| Gamelab | |
| Type: | Private |
| Industry: | Video games |
| Foundation: | 2000 |
| Founder: | Eric Zimmerman Peter Seung-Taek Lee |
| Defunct: | 2009 (assets acquired by Arkadium) |
| Key People: | Eric Zimmerman (co-founder, chief executive) Peter Seung-Taek Lee (co-founder, president) Frank Lantz (director of game design) Nicholas Fortugno (director of game design) Katie Salen |
| Num Employees: | 40[1] |
Gamelab was an independent game studio in New York City, New York founded by game designer Eric Zimmerman and Peter Seung-Taek Lee in 2000. It is best known for creating Diner Dash, one of the most downloaded games of all time (over half a billion times across multiple platforms in its first six years),[2] as well as its two spin-off companies, the non-profit Institute of Play and the online game and community site Gamestar Mechanic.
Zimmerman and Lee (with audio by Michael Sweet) created a game called BLiX, which was named a Finalist (and eventually won Best Audio) at the 2000 Independent Games Festival[3] at the Game Developers Conference, Zimmerman and Lee then incorporated gameLab and used an advance on BLiX royalties from their exclusivity deal with Shockwave.com to open an office in downtown Manhattan.[4] gameLab released 34 video games on multiple platforms between 2000 and 2009, published by companies like LEGO, HBO, PlayFirst, VH-1, and iWin, plus eight massively multiplayer social games created exclusively for and played at the yearly Game Developers Conference from 2001 to 2008.
In 2004, gameLab released the award-winning Diner Dash, a strategy and time management game published by PlayFirst,[5] then-director of game design Frank Lantz and students in his Big Games class (including gameLab employees Greg Trefry and Mattia Romeo) at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program created Pac-Manhattan, a real life version of Pac-Man played in the streets surrounding NYU, which was one of the earliest and most influential pervasive games, covered by the New York Times[6] and receiving worldwide press.[7] In 2005, gameLab employees Trefry, Romeo, Nicholas Fortugno, and Catherine Herdlick plus co-founder Lee co-founded Come Out & Play, an annual festival of new original big games played in the streets of New York City,[8] Lantz left to co-found the game studio area/code, which was acquired by Zynga in 2011 and became Zynga New York, and is now the director of New York University's Game Center.[9]
In 2007, gameLab spun off the non-profit Institute of Play to promote game design and play as educational tools for students. Within six months of its founding, Institute of Play received a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to develop Quest to Learn, a New York City public school designed around game design principles.[10] In 2009, supported by another grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, gameLab partnered with Katie Salen and released the award-winning game and community site Gamestar Mechanic. gameLab closed in 2009 and sold its assets to Arkadium.[11]
| Year | Title | Type | Publisher/Financer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | BLiX | web | gameLab | |
| 2001 | FLUID | touchscreen installation | Swiss Re Center for Global Dialog | |
| 2001 | Junkbot | web | LEGO | |
| 2001 | LEGO Stack-It | web | LEGO | |
| 2001 | LOOP | web | Shockwave.com | |
| 2002 | BLiX Level Constructor Kit | web | gameLab | |
| 2002 | Drome Racing Challenge | web | LEGO | |
| 2002 | Junkbot Undercover | web | LEGO | |
| 2002 | LEGO World Builder | web | LEGO | |
| 2002 | Spybotics: The Nightfall Incident | web | LEGO | |
| 2003 | Arcadia | PC/web | gameLab | |
| 2003 | Crash | web | gameLab | |
| 2003 | FATE: The Carnivale Game | web | HBO | |
| 2003 | LEGO Inventor | web | LEGO | |
| 2003 | LEGO World Builder 2 | web | LEGO | |
| 2003 | Motobike Blast | web | LEGO | |
| 2004 | LEGO X-Pod Playoff | LEGO | ||
| 2004 | Mighty Beanz Trading Card Game | Genio | ||
| 2004 | Subway Scramble | PC/web | PlayFirst | |
| 2005 | Arcadia Remix | PC/web | gameLab | |
| 2005 | PC/web | PlayFirst | ||
| 2005 | LEGO X-Pod Playoff 2 | board game | LEGO | |
| 2005 | Shopmania | PC/web | iWin | |
| 2006 | Ayiti: The Cost of Life | web | gameLab/Global Kids | |
| 2006 | Downbeat | web | VH-1 | |
| 2006 | Egg vs Chicken | PC/web | PlayFirst | |
| 2006 | LEGO Fever | PC/web | LEGO | |
| 2006 | Miss Management | PC/web | gameLab | |
| 2006 | Plantasia | PC/web | PlayFirst | |
| 2007 | Jojo's Fashion Show | PC/web | iWin | |
| 2007 | Out of Your Mind | PC/web | gameLab/Curious Pictures | |
| 2008 | Jojo's Fashion Show 2: Las Cruces | PC/web | iWin | |
| 2008 | Top Chef | PC/web | Brighter Minds Media | |
| 2009 | web | gameLab |
| Year | Title | |
|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Bite Me | |
| 2002 | Leviathan | |
| 2003 | Alphabet City | |
| 2004 | Supercollider | |
| 2005 | ConfQuest | |
| 2006 | Pantheon | |
| 2007 | Gangs of GDC | |
| 2008 | Destroy All Developers |