Phoenix Games B.V. was a Dutch video game publisher founded by Willie Horden, Paul Share and Steve Share in 2002. The studio billed itself as a "Super Budget Publisher" whose games were developed by small, independent studios under a strict budget and timeframe. Their gamesâÂÂespecially those for the PlayStation 2âÂÂearned them notoriety in gaming circles due to their poor quality, though they are also sought after by video game collectors.
The studio declared bankruptcy on August 3, 2010. On March 27, 2012, the company was dissolved due to a lack of assets.
Phoenix Games B.V. was founded by Willie Horden in 2002, with a goal of selling up to 4 to 5 million games per year. Instead of relying on traditional games distribution channels, Phoenix's games were sold at newsagents and convenience stores at ã6.99 to ã12.99 per game depending on the platform. With SHOOT they published one of the last games for the PlayStation 1 in 2005.
On 4 November 2002 they announced their partnership with Japanese company Altron, and Italian developer NAPS team. In December 2002 Phoenix announced that they had acquired the publishing rights to Dragons Lair, Space Ace, Who Shot Johnny Rock? and Mad Dog McCree from Digital Leisure in Canada. In February 2003 they announced that their games will distributed by "Just" in the UK, Joag in Italy, SGDiffusion in France and N-Tec in Hungary. The company also put up booths at E3 2004 and 2005 to display their games.
In 2003 Phoenix announced that they partnered with an unnamed UK-based developer for "a range of super-budget titles" for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, sold for ã9.99. Phoenix Games UK CEO Paul Share stated that they no longer found it necessary to license and localise games from Japanese developers, instead relying on British development studios to produce games for the company.
In 2013, the German Videospielarchiv held an art exhibition named "Coverstrophen" at that years GamesCom where they showed cover art for many of their PlayStation 2 games.
Despite having limited coverage in mainstream gaming publications, the company earned a negative reputation for the exceptionally poor quality of their games, which have generally been regarded as "bargain bin" shovelware comparable to budget-priced titles from System 3 Software under the Play It label, while their interactive activity centre games based on adaptations of fairy tales and mockbusters of popular cartoons by the German animation studio Dingo Pictures were subject to widespread ridicule and mockery on YouTube and spawned various internet memes.
The European localization of Touge 3âÂÂdeveloped by Cave and Atlus and released by Phoenix as Road Rage 3âÂÂwas somewhat better received, though it was also criticized by gaming publications such as the Official PlayStation Magazine for its subpar gameplay and graphics.