Facepunch Studios

Facepunch Studios Ltd
Private
Industry Video game industry
Founded June 2004 (2004-06)
Founder Garry Newman
Headquarters Walsall, England
Key people
 Garry Newman, Craig Gwilt
Products Facewound, Garry's Mod, Rust
Revenue Increase US$55 million (2014)[1][2]
Number of employees
 43 [3]
Website facepunchstudios.com

Facepunch Studios Ltd is a British independent video game development company headquartered in Walsall, England founded in June 2004 and incorporated on 17 March 2009[4] by Garry Newman. The company is most known for its sandbox video games Garry's Mod and Rust.[5]

History

Facepunch Studios was originally developed under the partnership of Garry Newman, Matthew Schwenk, Bryn Shurman, and Arthur Lee for the video game Facewound, in 2003. The group adopted Facepunch Studios as a company name to avoid looking "unprofessional" and to further the development of their side scroller; the Facepunch forum was also established.[6]

The name "Facepunchjeff" came from the brainstorming of names for the game Facewound – where something "stupidly macho" was required. Two names were chosen at the end: Facepunch and Facewound. Facewound was used for the game, but Facepunch was deemed "too funny sounding to just leave to die" – and so was used as the name for the company.[7]

In 2004, Garry Newman started the development of Garry's Mod, originally a side project, which eventually took over the Facewound forum as well as most of Newman's time. Facewound was later postponed and cancelled, and Facepunch Studio disbanded. Garry's Mod has become the flagship game of Facepunch Studios, and by November of 2013, the game had sold 3.5 million copies,[8] regularly being one of the top played Steam games, having been released near Steam's inception.

The studio has 20 employees working on Rust and five people are working on prototypes like Deuce or Space Game.[9]

Garry's Mod

Garry Newman has not been formally trained as a computer programmer. Garry's Mod started out as a sandbox mode for tinkering in Valve's Source engine.[10] Not truly considered a video game, and more of a playground, the game takes assets from Valve's own video games like Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal, etc., and allows users to pose them with different tools offered by Garry's Mod. As of January 2016 the game has sold 10 million copies.[11]

Rust

Rust is an online multiplayer survival game, based on games such as Minecraft and DayZ. Rust's inception stemmed from Facepunch's frustration with DayZ's gameplay; inheriting its cruel player versus player model and Minecraft's crafting and building aspects.[12] Rust's grand concept was to develop a game where the players would be able to mold the environment: hunting, scavenging, gathering, and looting for survival; and players themselves impeding or assisting each other's success.[13]

Although the game has been criticised for being too brutal, Facepunch Studios has intimated that an artificial scoreboard, encouraging players to "play nice", would be to the detriment of the game: "There shouldn't be a system hanging around forcing people to be good. It removes a lot of gameplay fun."

Rust sold over 150,000 copies in its first two weeks. Garry's Mod, in comparison, only sold 34,000 in two weeks. By 2017, it had sold over five million.[14] The game officially released out of early access in February 2018.[15]

Facepunch officially stopped selling Linux version of Rust. in July, 2018. Facepunch does still support the Linux version. [16]

Before

On 24 September 2014, Garry Newman announced that Facepunch Studios would be taking on Before to develop. Before is being created by Bill Lowe under the company.[17]

Games

Title Year Genre Platform
Facewound 2003 Shoot 'em up Microsoft Windows
Garry's Mod 2004 Sandbox Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux
Chunks[18] 2016 Microsoft Windows
Rust 2018 Survival Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux
Before[19] In development Survival Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux
Ruin[20] Abandoned Survival RPG Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux
Deuce Abandoned/Cancelled[21] Tennis Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux
Arcade Abandoned/Cancelled[22] Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux
Troubleshooter[23] Abandoned/Cancelled[24] Arcade shooter Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux
Absorb[25] Abandoned/Cancelled Action, Survival Microsoft Windows
Sandbox (S&Box) In development Sandbox Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux

References

  1. ↑ Wawro, Alex (3 January 2014). "Garry's Mod creator finds unexpected success with new game Rust". Gamasutra. Think Services. Retrieved 5 January 2014.
  2. ↑ Petitte, Omri (11 February 2014). "Rust hits 1 million sales after two months". PC Gamer UK. Future plc. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
  3. ↑ Narcisse, Evan (28 July 2014). "Facepunch Jobs [UPDATE]". Kotaku. Gawker Media. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
  4. ↑ "FACEPUNCH STUDIOS LTD", Companies House
  5. ↑ "Play Rust". Retrieved 18 March 2013.
  6. ↑ "Web Archive, Facewound". Web Archive. Archived from the original on 6 February 2007. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
  7. ↑ Newman, Garry. "Q&A". Retrieved 3 April 2014.
  8. ↑ Garry Newman [@garrynewman] (21 February 2014). "Garry's Mod has just broke $30,000,000 !" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  9. ↑ Narcisse, Evan (28 July 2014). "Some Fans Pissed at Rust Creators For Working on New Game [UPDATE]". Kotaku. Gawker Media. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
  10. ↑ Totilo, Stephen. "Kotaku's Garry Interview". Kotaku Gaming. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
  11. ↑ Garry Newman [@garrynewman] (2 January 2016). "Jesus christ. GMod sold its ten millionth copy over new years" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  12. ↑ "About Rust". Facepunch Studios. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
  13. ↑ Kelly, Andy. "Rust and player Freedom". PC Gamer. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
  14. ↑ "Community Update 127". 14 March 2017. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
  15. ↑ Newman, Garry. "Devblog 197". rust.facepunch.com. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
  16. ↑ "Facepunch are no longer selling the Linux version of the survival game Rust (updated)". gamingonlinux.com. Retrieved 27 July 2018.
  17. ↑ Newman, Garry (24 September 2014). "Before". Facepunch Studios. Retrieved 31 December 2014.
  18. ↑ "Chunks - Information". playchunks.com. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
  19. ↑ "Before - Home". www.beforegame.net. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
  20. ↑ "Home - Ruin". ruin.facepunch.com. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  21. ↑ "Facepunch - Home". www.facepunchstudios.com. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
  22. ↑ "Facepunch - Home". www.facepunchstudios.com. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
  23. ↑ "Troubleshooter - Information". playtroubleshooter.com. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
  24. ↑ "Facepunch - Home". www.facepunchstudios.com. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
  25. ↑ "Facepunch - Home". www.facepunchstudios.com. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
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