Crave Entertainment
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Founder | Nima Taghavi |
| Defunct | 2012 |
| Fate | Ceased operations after parent company Fillpoint filed for bankruptcy |
| Headquarters | Newport Beach, California , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Video games |
Crave Entertainment, also referred to as Crave Games, was a U.S.-based video game publisher established in 1997 by Nima Taghavi, with its main office located in Newport Beach, California. In 2005, Handleman Company acquired Crave for a sum reaching $95 million, but after Handleman declared bankruptcy, the publisher was sold to Fillpoint LLC in 2009 for $8.1 million. Crave's portfolio included games released on multiple platforms such as Dreamcast, Wii, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, GameCube, the PlayStation family, Xbox, and Xbox 360. The company concentrated largely on affordable game titles and imported series like the Tokyo Xtreme Racer franchise.
History
Originating in 1997 as a division of SVG Distributions, Crave maintained offices in cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tokyo, Paris, and Hamburg. The year 1998 marked the acquisition of Lobotomy Software—known for developing Death Tank and PowerSlave—and Big Rain, a development team formed by former Squaresoft employees. That same year saw the establishment of Crave’s first internal development group, Craveyard Studios. In 1999, Crave obtained an exclusive five-year licensing agreement to develop video games based on the Ultimate Fighting Championship brand.
In 2000, Crave briefly entered into a European distribution partnership with Square Europe before entering a co-publishing and distribution contract with Ubisoft later that year. Following its purchase by Handleman in 2005, Crave was subsequently transferred to Fillpoint in 2009. The company also collaborated with Oxygen Interactive via Liquid Games to distribute titles within Europe starting in 2006.
While under Fillpoint’s management, Crave introduced the family-oriented label Red Wagon Games. However, after Fillpoint filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on August 15, 2012, Crave halted all operations. In 2023, Fillpoint along with Throwback Entertainment reactivated the Crave website featuring a Coming Soon announcement.
Cancelled games
- H20verdrive
- Jeanette Lee's Virtual Pool
- Man vs. Wild (versions for DS and PSP)
- Pilot Academy
- Powershot Pinball
- PowerSlave 2
- Pro Bull Riders: Out of the Chute (Xbox 360 edition)
- Project Cairo (Nintendo 64 DD title developed by Craveyard)
- Savage Safari Hunt
- SnoCross 2 Featuring Blair Morgan (Xbox version)
- Supershot Golf Robot
- Jet Ion GP (planned European release only; U.S. launch cancelled)
- The Lost (available only in PAL territories)
- UFC: Tapout (Dreamcast edition)
- World Championship Poker All In
- Wave Runner (Dreamcast edition)
External links
- Articles with short description
- Companies based in Newport Beach, California
- Video game companies established in 1997
- Video game companies disestablished in 2012
- Defunct video game companies of the United States
- Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2012
- Video game publishers
- Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles
- 1997 establishments in California
- 2012 disestablishments in California