Bullfrog Productions, Ltd.

Moby ID: 100

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Bullfrog Productions was a British developer. It was founded in 1987 by Les Edgar and Peter Molyneux. They were best known for their business simulations in the Theme series as well as the strategy and/or god games, such as Populous, Syndicate and Dungeon Keeper.

In January 1995, to strengthen its global positioning, Bullfrog Productions merged with long time publishing partner Electronic Arts. In August 1997, Bullfrog co-founder, Peter Molyneux, left to establish a new development team, Lionhead Productions (who, incidentally, has also signed a distribution deal with Electronic Arts). In September 1999, Les Edgar changed his role to consultant for Bullfrog Productions Limited, enabling him to pay more equitable attention to his other business interests. Edgar handed the reins to Bruce McMillan from Electronic Arts' Canadian studio.

Following its purchase by EA, Bullfrog continued to work in its original offices in Guildford as an EA studio, and continued to display its own Bullfrog logo on the boxes of its games. In 2000, Electronic Arts merged its EA-UK offices, which had been in Langley near Slough, with the Bullfrog offices, into a new facility in Chertsey. Around August of that year the company decided to drop all further production of Bullfrog-branded products, and the former Bullfrog employees were put onto new projects such as the Harry Potter series. The last Bullfrog-branded original game was SimCoaster (also known as Theme Park Inc.), released in early 2001. The last overall Bullfrog-branded game was Quake III: Revolution, a port released later on in 2001.

A few compilations of older games that Bullfrog worked on have been published since, but to all intents and purposes the brand has been dead since the move to Chertsey in 2000.

Many Bullfrog developers left to found their own studios and these became Intrepid Computer Entertainment Ltd., Big Blue Box Studios Ltd. and Lionhead Studios. The latter eventually absorbed the first two and became the only studio to carry on the Bullfrog legacy.

Credited on 26 Games from 1988 to 2001

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Quake III: Revolution (2001 on PlayStation 2)
SimCoaster (2001 on Windows)
Sim Theme Park (Gold Edition) (2000 on Windows)
Sim Theme Park (1999 on Windows, PlayStation, PlayStation 2...)
Dungeon Keeper 2 (1999 on Windows)
Populous: The Beginning (1998 on Windows, PlayStation, PSP...)
Dungeon Keeper (1997 on DOS, Windows, Macintosh)
Theme Hospital (1997 on DOS, Windows, PlayStation...)
Syndicate Wars (1996 on DOS, Windows, PlayStation...)
Genewars (1996 on DOS)
Hi-Octane (1995 on DOS, PlayStation, SEGA Saturn...)
Magic Carpet 2: The Netherworlds (1995 on DOS, Windows, Macintosh)
Magic Carpet Plus (1995 on DOS, PlayStation, SEGA Saturn...)
Tube (1995 on DOS)
Magic Carpet (1994 on DOS, Windows, Macintosh)
Syndicate (1994 on SNES, Genesis, SEGA CD)
Syndicate Plus (1994 on DOS, Windows, Macintosh...)
Theme Park (1994 on DOS, Windows, PlayStation...)
Syndicate (1993 on DOS, Windows, Jaguar...)
Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods (1991 on DOS, Windows, SNES...)

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History +

January 1995

Acquired by Electronic Arts.

1987

Company founded by Peter Molyneux and Les Edgar in the UK.

Trivia +

Location in July 1995:

Bullfrog Ltd.

20 Nugent Road

Surrey Research Park

Guildford, Surrey GU2 5AF

England

The overview supplied from Bullfrog's website does quite a nice Stalinist rewrite of history - Populous was in fact the company's second game, the first was a "simplistic arcade style game" (as Bullfrog themselves might put it) called Fusion, which even Peter Molyneux later conceded was rubbish. The very first game they worked on, not as an original title, was Druid II: Enlightenment however.

Bullfrog was named as "Best Developer in 1994" by the German magazine Power Play (issue 02/1995).

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