Games Related Companies and Terms

Zynga was founded in July 2007 by Mark Pincus, Michael Luxton, Eric Schiermeyer, Justin Waldron, Andrew Trader, and Steve Schoettler. They received USD $29 million in venture finance from several firms, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in July 2008, at which time they appointed former Electronic Arts Chief Creative Officer Bing Gordon to the board. At that time, they also bought YoVille, a large virtual world social network game. According to their website, as of December 2009, they had 60 million unique daily active users.

Zynga typically creates games for online users, these are normally free and are energy based, featuring different missions and items. Recently though Zynga has released cards for real credit which you upload onto the game and it allows you to gain more points/items/energy.

Capcom Co.Ltd. is an international developer and publisher of video games headquartered in Osaka, Japan. It was founded in 1979 as Japan Capsule Computers, a company devoted to the manufacturing and distribution of electronic game machines. In the 12 months ended March 31, 2009, it has reported an increase in sales of 10.6 percent to 91,878 million yen ($924 million/£615 million), while net income rose 3.3 percent to 8,063 million yen ($81.1 million/£53.4 million).

Capcom specialise in arcade games and have had many hits in the past, some of these have been made into films, like resident evil, dead rising was also a good game released by Capcom.

Wideload Games is an American game developer located in Chicago, Illinois.

It was founded in 2003 by Alexander Seropian—the co-founder of Bungie and head behind the games Halo: Combat Evolved, Myth, and Marathon—and 6 other former Bungie Studios employees 3 years after Bungie's acquisition by Microsoft Corporation.

Wideload focuses on a core team and many external developers in developing games. The goal was to counteract the growing development costs associated with the current game industry, and to prove that smaller companies with relatively modest funds could make a game that could still sell well compared to releases from larger corporations.

Wideload's first project was Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse", a 3D-action-adventure game in which the player takes control of the zombie Stubbs in a plot filled with black humor. It uses a heavily modified version of the Halo Engine. It was published in fall 2005 for Macintosh, Windows-PCs, and Microsoft's Xbox by Aspyr Media. They were recently bought out by the Walt Disney Company.

The Xbox Live Marketplace (XBLM) is a virtual market designed for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console that allows Xbox Live members to download purchased or promotional content. The service offers movie and game trailers, Video Store, game demos, Xbox Live Arcade games, Xbox Live Indie Games (Previously Community Games), Games on Demand (Xbox 360 and Xbox Originals), downloadable content such as map packs, gamer pictures, and Xbox 360 Dashboard themes. The Xbox Live Marketplace is basically an online shop for players where they can purchase differnt downloadable content, this could include, avatars and pictures for display or soundtracks and titles, the marketplace also so allows players to see whats new within Xbox and watch any trailers of new games or films that are about to be released. Originally launched in November 2002, and then an update for the 360 console in 2005.