Drinkbox Studios

Stickability, stress and creative courage: how a small studio finally established itself.

- Chris Schilling

The founders of Drinkbox Studios admit that it took some time to locate its niche. The Toronto-based indie was born from the ashes of developer Pseudo Interactive, best known for vehicular combat games Cel Damage and Full Auto and their sequels. In 2008, the Ontario studio was working on several games simultaneously, but when the axe began to fall for Eidos Interactive, its biggest ongoing project was cancelled and it was forced to close its doors. As soon as it became clear that the shutters were about to descend, a team of programmers discussed starting a new company. Ten staffers attended the first meeting. Gradually, that number whittled down to three as the rest dropped out.

“There were a few people that you’d hope to work with because you’d been through some projects with them and you knew what they were made of, so you knew what would happen if things got tough,” Chris Harvey, Drinkbox’s co-founder and technical lead, recalls. Along with producer Graham Smith, the two established the new company while a third potential founder, Ryan MacLean, promised to consider his options during a trip to Japan. “He was playing hard to get!” Smith laughs. Shortly after his return, MacLean agreed to join the others, and Drinkbox was born.

It would be three years, however, before it was in a position to release its first game. With little capital to support it, the fledgling firm had to work on a series of external projects (including Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and