InstantAction Technology
InstantAction aimed to allow publishers and developers the ability to distribute full games through the browser, where players could then play and/or purchase from within the browser. Publishers could set monetary rates, include social features such as Facebook integration, release free demos and more. Games were also embeddable across the internet, similar to YouTube videos. The InstantAction embed-tech only downloaded the files necessary to start playing, instead of the full game itself. So players can playing a 2.5 gigabyte within a matter of minutes, as opposed to hours.
History
After Barry Diller's IAC bought a majority share of the company in 2007,
GarageGames launched InstantAction in March of 2008 as an online multiplayer gaming website featuring just four games;
ThinkTanks,
Marble Blast Online,
ScrewJumper and Cyclomite, though the latter two are no longer available to play. Later that year they released
Zap!,
Galcon,
Ace of Aces, Rokkitball and
Fallen Empire: Legions, a "spiritual successor" to the Tribes series. In 2009 they released
Lore: Aftermath.
On March 17, 2009, the company announced that they had acquired the
Tribes IP, including Starsiege and Earthsiege, from Activision Blizzard, and would be bringing
Starsiege: Tribes to the browser as
PlayTribes. In July of 2009 Louis Castle became CEO of InstantAction and split the company into two divisions; one in
Portland, OR, the other in
Las Vegas, NV. In March 2010 at GDC the company revealed their new embed technology, and announced a partnership with
LucasArts to bring
Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition to the browser, which was released on April 29, 2010. Since their GDC announcement in March of 2010, all of the games previously featured on InstantAction.com, known as the Arcade, were taken down and never brought back up.
During E3 2010 InstantAction announced a partnership with
Penny Arcade to launch the next Greenhouse indie games digital download store, located at
playgreenhouse.com, in late summer 2010. However, on October 26, 2010 it was announced that Penny Arcade had withdrawn from their deal with InstantAction.. The company also attended Gamescom in August of 2010 and revealed Instant Jam, a music-rhythm game much like Guitar Hero currently available on Facebook. The game released in open beta shortly after its announcement.
On October 23, 2010, it was announced that InstantAction sold the Tribes franchise to
Hi-Rez Studios, canceling development on PlayTribes.
On November 11, 2010, it was announced that InstantAction would be shutting down. The front-page was replaced with a blank, white page with text thanking users for using their service.
Future
While InstantAction was shut-down, GarageGames was acquired in January of 2011 by Graham Software Development and continues to sell their Torque engine.
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