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Indie Built, Inc.

Moby ID: 73

AKA +
  • Access Software, Inc. (from 1983 to 1998-04-19)

Overview edit · view history

The company was founded in 1983 by Bruce Carver (President) and Chris Jones (CFO) as Access Software Inc. Their company grew quickly with the success of such early titles as Beachhead and their first golf game, World Class Leader Board. In 1989, Access Software began their best-known contributions to computer gaming, with the release of Mean Streets. Although the game was initially intended to be only a flight simulator, its developers added a framing story featuring a futuristic detective named Tex Murphy.

A sequel to Mean Streets (minus the flight simulator) was released in 1991, and Martian Memorandum went on to win the Software Publishers Association (SPA) Adventure Game of the Year award. Three years later, Under a Killing Moon became one of the first major CD-ROM games and was named Adventure Game of the Year by numerous magazines and organizations, including the SPA. A fourth Tex Murphy game, The Pandora Directive, earned yet another Adventure Game of the Year award in 1996. The final (to date) chapter of the Tex Murphy series was 1997's Overseer, and was one of the first games ever designed specifically for DVD.

Access Software was most widely identified with the Links series, which teed off in 1990 with the release of Links: The Challenge of Golf. This groundbreaking, wildly popular product revolutionized computer golf games, spawned a series of brilliant iterations, and is still going strong today. Access and Microsoft first linked up in 1992 with the release of Microsoft Golf, based on the original version of Links. Later collaborations included Links for Windows, which utilized the Links 386 game engine. On 20 April 1998, Access was acquired by Microsoft and became known as Indie Built. They participated in the launch of Xbox on the holidays of 2001 with Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding.

In October 2004, Indie Built, Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO) as part of the 2K Games brand, focusing on sports titles for the next generation of gaming consoles and the PC platform. Indie Built was a part of the 2K Sports label, together with Kush Games and Visual Concepts Entertainment.

In April, 2006, Take-Two shut down Indie Built, Inc. Many members of the studio joined the newly formed Big Finish Games and its sister studio TruGolf, which occupy the same building.

Credited on 59 Games from 1983 to 2006

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Top Spin 2 (2006 on Game Boy Advance)
Top Spin 2 (2006 on Windows, Xbox 360)
Top Spin 2 (2006 on Nintendo DS)
Amped 3 (2005 on Xbox 360)
Links 2004 (2003 on Xbox)
Amped 2 (2003 on Xbox)
Top Spin (2003 on Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox)
Inside Pitch 2003 (2003 on Xbox)
Links 2003 (2002 on Windows)
Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding (2001 on Xbox)
Links 2001 (2001 on Windows)
Links: Championship Edition (2001 on Windows, Macintosh)
Links LS Classic (2001 on Windows)
Links LS 2000 (1999 on Windows, Macintosh)
Links Extreme (1999 on Windows)
Links LS 1999 (1998 on Windows)
Tex Murphy: Overseer (1998 on Windows)
Links LS: 1998 Edition (1997 on Windows)
Microsoft Golf 3.0 (1996 on Windows)
Links LS: Legends in Sports '97 (Limited Edition) (1996 on Windows, DOS)

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History +

April 28th, 2006

Company closed down by Take-Two Interactive.

October 2004

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. purchases the studio from Microsoft.

April 20th, 1998

Access Software is acquired by Microsoft and renamed Indie Built, Inc.

1983

Company founded by Bruce Carver (President) and Chris Jones (CFO).

Trivia +

A persistent rumour has it that Access' buy-out by Microsoft had less to do with MS interest in their technology and employees and more to do with bringing under the same roof a source of confusion with the "Microsoft Access" relational database application -- in short, buying out the company for the sole purpose of being granted exclusive use to its name in a software context.

Access Software was purchased by Microsoft as a direct result of the shift from DOS to Windows gaming. Prior to 1997, Access had been producing two golf simulators: Links – The Challenge of Golf and Microsoft Golf for Windows. When it was clear that future games would actually need to run from within Windows, Access was forced to terminate the agreement with Microsoft and focus on bringing out Links for Windows while Microsoft moved MS Golf for Windows to a new codebase.
This move proved to be detrimental to both franchises. Shortly after, Microsoft acquired Access and ended the MS Golf franchise, making Links the de facto golf simulator for Windows.

The official homepage as Indie Built, Inc. used to be at http://www.indiebuilt.com/

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