33 Facts About Bullfrog Productions

Bullfrog Productions Limited was a British video game developer based in Guildford, England.

Bullfrog Productions's name was derived from an ornament in the offices of Edgar's and Molyneux's other enterprise, Taurus Impact Systems, Bullfrog Productions's precursor where Molyneux and Edgar were developing business software.

Bullfrog Productions was founded as a separate entity after Commodore mistook Taurus for a similarly named company.

Molyneux's last project with Bullfrog Productions was Dungeon Keeper, and as a result of his dissatisfaction of the corporate aspects of his position, he left the company in July 1997 to found Lionhead Studios.

Bullfrog Productions was merged into EA UK in 2001 and ceased to exist as a separate entity.

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Bullfrog Productions titles have been looked upon as a standard for comparison and have spawned numerous spiritual sequels.

Bullfrog Productions received them and began writing a database program called Acquisition.

Bullfrog Productions was originally a brand of Taurus; Molyneux explained that this was because they wanted to avoid confusion over business software and money-making opportunities.

Bullfrog Productions was starting to gain a reputation, so people started to want to work for the company.

Bullfrog Productions travelled to universities, including Cambridge, where he offered computer scientists and banks the chance to come to the gaming industry.

Bullfrog Productions's Powermonger was developed as a result of pressure from Electronic Arts for a follow-up to Populous.

In late 1993, Bullfrog Productions worked with researchers from the University of Surrey, who were nearby their offices, to study the movement and behaviour of underwater life so Bullfrog Productions could reproduce it in the game Creation.

Bullfrog Productions focused on implementing multiplayer in all three games; Molyneux believed that multiplayer was more important than the compact disc format.

Bullfrog Productions explained that Electronic Arts was the obvious choice as Bullfrog already had a positive relationship with them.

Bullfrog Productions was bought by Electronic Arts in early January 1995.

Bullfrog Productions described Bullfrog becoming part of a multinational company as "a very big change" and worked for Electronic Arts to assist with the transition.

Molyneux explained that Bullfrog Productions's games were normally original, and they were not concerned about them being copied, but the project was "a little derivative", which was why it was kept secret—even Edgar was not informed of the project at first.

Around this time, Bullfrog Productions had a reputation for having largely ignored 16-bit game consoles, and Syndicate Wars was the company's first title originally developed for a console—the PlayStation.

In July 1996, Molyneux decided to resign from Bullfrog Productions to focus on game design, rather than become a mere employee.

Bullfrog Productions believed that he would enjoy being an executive but said that it was "an utter nightmare".

Bullfrog Productions said he would take his resignation email back if he could.

Bullfrog Productions described the period of resignations following Molyneux's departure as "such a horrible time".

Molyneux believed that Electronic Arts had good intentions for Bullfrog Productions, saying that "they just wanted to make it nicer" and putting the company's effects on Bullfrog Productions down to "love abuse".

Edgar explained that Bullfrog Productions was more successful than most western game developers in Japan due to Populous and Theme Park, and wondered about the possibilities of having a game designed in the United Kingdom and implemented in Japan by Japanese development teams.

The reason for the change in platform focus was so Bullfrog Productions could create games with Windows in mind and use "powerful features", which were difficult to use with MS-DOS.

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Bullfrog Productions worked with its sister company Maxis to release Theme Park World in North America under their Sim brand as Sim Theme Park to further establish itself in the region.

In 2016, Glenn Corpes speculated that Electronic Arts did not understand Molyneux's role at Bullfrog Productions and thought he was in charge of everything and that Electronic Arts' response to his departure would be to install managers.

Bullfrog Productions was succeeded as managing director by Bruce McMillan of Electronic Arts' Canadian studios.

Corpes stated that he was inspired by Mucky Foot Bullfrog Productions running its own affairs and that it was "quite embarrassing to still be working for the Borg".

Bullfrog Productions said that Lost Toys was partially his take on what Bullfrog was.

Alex Trowers believed that Bullfrog Productions had become too corporate after Electronic Arts' takeover and left for Lost Toys to return to "making games for the sake of making games", rather than to satisfy shareholders.

Bullfrog Productions moved to Chertsey in 2000 and went through "a quiet patch" for the remainder of the year.

Several Bullfrog Productions games have spawned spiritual successors or have been used as a base for comparison.