History

Phoenix Games, known as Phoenix Games Ltd. in England, Phoenix Games B.V. in the Netherlands, Phoenix Games Asia in Thailand, and collectively as Phoenix Games Group, was a defunct game developer and publisher of cheap, bargain-bin games.

Branding themselves as a "Super Budget Publisher," the company's business model was in the production and publishing of games sourced from small, independent developers in the shortest amount of time and budget possible. Where as with most publishers production takes several months for budget games (or licensed tie-ins) to years for big-name, AAA-quality titles, Phoenix claims a 3-5 month turnaround time for works published under their label.^[1]

Most of the games are rated 3+ by PEGI, which probably was to the benefit of their target demographic: everyone. It was active between 2003 and 2009 and sold to markets globally. The remnants of its website, which include its list of games, are available at archive.org.

Collaboration with Dingo Pictures

Phoenix Games also often made interactive versions of cartoons produced by Dingo Pictures with mini-game collections that typically included card games, arcade games, jigsaw puzzles, and others, using titles and themes similar to Disney franchises. They were able to get around copyright infringement, most probably due to their relative obscurity in comparison to more high-profile intellectual property infringement cases, such as those from mockbuster film studios like The Asylum.

In addition, they would release their games to other consoles with the same features, and create "sequels" for newer consoles (e.g. Iron Chef for the PS2 had a "sequel" called Iron Chef II on the Wii).

Bankruptcy

Relatively little, if anything, is known about their sudden demise^[2] from the industry, but it is likely that their quantity-over-quality strategy lead to their undoing.

Partial list of video games

• Dalmatians 3 (Rip-off of 101 Dalmatians)

• Paccie (Rip-off of Pac-Man)

• Dinosaur Adventure (Rip-off of The Land Before Time)

• Snow White and the 7 Clever Boys (Rip-off of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)

• Street Warrior (Rip-off of Street Fighter)

• Hamster Ball (Rip-off of Monkey Ball)

• Maniac Mole

• Cartoon Kingdom

• Legend of Herkules (Rip-off of Hercules)

• White Van Racer

• Crabby Adventure

• Dalmatians 4 (Only for the Wii)

• Peter Pan (Rip-off of Disney Animation Peter Pan)

• Mighty Mulan (Rip-off of Mulan)

• Son of the Lion King (Rip-off of The Lion King)

• Kidz Sports Basketball

• Animal Soccer World (Rip-off of Bedknobs and Broomsticks)

• Arcade 3D Games Action

• Wii Version: Adventures of Pinocchio. PS2 Version: Pinocchio (Rip-off of Pinocchio)

• Veggy World

• Wacky Zoo GP (Rip-off of Mario Kart Series)

• Cinderella (Rip-off of Cinderella)

Reception

As mentioned above, Phoenix's model of shoestring-budget video game production was viewed with acrimony and lulz from gamers, as the company fails to live up to their claims of value for money and "securing a dependable fan base". Some even compared their cartoon lineup with Dingo Pictures to CD-i games based on Nintendo franchises in terms of animation.^[3]

Footnotes

^[1] Archive.org – Company Profile for Phoenix Games

^[2] Games Asylum – Tracking down Phoenix Games

^[3] Joystiq – Phoenix Games publishing for Wii: be afraid