts which had acquired Origin Systems wouldn't give the flexibility needed to produce the kind of games the Origin team wanted to make. Several new game ideas got rejected while sequels were favored. Nor was EA interested in the film business.

Consequently Chris Roberts left Origin Systems to be in a smaller more focused company and group, to do a small number of high quality games a year, and to know everyone who was walking down the corridor. He also wanted the ability to exploit universes and stories he created or that other people in the company created and take them to film or tv and be small enough to react.

A number of Origin Systems employees went on to work for Digital Anvil, including Chris Olivia, Tony Zurovec or Martin Galway who joined Digital Anvil shortly after it was founded and was responsible for the audio on all of the games. Staff from the Strike Commander, Wing Commander and Privateer teams all moved over to Digital Anvil.

Chris Roberts who was Chairman and CEO wanted a name that would say old world craftsmanship and new world technology, therefore a forge or an anvil.

Digital Anvil's first project was their Wing Commander movie test. They also collaborated with Warthog Games on their Starlancer game.

Acquisition by Microsoft

Microsoft was laying the foundation for XBox. They wanted to learn how to build gaming hardware and software and they placed their bet on the latter on Digital Anvil. Just like they turned hardware bets into production systems with products like their Sidewinder line to prep for their planned future, they wanted to grow studios that would be ready to go for Xbox, able to produce the first party titles that would sell the system. Microsoft was less interested in StarLancer and Conquest and the like than they were in having the talent and the cache to make, ultimately, Brute Force. Meanwhile, Digital Anvil was seeking financing and international distribution.

Microsoft and AMD became equity investors. In June 2000, Microsoft started talks to buy Digital Anvil. Chris Roberts admitted that his team required large sums of money, which only a huge company could provide. The acquisition of Digital Anvil by Microsoft was completed on December 5th 2000.

The Microsoft deal made Digital Anvil go from a VFX house to being a game developer, with the company doubling in size.

One of the consequences of Digital Anvil's purchase was a reshuffling of titles being developed. Of all the projects being produced, only Freelancer escaped major change. Chris Roberts left the company after the Microsoft takeover, but still worked as a consultant on Freelancer.

Digital Anvil also worked on the visual effects of the 1999 Wing Commander movie and several others, including Spy Kids.

In 2001, Digital Anvil revealed a lighter Freelancer to the press. Although some of the more ambitious elements were dropped, this act proved Freelancer was not vaporware. In March 2003, Freelancer was released and immediately became one of the month's top-selling games.

In May 2003, Digital Anvil released Brute Force for the Xbox. The game also did quite well, setting first-month sales records for Xbox games. Starting from November 2005, Microsoft redeployed Digital Anvil employees to its own Microsoft Studios headquarters.

Digital Anvil was officially dissolved on January 31, 2006.

Trivia

• At the time, Robert Rodriguez was director and producer on movies such as El Mariachi, Desperado and From Dusk 'til Dawn.

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