Hyperion Entertainment
Encyclopedia
Hyperion Entertainment CVBA is a Belgian
software company which in its early years focused in porting Windows
games to Amiga
, Linux
and Macintosh. Later on, they were contracted by Amiga Incorporated to develop AmigaOS 4
and retired from the gaming business. AmigaOS 4 runs only on the AmigaOne
systems, Commodore
Amiga systems with a Phase5
PowerUP
accelerator board, Pegasos II
systems and Sam440
systems.
games to do Amiga ports. Hans-Joerg Frieden, who had previously worked on ports of the games Descent
and Abuse as well as gaining a reputation for his work on the Warp3D
library, was hired to be Hyperion's Senior Software Engineer. For the next few years, Hyperion would port several game titles to the Amiga and later Linux and the Macintosh, starting with Heretic II
.
Notable projects include being hired by Monolith Productions
to port their Lithtech
engine to Linux, Macintosh and the Amiga, culminating in their port of Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
in 2001. The game had not sold as well as had been hoped, most notably on Linux, despite becoming a best seller on Tux Games
. Hyperion put some of the blame on its then-publisher Titan Computer (a claim bitterly contested by Titan) and also reasoned that Linux users were likely to dual boot with Windows to play easily available games rather than purchase specialised versions. Hyperion Entertainment then for the most part moved out of the gaming field, although a Linux port of Gorky 17
created by them was published by Linux Game Publishing
in 2006,. It gained notoriety but the port was poorly received by critics who cited its poor stability They also marketed an Amiga port of Quake II
, which was already available as source code under the GPL. Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War in 2010 was ported to AmigaOS 4 courtesy of Peter Gordon, around ten years after it was ported to AmigaOS.
Evert Carton took over the Managing Partner position after Benjamin Hermans stepped down in mid-2003. Hermans had courted controversy by repeatedly claiming that MorphOS
, an AmigaOS-like competitor, was illegal, and had on several occasions threatened to take legal action claiming Bill Buck leading the Genesi
company funding MorphOS was a "con-artist". On May 29, 2007, Carton stated that the open-source AmigaOS reimplementation AROS
was "probably illegal", on page 27 of court documents related to the Amiga-Hyperion court case.
In 2007, Hyperion were sued by Amiga Incorporated
for trademark infringement in the Washington Western District Court in Seattle, US. Amiga, Inc. sued Hyperion for breach of contract, trademark violation and copyright infringement concerning the development and marketing of AmigaOS 4.0. Hyperion have launched a counter action claiming fraud
in Amiga, Inc. handling of Amiga intellectual properties and debts. In defiance of the ongoing legal dispute, in late September 2007 Hyperion published, distributed and marketed a standalone version of AmigaOS 4 for classic Amiga, an action Amiga, Inc. had claimed as illegal.
However, in 30 September 2009, Hyperion reached a settlement with Amiga Inc., who were granted an exclusive right to AmigaOS 3.1 in order to market AmigaOS 4 and subsequent versions.; however, the Amiga trademark was then also sold to other parties, including Commodore USA and iContain, weakening the exclusivity of Hyperion's status as legitimate successors to the Amiga platform. On April 24, 2011 Evert Carton announced stepping down as the managing partner of Hyperion. Since the departure of Evert Carton, the current management of Hyperion has not been made public.
, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
, Gorky 17
, Quake II
, SiN
and Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War. On their official website, Hyperion also claimed to have acquired the license to port Worms Armageddon
, but it was never released by Hyperion, as neither was an Amiga port of SiN they also claimed to have been working on.
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
software company which in its early years focused in porting Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
games to Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
, Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and Macintosh. Later on, they were contracted by Amiga Incorporated to develop AmigaOS 4
AmigaOS 4
AmigaOS 4, , is a line of Amiga operating systems which runs on PowerPC microprocessors. It is mainly based on AmigaOS 3.1 source code, and partially on version 3.9 developed by Haage & Partner...
and retired from the gaming business. AmigaOS 4 runs only on the AmigaOne
AmigaOne
AmigaOne is a series of computers intended to run AmigaOS 4 developed by Hyperion Entertainment. Earlier models were produced by Eyetech, and were based on the Teron series of PowerPC POP mainboards...
systems, Commodore
Commodore International
Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...
Amiga systems with a Phase5
Phase5
Phase5 Digital Products was a computer hardware manufacturer that made boards for the Amiga computer. Their best known products were accelerator boards which replaced the CPU with a faster model...
PowerUP
PowerUP (accelerator)
PowerUP boards were dual-processor 68k–PowerPC accelerator boards designed by Phase5 Digital Products for Amiga computers. They had two different processors working in parallel, sharing the complete address space of the Amiga computer system.-History:...
accelerator board, Pegasos II
Pegasos
Pegasos is a MicroATX motherboard powered by a PowerPC 750CXe or PowerPC 7447 microprocessor, featuring three PCI slots, one AGP slot, two Ethernet ports , USB, DDR, AC'97 sound, and FireWire...
systems and Sam440
Sam440
Sam440, also known by Sam or its codename Samantha, is a line of modular motherboards produced by the Italian company ACube Systems Srl. The Sam440ep version is a Power Architecture motherboard based on the PowerPC 440EP system-on-a-chip processor which includes a double-precision FPU. It is made...
systems.
History
Hyperion Entertainment was founded in February 1999 after Belgian lawyer Benjamin Hermans wondered why no one had ever tried to license PCPersonal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
games to do Amiga ports. Hans-Joerg Frieden, who had previously worked on ports of the games Descent
Descent (video game)
Descent is a 3D first-person shooter video game developed by Parallax Software and released by Interplay Entertainment Corp. in 1995. The game features six degrees of freedom gameplay and garnered several expansion packs...
and Abuse as well as gaining a reputation for his work on the Warp3D
Warp3D
Warp3D was a project run by Haage & Partner in 1998, that aimed to provide a standard API which would enable programmers to access, and therefore use, 3D hardware on the Amiga....
library, was hired to be Hyperion's Senior Software Engineer. For the next few years, Hyperion would port several game titles to the Amiga and later Linux and the Macintosh, starting with Heretic II
Heretic II
Heretic II is a fantasy action-adventure game developed by Raven Software and published by Activision in 1998 continuing the story of Corvus, the main character from its predecessor, Heretic....
.
Notable projects include being hired by Monolith Productions
Monolith Productions
Monolith Productions is a Kirkland, Washington-based computer game developer. Monolith is also known for the development of the graphical game engine Lithtech, which has been used for most of their games...
to port their Lithtech
Lithtech
Lithtech is a game engine which was initially developed by Monolith Productions in collaboration with Microsoft. Monolith later formed a separate company, LithTech Inc., to deal with further advancements of the engine technology and currently, after a change of its corporate identity, LithTech Inc...
engine to Linux, Macintosh and the Amiga, culminating in their port of Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division is a first person shooter video game released by Monolith Productions in 1998. It was the first game to use Monolith's flagship Lithtech engine. It has heavy influences from Japanese anime, particularly Patlabor, Appleseed, and the various Gundam series...
in 2001. The game had not sold as well as had been hoped, most notably on Linux, despite becoming a best seller on Tux Games
Tux Games
Tux Games is one of the first still active online Linux game retailers, founded on January 1, 2000 by Michael Simms, who would later also found Linux Game Publishing...
. Hyperion put some of the blame on its then-publisher Titan Computer (a claim bitterly contested by Titan) and also reasoned that Linux users were likely to dual boot with Windows to play easily available games rather than purchase specialised versions. Hyperion Entertainment then for the most part moved out of the gaming field, although a Linux port of Gorky 17
Gorky 17
Gorky 17 is a turn-based tactics computer game developed by Polish developer Metropolis Software and published by Monolith Productions for Windows in 1999. The game was later ported to Linux by Hyperion Entertainment and published by Linux Game Publishing in 2006...
created by them was published by Linux Game Publishing
Linux Game Publishing
Linux Game Publishing is a software company based in Nottingham in England. It ports, publishes and sells video games running on Linux operating systems. As well as porting games, LGP also sponsors the development of Grapple, a free software network library for games...
in 2006,. It gained notoriety but the port was poorly received by critics who cited its poor stability They also marketed an Amiga port of Quake II
Quake II
Quake II, released on December 9, 1997, is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Id Software and distributed by Activision. It is not a sequel to Quake; it merely uses the name of the former game due to Id's difficulties in coming up with alternative names.The soundtrack for Quake II...
, which was already available as source code under the GPL. Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War in 2010 was ported to AmigaOS 4 courtesy of Peter Gordon, around ten years after it was ported to AmigaOS.
Evert Carton took over the Managing Partner position after Benjamin Hermans stepped down in mid-2003. Hermans had courted controversy by repeatedly claiming that MorphOS
MorphOS
MorphOS is an Amiga-compatible computer operating system. It is a mixed proprietary and open source OS produced for the Pegasos PowerPC processor based computer, PowerUP accelerator equipped Amiga computers, and a series of Freescale development boards that use the Genesi firmware, including the...
, an AmigaOS-like competitor, was illegal, and had on several occasions threatened to take legal action claiming Bill Buck leading the Genesi
Genesi
Genesi is computer company focused on building Power Architecture and ARM architecture computers. The organization is split into two units, Genesi USA, Inc. working out of Texas operating as the primary front-end for sales, customers and developers, and bplan GmbH based in Germany as the primary...
company funding MorphOS was a "con-artist". On May 29, 2007, Carton stated that the open-source AmigaOS reimplementation AROS
Aros
Aros may refer to:*Aros , a river in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium*AROS Research Operating System, a free software implementation of AmigaOS* Aros, the original Viking name of Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark...
was "probably illegal", on page 27 of court documents related to the Amiga-Hyperion court case.
In 2007, Hyperion were sued by Amiga Incorporated
Amiga, Inc.
Amiga, Inc. is the company that holds the intellectual property associated with the Amiga personal computer , including the Amiga trademark.-Brief history of Amiga brand:...
for trademark infringement in the Washington Western District Court in Seattle, US. Amiga, Inc. sued Hyperion for breach of contract, trademark violation and copyright infringement concerning the development and marketing of AmigaOS 4.0. Hyperion have launched a counter action claiming fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
in Amiga, Inc. handling of Amiga intellectual properties and debts. In defiance of the ongoing legal dispute, in late September 2007 Hyperion published, distributed and marketed a standalone version of AmigaOS 4 for classic Amiga, an action Amiga, Inc. had claimed as illegal.
However, in 30 September 2009, Hyperion reached a settlement with Amiga Inc., who were granted an exclusive right to AmigaOS 3.1 in order to market AmigaOS 4 and subsequent versions.; however, the Amiga trademark was then also sold to other parties, including Commodore USA and iContain, weakening the exclusivity of Hyperion's status as legitimate successors to the Amiga platform. On April 24, 2011 Evert Carton announced stepping down as the managing partner of Hyperion. Since the departure of Evert Carton, the current management of Hyperion has not been made public.
Games Ports
Hyperion's game ports include (but may not be limited to): Heretic IIHeretic II
Heretic II is a fantasy action-adventure game developed by Raven Software and published by Activision in 1998 continuing the story of Corvus, the main character from its predecessor, Heretic....
, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division is a first person shooter video game released by Monolith Productions in 1998. It was the first game to use Monolith's flagship Lithtech engine. It has heavy influences from Japanese anime, particularly Patlabor, Appleseed, and the various Gundam series...
, Gorky 17
Gorky 17
Gorky 17 is a turn-based tactics computer game developed by Polish developer Metropolis Software and published by Monolith Productions for Windows in 1999. The game was later ported to Linux by Hyperion Entertainment and published by Linux Game Publishing in 2006...
, Quake II
Quake II
Quake II, released on December 9, 1997, is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Id Software and distributed by Activision. It is not a sequel to Quake; it merely uses the name of the former game due to Id's difficulties in coming up with alternative names.The soundtrack for Quake II...
, SiN
SiN
SiN is a computer game first-person shooter based on a modified version of the Quake II engine developed by Ritual Entertainment and published by Activision in late 1998...
and Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War. On their official website, Hyperion also claimed to have acquired the license to port Worms Armageddon
Worms Armageddon
Worms Armageddon is an artillery game/turn-based strategy game developed by Team17 and part of the Worms series. The player controls a team of up to eight worms in combat against opposing teams.- Gameplay :...
, but it was never released by Hyperion, as neither was an Amiga port of SiN they also claimed to have been working on.