Mass Media Inc.

• Name — Mass Media, Inc. • Former Name — Phillips P.O.V. Entertainment Group (1991-1995) • Type — Subsidiary • Parent — THQ (2007–2008) 2K (2018–present) • Hq Location — Moorpark, California, U.S. • Industry — Video games • Website — massmedia.com

Mass Media began in the 1980s at Cinemaware when David Riordan and David Todd worked at the company. In 1991, as Cinemaware was going bankrupt, they formed a production unit at Philips Interactive Media, called Philips P.O.V. Entertainment Group. The company made its big break with Voyeur, a successful interactive movie game that was a huge hit for CD-i and earned critical acclaim. In 1995, the company was reorganized, becoming more independent and renamed as Mass Media during the production of Thunder in Paradise Interactive. Mass Media soon left Philips in 1995 and the company became an exclusive developer for Time Warner Interactive after David Riordan left Philips for Time Warner. After Time Warner halted their interactive division and was sold to Midway Games, Mass Media became an independent developer. Mass Media's first game as an independent developer was developing The Game of Life for Hasbro Interactive, which was released in 1998 in association with developer The Collective. The company expanded by luring away staff from the former ashes of the game developer V.R.T.O. (another company formed by ex-Cinemaware alumunus). In late 1998, the company expanded to work for the Nintendo 64 platform, while the company first met THQ to develop a Bass Masters game for Nintendo 64, and in 2001, supported the Game Boy Advance platform. The company was also an early supporter of Nintendo GameCube's development tools. In 2003, the company worked with Blizzard Entertainment for porting classic games to Game Boy Advance for development of titles under the Classic Arcade label. The company also developed a party game engine, which was used for Muppets Party Cruise and Shrek: Super Party. It was acquired by THQ in February 2007 who closed the studio in November 2008. The company started back up immediately, focusing on developing for the Sony platforms, including the PlayStation 3. On the PlayStation 3, they developed content and spaces for its social gaming network PlayStation Home including the games The Midway, The Midway 2, and The Midway 3 which were three game spaces with ten mini-games in each with ten rewards per mini-game. The Green Ticket, used to play the games in the three Midways, was consistently the best selling item in PS Home. Mass Media has also continued to develop game engine technology for PlayStation 3 and other platforms. Notably this includes one of the first non-Sony PlayStation 3 implementations of fully SPU based GPU rendering command generation, significantly reducing rendering overhead on the main CPU (used in Saints Row 2 and subsequent PS3 titles). In 2018, Mass Media was acquired by 2K.

Mass Media has developed over forty titles and currently has additional titles in various stages of development. All of their titles were developed with their development tool set called BOLT. • Year — Title — Platform(s) • 1992 — Defender of the Crown — CD-i • Girl's Club • Lords of the Rising Sun • Mystic Midway: Rest in Pieces • Tetris • Zombie Dinos from Planet Zeltoid • 1993 — Caesars World of Boxing • Mystic Midway: Phantom Express — CD-i, MS-DOS • Voyeur — CD-i • 1994 — Mystic Midway: Rest in Pieces — MS-DOS • NFL Hall of Fame Football — CD-i • Voyeur — MS-DOS • 1995 — Thunder in Paradise Interactive — CD-i, MS-DOS • 1996 — 3-D TableSports — MS-DOS • 1998 — The Game of Life — Windows, PlayStation • 1999 — BassMasters 2000 — Nintendo 64 • Namco Museum 64 • 2000 — Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness — Dreamcast, Nintendo 64 • Namco Museum — Dreamcast • Saban's Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue — Nintendo 64 • StarCraft 64 • 2001 — Namco Museum — Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2 • Pac-Man Collection — Game Boy Advance • 2002 — Namco Museum — GameCube, Xbox • Pac-Man Fever — GameCube, PlayStation 2 • Shrek: Super Party — PlayStation 2, Xbox • The Simpsons Skateboarding — PlayStation 2 • 2003 — Blackthorne — Game Boy Advance • Jim Henson's Muppets Party Cruise — GameCube, PlayStation 2 • Rock n' Roll Racing — Game Boy Advance • Shrek: Super Party — GameCube • The Lost Vikings — Game Boy Advance • 2004 — Nicktoons Movin — PlayStation 2 • 2005 — Full Spectrum Warrior • The Bible Game — PlayStation 2, Xbox • 2006 — Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers — PlayStation 2 • 2007 — Tetris Evolution — Xbox 360 • 2008 — Saints Row 2 — PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 • 2009 — Marvel Super Hero Squad — PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable • Saints Row 2 — Windows • 2010 — Darksiders — Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 • The Midway — PlayStation Home • The Midway 2 • 2011 — Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine — Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 • 2012 — Jak and Daxter Collection — PlayStation 3 • The Midway 3 — PlayStation Home • 2013 — Jak and Daxter Collection — PlayStation Vita • 2014 — Ratchet & Clank Collection • 2015 — Evolve — Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One • 2016 — Mafia III • 2017 — XCOM 2: War of the Chosen — PlayStation 4, Xbox One • 2018 — Carnival Games — Windows, Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One • 2022 — New Tales from the Borderlands — Switch