Pixelberry Studios
American game development company From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pixelberry Studios is a mobile game development company based in Mountain View, California, United States.[1] Founded in 2013 by Oliver Miao, Keith Emnett, and Winston She, Pixelberry develops episodic narrative mobile games for Android and iOS, aiming to create "games with heart,"[2] beginning with Surviving High School and Cause of Death, which deals with themes of bullying, eating disorders and capturing serial killers.[3][4] Since then, the company has fully released three more mobile games: Hollywood U, High School Story and Choices: Stories You Play.[1][5][6][7][8]
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| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Game Developer |
| Founder | Oliver Miao, Keith Emnett, Winston She |
| Headquarters | Mountain View, CA , United States |
| Parent | Nexon (2017-2024) Series Entertainment (2024–present) |
| Website | pixelberrystudios |
History
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Perspective
Pixelberry launched Choices: Stories You Play in August 2016.[9][10][11] Like their previous games, Choices: Stories You Play is an interactive narrative game.[12][13] In it, players can pick "choose your own adventure" stories or "books" across multiple literary genre such as romance, adventure, mystery, fantasy, and horror.[13] Each "book" is divided into "chapters", and chapters are released on a weekly basis. The player character is usually highly customizable, from skin tone to gender.[11] Since the shutdown of their other games, Choices is the flagship game and primary focus for the studio.[11] In November 2017, Pixelberry was acquired by Nexon.[14]
In 2020, a planned plot line in one of Choices' most popular titles was leaked, leading to fan backlash and further criticism of racial insensitivity in Choices stories. Pixelberry's CEO issued a personal apology and pledged $100,000 to Black Girls Code, the Black Writers Collective, and the Latinx Writers Collective. He also committed the company to enact more representative writing and hiring practices.[15][11]
In 2022, Pixelberry launched a sister app to Choices, called StoryLoom which features creator-made, interactive stories.[16] On July 15, 2022, Pixelberry Studios announced that High School Story would have its servers permanently shut down on August 10, 2022.[17]
On January 22, 2024, Pixelberry announced it would shut down StoryLoom on February 29 and lay off 120 employees across multiple departments.[18][19][20] Pixelberry was acquired by Series Entertainment in July.[21]
References
External links
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