| Renegade Kid LLC | |
| Type: | Private |
| Industry: | Video games |
| Fate: | Dissolved |
| Hq Location City: | Austin, Texas |
| Hq Location Country: | U.S. |
Renegade Kid LLC was an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. The studio was founded in 2007 by Gregg Hargrove and Jools Watsham, video game development veterans formerly of Iguana Entertainment. In August 2016, Hargrove and Watsham announced that they had split their operations, with the intellectual property rights distributed between each's own studios, Atooi (Watsham) and Infitizmo (Hargrove).
Prior to founding Renegade Kid, Gregg Hargrove and Jools Watsham had been working together for 12–13 years, starting at Iguana Entertainment.[1] The two launched Renegade Kid in early 2007.[2] Hargrove and Watsham incorporated their expertise in Nintendo 64 (N64) game development into Renegade Kid's projects, and Watsham described the Nintendo DS, which would become the studio's primary target platform, as "basically a portable N64".[3] [4] The studio's first game, , was announced on March 5, 2007, and found Gamecock Media Group as its publisher by June. At that time, Renegade Kid had three employees.
In March 2012, Renegade Kid and Gamescribe jointly announced PitchWinPlay, a competition in which people could pitch their game ideas to the two companies, the winning entry would be developed as a game for the Nintendo eShop.[5] However, the following July, Gamescribe announced that it was shutting down and PitchWinPlay was canceled.[6] Also in 2012, Renegade Kid released Mutant Mudds, the first game it funded and published on its own. Afterward, Renegade Kid went back to cooperating with publishers. The studio arranged a publishing deal for a licensed game in which the publisher would grant Renegade Kid a budget of but only allocated of those, keeping the remaining locked down until the later stages of the game's development. This meant that any financial risk the publisher could have faced would have been shifted to the developer instead. Renegade Kid rejected the deal and, from that point on, turned its business model entirely to indie game development.[7]
Renegade Kid's 2014 game Moon Chronicles sold poorly and the studio struggled to survive. The situation stabilized following the release of Xeodrifter, but running the studio still proved to be a financial challenge for Hargrove and Watsham. As a result, the two decided to split up.[8] On August 29, 2016, Renegade Kid announced that it was shutting down. The intellectual property rights were divided between the companies set up by Hargrove and Watsham independently: Atooi, founded by Watsham in 2015, obtained the rights for Renegade Kid's two-dimensional games (including Mutant Mudds and the then-in-development Treasurenauts), while Infitizmo, which was established in 2016 by Hargrove, received the three-dimensional titles (including Dementium and Moon Chronicles).[9] Five games from the former were included in a compilation video game for the Nintendo 3DS, titled Atooi Collection[10] and released on August 7, 2020[11] by Limited Run Games as the 3DS' final physical title prior to Nintendo's official discontinuation of the system.
In September 2018, Hargrove died of pancreatic cancer.[12]
| Year | Title | Platform(s) | Publisher(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Nintendo DS | Gamecock Media Group, SouthPeak Games | ||
| 2009 | Moon | Mastiff, Gamebridge | ||
| 2010 | Dementium II | SouthPeak Games | ||
| 2011 | ATV Wild Ride | Destineer | ||
| Face Racers: Photo Finish | Nintendo 3DS | Majesco Entertainment | ||
| 2012 | Mutant Mudds | iOS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 3DS | Renegade Kid | |
| Bomb Monkey | Nintendo 3DS | |||
| Planet Crashers | UTV Ignition Games | |||
| 2013 | ATV Wild Ride 3D | Renegade Kid | ||
| Mutant Mudds Deluxe | iOS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U | |||
| 2014 | Moon Chronicles | Nintendo 3DS | ||
| Xeodrifter | Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U | Renegade Kid, Gambitious Digital Entertainment | ||
| 2015 | Dementium Remastered | Nintendo 3DS | Renegade Kid | |
| 2016 | Mutant Mudds Super Challenge | Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U | Renegade Kid, Nighthawk Interactive | |
| 2017 | ATV Renegades | PlayStation 4, Xbox One | Nighthawk Interactive |