Lava Sports Games UK (formerly Singularity Games Cheltenham) is a British game development studio owned by Lava Sports Games, a video games arm of Lava Sports Networks. As Singularity Games Cheltenham, it was a subsidiary of Singularity Games and is mainly a game developer, although they're also a support studio. They're located at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire in the United Kingdom.
Krisalis Software
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1995-2001
After Krisalis Software declared bankruptcy in November 2001, Rockstar Games opted in to buy the studio, re-locate and rename it Rockstar Cheltenham.
Acclaim Studios Cheltenham
2000-2004
When Acclaim Studios closed down in 2004, Rockstar Cheltenham acquired the company.
Kuju Surrey
2001?-2007
doublesix
2007-2013
DoubleSix was estalbished as a division of Kuju Entertainment, however, soon became a division of Catalis in 2010. In 2013, Doublesix was acquired by Rockstar Cheltenham.
Kuju Sheffield
2002?-2007
Chemistry
2007-2009
In June 2009 Kuju announced that the Chemistry studio would be closed imminently unless a last minute management buy-out deal happened. It was closed shortly after, but it was acquired by Rockstar Cheltenham.
Codemasters Guildford
2004-2011
Codemasters Guildford was a development studio of The Codemasters Software Company Limited and was based in Guilford (UK). The studio was first announced on 10 August 2007.
It was initially managed by Gavin Cheshire, VP of Development at Codemasters, and Adrian Bolton, previously Development Director for Criterion Studios. Codemasters Guildford worked on one title, Bodycount (PS3 / Xbox 360) and it was released in August 2011. With more ex-Criterion developers aboard such as Steve Watt and Stuart Black, it was designed to be the spiritual successor to Criterion's Black (2006).
The game was met with a lukewarm reception and the year prior to the release a number of people already left, such as Creative Director Stuart Black and General Manager Adrian Bolton. Following the release, parent company Codemasters announced in September 2011 to close down the studio. Shortly afterwards, Rockstar Cheltenham hired the staff.
Shrink Ray Studios International
2010-2016
Shrink Ray Studios established offices in 2010 to UK. The locations were in Solent, Fareham, Chertsey, Warrington and Brighton. Other locations were in Indonesia (Jakarta), Philippines (Makarti), China (Hangzhou), Belarus (Minsk), Ukraine (Kiyv & Krakhiv), Cyprus (Nicosia), Germany (Berlin, Ingelheim and Mainz), Sweden (Malmo), India (Pune), Latin America (Porto Alegre, Sao Paulo and Chile) and Japan (Osaka and Nagoya).
They acquired Wolf Team in 2011, Southlogic Studios in 2010, Phenomic in 2013, THQ Asia-Pacific and THQ Studio San Diego in 2012 and Midway Studios Newcastle in 2010.
They also used to have:
a localization, graphics studio and game development studio in Shanghai,
a special effects/graphics studio in Manchester,
a localization studio in Warsaw (Poland),
a game incubation and animation studio in Singapore,
a customer support facility in Galway (Ireland),
a costumer support and quality assurance facility in Novokuznetsk,
a quality assurance, localization and customer support facility in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)
and a quality assurance and localization studio in Issy-les-Moulineaux (France)
animation studios in Shenzen (China) and Seoul (South Korea)
In 2015, LGS Cheltenham acquired all studios' assets, IPs, equipment and staff, excluding the Chertsey studio, from Shrink Ray Studios. The Chertsey studio's staff also moved to the company, but 5 people were laid off when the studio was shut down.
Rockstar Cheltenham
2002-2013
In 2002, after Tarantula Studios became a quality assurance-only studio Rockstar Lincoln, it's game development team moved to Rockstar Cheltenham. In 2004, Argonaut Games and Argonaut Sheffield were acquired by Rockstar Cheltenham. In 2009, after Deep Silver Vienna (the successor of Rockstar Vienna), Kush Games (2K Los Angeles) and Grin Barcelona & Jakarta closed down, the remaining employees were hired and offered "life in Cheltenham".
In 2012, Vatra Games was closed by Kuju and the employees worked on a temporary satellite studio in Brno, before splitting up to work in 2K Czech and Rockstar Cheltenham, then in the following year, after Funcom Montreal closed down, all of the laid-off employees were hired to work in Rockstar Cheltenham.
Laserium Game Studios Cheltenham
2013-2017
In August 2013, Laserium Entertainment acquired Rockstar Cheltenham for £100,000. Laserium Game Studios Cheltenham became Laserium's leading game development studio. In 2016 and 2017, Laserium Game Studios Cheltenham acquired all of the staff of Crytek Istanbul, Crytek Budapest, Crytek Seoul, Visceral Games Melbourne, PopCap Vancouver, Black Rock Studio, Guerrilla Cambridge, Press Play, Three Rings Design, Robomodo, Relentless Software, CCP Shanghai and Atlanta studios, Spark Unlimited, Behaviour Santiago, Lionhead Studios, Crytek Shanghai and Crytek USA.
By 2017, the studio has also hired staff from Zynga Boston, Wild Needle, Zynga with Friends, Zynga Chicago, Zynga
China, Zynga Dallas, Zynga Germany, Zynga East (Baltimore), Zynga Japan, Zynga Los Angeles, 2K Australia, 2K Marin, Cat Daddy Games' console game division, Airtight Games, 2K China, Zynga New York, Zynga Seattle and Page 44 Studios.
In 2017, despite being based in the UK, Laserium Game Studios Cheltenham became one of the strongest game development studios to be against Donald Trump's inauguration.
Singularity Games Cheltenham
2017-2019
Singularity Games acquired LGS Cheltenham in December 2017, and repurposed the studio as a narrative-focused storytelling company, but also as a support studio to the Redwood City studio. They also acquired staff from Studio Gobo, Ninja Theory, Rare, Ubisoft, SIE Worldwide Studios, Rockstar Studios, The Coalition and 343 Industries.
In March 2018, the 7/8 of the staff in Cheltenham were hired by the Redwood City studio. However, the Cheltenham studio is still allowed to develop games on its own, despite being partially a support studio. In July 2018, over 99% of the staff was moved to Redwood City, leaving only 5 game developers to run the studio.
In July 2019, Singularity's parent company was acquired by Qualis, leading into the UK studio's "rebirth" as Lava Sports Games UK.
1 Co-owned with N2Media 2 Co-owned with ITV plc 3 Co-owned with TechStorm 4 Co-owned between Quest Communications and Quest International Television. 5 Co-owned with TV Tokyo Holdings Corporation 6 Under license from Qualis or Laserium Networks. 7 Co-owned between Quest Communications and Quest Software & Technology. 8 Co-owned with Hyper Holdings.
