GigaTech Industries

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GigaTech Industries, or simply GigaTech, was a developer and publisher of video games. The company was founded in 2009. The company's headquarters (and the location of where the company develops it's games) was located in Austin, Texas.

The company released mainly racing games, most notably their F1 series, which ran from 2009 to 2011. Other games were planned, but financial problems caused by poor sales of F1 Challenge 2011 put them in deep debts, and the company was closed down on March 16, 2012.

Games

F1 2009

F1 2009 was the first game released by GigaTech for the PC. The game was developed at their headquarters in Austin, Texas, by approximately 30 people. The developers' names are unknown as no credits were inserted anywhere in the game. The game notably includes KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems), but the device does not affect the speed of the cars at all. The game received mixed reviews; the graphics and crash physics were praised, while the main criticisms were a lack of an online mode, career mode, or any other defining feature.

The game was notable for a game-breaking bug on Istanbul Park, one of the game's tracks. In the early releases of the game, when you spin Nico Rosberg's Williams car (with Anti-Wheel Spin off) on turn 8 of Istanbul Park, the game would sporadically glitch up, freeze, then crash and either send the user back to the desktop with the following message, "Error 69908, fatal script error," or simply reboot the computer. GigaTech confirmed that the cause of the glitch was a "minor oversight" and the glitch has been fixed in further releases, and on the company's website, there is a patch that users can download for free to attach to the "Istanbul" folder in their game to fix the glitch.

F1 2010

F1 2010 was the second game released by Gigatech, also for the PC. It was not released on physical media; the game was instead released as a payment download on GigaTech's website, which could be seen today as an early precursor to websites such as Steam. It was by far the best selling game from GigaTech, selling over 5 million copies worldwide, and proved popular in Europe, Australia, and South America.

KERS was removed from this game, but a 7-season career mode was added, as well as rain physics, both of which were absent in the previous version. Most of the critics praised the new additions, as well as the graphical improvements of the cars and tracks. Some criticized the crash physics of the game, citing the difficulty as "unforgivable." The game was also criticized for numerous spelling and grammar errors in the English version of the game, even though the company is American and the game provides fluent translations of Spanish, German, and Italian. A lack of an online mode was still present in this game.

F1 Challenge 2011

F1 Challenge 2011 was the third game released by GigaTech, and the final one released during the company's lifetime. Unlike the previous versions, the game was not only released on the PC but also for the PS3 and Wii. An 8-season career mode was included in the game, as well as a "Challenge Mode" to fit in with the new rebranding of their F1 series. A safety car was also included in the game, as well as the new 107% qualifying rule introduced in that season. Timo Glock was included on the cover of the game.

The game was moderately well received by critics, although the new Challenge Mode was panned as being too simple to accomplish. The inconsistency of the AI in the game was also criticized, with it either being too easy to too difficult to beat. The crash physics of the AI cars were also inconsistent as well. The lukewarm reception translated to lackluster sales, being outsold by a wide margin to the Codemasters' F1 series. Ultimately, the poor sales resulted in the company's folding in early 2012.

Cancelled Games

Before the company folded, there were three games in developement - the first was codenamed "Project Petya," a game which would have run in an MMORPG style as an Auto Racing driver moving up in the ranks of smaller racing series all the way up to Formula One. The development of the game ran for over three years, as the team included tons of tracks and cars, as well as a large amount of graphical improvements since the game started development. The long development cycle is listed as a cause for the company's folding in 2012.

The second game was titled "Project Mischa," an extensive F1 career mode game which would have taken place over 15 seasons from 1998 to 2012. The game was rumoured to have been at least 75% complete, but required extensive rendering and additional development. Despite this, the company was confident that the game would have been released in Fall 2012. It is not known if the game would have replaced the "F1 Challenge" series that the company was running as well.

The third game that was under development was "Super Monaco GP 3," a game which would have been a successor to the Super Monaco GP series on the Sega Genesis. The drivers would have been based on the 2012 F1 season, with the names edited much like the other names in the series. The game would have likely maintained an arcade style gameplay, unlike the realistic racing simulator games that the company was known for.