Stellar Stone

Stellar Stone LLC
Private
Industry Video game industry
Fate Dissolved
Founded 2000 (2000)
Defunct 2006 (2006)
Headquarters Santa Monica, California, United States
Number of locations
 3 offices (2006)
Products Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
Owner TS Group Entertainment, LLC
Website www.stellarstone.com (archived)

Stellar Stone LLC, doing business as Stellar Stone Group (commonly referred to as Stellar Stone), was a video game developer founded in 2000 and based in Santa Monica, California. The company developed games offshore in Russia and Ukraine, with a small staff and low budget. The co-owner of Stellar Stone was Sergey Titov, CEO of TS Group Entertainment, who licensed his Eternity game engine to Stellar Stone in exchange for a substantial portion of the company.

The company developed a total of seven games, most of which are little-known. Their best-known title was Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, a 2003 video game considered to be one of the worst games ever made. Every game in Stellar Stone's portfolio was published by GameMill Publishing, with the exception of their first title, Taxi Racer, which was published by BestBuys Interactive. Stellar Stone ceased operations and closed down in 2006.

History

Stellar Stone was founded in Santa Monica, California in 2000. The company was headquartered Santa Monica with management offices located in Los Angeles, Nevada and London, England. The company's development teams were stationed offshore in Russia and Ukraine.[1] This allowed them to produce games at the cheap price of at least $15,000, compared to costs three to five times higher in price with other European or United States-based developers.

All of Stellar Stone's games were built on the Eternity game engine by Sergey Titov, CEO of TS Group Entertainment, who licensed it to Stellar Stone in exchange for a "large chunk of the company."[1] According to Titov, the company "[wanted] to do things cheap and [was] not willing to pay even 200-300K" to create an engine on their own. Despite being the co-owner of Stellar Stone, Titov claims he "didn't have much design and development input or any power to stop [the company's games] from being released."[1]

Stellar Stone ceased business in 2006. Referring to the company's members, Titov said "I have no idea where all these people went. Not that I care about it either."[1] Their Internet domain, www.stellarstone.com, is no longer active, and is since being cybersquatted. Titov went on to produce and publish more games that were to be critically panned, such as Hammerpoint Interactive's The War Z, produced and published by Titov's OP Productions, which was banned from Valve Corporation's Steam just two days after its initial release.[1]

Games

Title Release date Rating Genre(s)
Taxi Racer October 22, 2001 — Racing
Remington Big Buck Trophy Hunt September 26, 2002 Teen First-person shooter, sports
Gettysburg: Civil War Battles August 31, 2003 Teen Real-time strategy
Ultimate Civil War Battles: Robert E. Lee vs. Ulysses S. Grant October 24, 2003 Teen Real-time strategy
Total Pinball 25 October 25, 2003 Everyone Pinball
Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing November 20, 2003 Everyone Racing
Midnight Race Club: Supercharged! January 13, 2004 Everyone Racing

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Q and A with Sergey Titov, CEO of TS Group". yourewinner.com. September 21, 2008. Retrieved April 7, 2016.
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