Lodestone Games was a game development studio based in Charlottesville, Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

. The majority of its employees came from EA

Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...

/Kesmai

Kesmai

Kesmai was a pioneering game developer and online game publisher, founded in 1981 by Kelton Flinn and John Taylor. The company was best known for the combat flight sim Air Warrior on the GEnie online service, one of the first graphical MMOGs, launched in 1987...

after Electronic Arts closed that studio in the fall of 2001. Lodestone Games specialised in the development of both online

ONLINE

ONLINE is a magazine for information systems first published in 1977. The publisher Online, Inc. was founded the year before. In May 2002, Information Today, Inc. acquired the assets of Online Inc....

 PC games and client/server technology for online PC games.

History

The company's first project was a futuristic car combat game titled, Driving Force. Before the game could be finished Sony Online Entertainment

Sony Online Entertainment

Sony Online Entertainment is a game development and game publishing division of Sony that is best known for creating massively multiplayer online games, including EverQuest, EverQuest II, The Matrix Online, PlanetSide, Star Wars Galaxies, Free Realms, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, DC Universe...

 halted the production and re-tasked Lodestone to develop network hosting technology as well as a real-time weather system for the massively multiplayer online game

Massively multiplayer online game

A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...

 PlanetSide

PlanetSide

PlanetSide is a massively-multiplayer online first-person-shooter computer game published by Sony Online Entertainment and released on May 20, 2003....

. After PlanetSide shipped Sony Online Entertainment contracted with Lodestone to create a third person fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 role playing game, named Soul Forge.

Due to a budgetary shortfall Sony canceled the production of Soul Forge. Unlike the cancellation of Driving Force Sony Online Entertainment had no other work to give to Lodestone. As a result of this Lodestone Games was forced to lay off all employees and cease operations at the end of October, 2003. The majority of Lodestone's employees went on to work at Mythic Entertainment

Mythic Entertainment

BioWare Mythic is a computer game developer in Fairfax, Virginia which is most widely recognized for developing the 2001 massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dark Age of Camelot...

. Others ended up at Sony Online Entertainment, Volition, Inc., and Obsidian Entertainment

Obsidian Entertainment

Obsidian Entertainment is an American video game developer founded in 2003 after the disestablishment of Interplay Productions' Black Isle Studios, for PC and console systems...

.

Games developed by Lodestone Games

• Driving Force (Unreleased)
• PlanetSide
  PlanetSide
  PlanetSide is a massively-multiplayer online first-person-shooter computer game published by Sony Online Entertainment and released on May 20, 2003....
  
  
• Soul Forge (Unreleased)

Staff

• Lorin Jameson, President and Technical Director, now at Sony Online
• Matt Shaw
  Matt Shaw
  Matt Shaw is an Australian rules footballer who was pick up by Gold Coast as an underage player from Dandenong Stingrays. He made his debut against Melbourne in round 4 of the 2011 season....
  
  , Lead Engineer, now Chief Technical Officer of EA Mythic
• Jeff Hanna, Art Director, now at Volition, Inc.
• Chris DeBaun, Production Manager
• Colin Shannon, Engineer, now at EA Mythic
• Ed Teffeau, Engineer, now at Zenimax Online
• Kyle Forbes, Engineer, now at Sony Online
• Paul Suggs, Engineer, now at VGT
• Robert Haschart, Engineer
• Greg Grimsby, Lead Artist, now at EA Mythic
• Brian Traficante, Artist, now at Volition, Inc.
• Chris Woodum, Artist
• Jeremy Dale, Artist, now at EA Mythic
• Steve Marvin, Designer, now at Tencent Boston
• Nick Laiacona, Designer
• Frank Coker, Designer