Psyonix facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Psyonix LLC

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	2000; 25 years ago (2000) in Satellite Beach, Florida, US
Founder	Dave Hagewood
Headquarters	San Diego , US
Key people	Dave Hagewood (studio director)
Number of employees	132 (2019)
Parent	Epic Games (2019–present)

Psyonix LLC is a company in San Diego, USA, that makes video games. Dave Hagewood started it in 2000. He worked with his team from WebSite Machines, his internet company.

After trying two other game ideas, Psyonix made VehicleMOD. This was a special addition, called a mod, for the game Unreal Tournament 2003. It added cool vehicles to the game. The company that made Unreal Tournament 2003, Epic Games, liked it a lot. They hired Psyonix to make this vehicle gameplay into a game mode for Unreal Tournament 2004.

For a while, Psyonix mostly worked on games for other companies. In 2008, they released their first own game, Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. It wasn't a huge hit, but Dave Hagewood believed in the idea. He kept a small team working on a new version. The rest of the company continued with other projects. This new game, Rocket League, came out in 2015. It became super popular and made a lot of money! In May 2019, Epic Games bought Psyonix.

How Psyonix Started

Early Days and VehicleMOD (2000–2003)

Psyonix was started by Dave Hagewood. He grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina. Dave began programming when he was only eight years old. He even changed a text adventure game! This gave him a head start in computers at school.

In 1995, Dave left college. He started a company called ArrowWeb, which helped people put websites online. Later, he created WebSite Machines. This company made software for the internet and multimedia. Dave put a lot of effort into the internet business. His companies were in Satellite Beach, Florida. But there was a lot of competition.

In his free time, Dave sometimes made changes, or mods, for video games. He often added vehicles to them. He thought making games for a living was "an impossible dream." But in 2000, his WebSite Machines team wanted to start making video games. So, Dave created Psyonix with them. The name Psyonix came from his interest in how smart people are and the amazing powers of the human mind.

Psyonix's first game idea was Proteus. It was going to be a game where vehicles fought each other. But they didn't like the game engine they chose. So, they quickly stopped working on it. They decided to use the Unreal Engine instead. Their first game using Unreal Engine was Vampire Hunter: The Dark Prophecy. This was an action game where you explored in first-person and fought with weapons in third-person. The game was announced in 2002. But it quickly became too big for the money they had.

After making a demo and showing it to game publishers, Psyonix tried something new. They added vehicles to the 2002 game Unreal Tournament 2003. Dave felt that game needed vehicles. After a few weeks, the team thought this idea was really good. So, they stopped working on Vampire Hunter and focused on the vehicle project.

In December 2002, after months of work, Mark Rein from Epic Games called Dave. Epic Games made Unreal Engine and Unreal Tournament 2003. Mark asked about Vampire Hunter. Dave told him about their new project, which they called VehicleMOD. Mark asked to see a test version at the Game Developers Conference in March 2003. Until then, Psyonix worked hard to make sure all vehicles worked and that many players could play together.

Epic Games was very impressed with the demo. They wanted to talk more. They also wanted to see how fast Psyonix could make progress. Psyonix worked very hard for three weeks. They even got other modders to help make three maps for VehicleMOD. Dave showed the newer version at Epic Games' offices in North Carolina. Epic Games immediately hired Psyonix. They wanted Psyonix to turn this mod into a game mode for Unreal Tournament 2004. This mode became known as Onslaught.

Dave thought working far away from Epic Games in Florida might make the game mode not as good. So, he moved Psyonix to Raleigh, North Carolina, later in 2003. Mark Rein even paid for the moving costs! Around the same time, Dave stopped his work with web hosting.

Working for Others and Making Their Own Games (2003–2013)

In Raleigh, Psyonix was mostly Dave and students from nearby universities. To keep the company going, they took on jobs from Epic Games. They helped develop games using Unreal Engine, like Gears of War and Unreal Tournament III. Dave really wanted to move west and create Psyonix's own games.

In 2006, the team came up with Track Addict. This was a vehicle platform game with time trial races. It was partly inspired by popular extreme sports video games like Tony Hawk's and SSX. The studio showed the game to different publishers. They agreed with Microsoft to release the game on the Xbox platform.

During the game's creation, someone put a soccer ball into a level. The team had so much fun with it that they decided to make the whole game about that instead! Dave told Microsoft about the change. The two companies decided to go their separate ways. The game was finally released in 2008 for the PlayStation 3. It was called Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. The team chose a very long name hoping it would get attention.

At the same time, SouthPeak Games hired Psyonix to make Monster Madness: Grave Danger. This was an updated version of Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia. It was released for the PlayStation 3 in the same year.

Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars made enough money to cover its costs. But it didn't attract as many players as they hoped. It didn't make a lot of profit. So, Psyonix went back to working on games for other companies. Still, Dave believed that the fans they did have meant Psyonix should make a sequel. Out of 50 employees, he kept a few working on the new game. The rest worked on other projects.

In December 2009, the studio and all its employees moved from Raleigh to bigger offices in San Diego. These offices were near the city's Gaslamp Quarter. Later, they worked on projects like Whizzle (a test for the Unreal Development Kit). They also helped with Bulletstorm, Homefront, Mass Effect 3, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown. In November 2012, Psyonix released their own mobile shooter game, ARC Squadron, for iOS devices. An improved version, ARC Squadron: Redux, came out for iOS and Android in October 2013.

Rocket League and Joining Epic Games (2013–Present)

Also in 2013, the sequel to Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars began being made. Psyonix spent less than $2 million to develop Rocket League over two years. Dave Hagewood felt that Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars was "too hardcore," meaning it was too difficult for many players. So, they made Rocket League easier to get into.

The game was released in July 2015 for Windows computers and the PlayStation 4. It was an instant success! Psyonix's profits grew 100 times bigger. It made $110 million in just one year. Psyonix quickly grew to 70 people by December 2016. Because of this, they moved to a much larger office. It was in the 1 Columbia Place tower and covered 40,000 square feet across two floors.

Dave Hagewood wanted to help the tech industry grow in San Diego. He even invested in a company called Zesty.io. The bigger team kept adding new content to Rocket League. Psyonix also teamed up with Twitch, a service where people watch others play video games. Together, they created the Rocket League Championship Series. This is the official esports tournament for the game. In April 2018, the studio started working on a mobile version of Rocket League. This game was eventually named Rocket League Sideswipe.

On May 1, 2019, Epic Games announced they had bought Psyonix. The details of the deal were not shared. At that time, Psyonix had 132 employees. They planned to keep supporting Rocket League. With the money from the sale, Dave Hagewood bought a 56-meter superyacht called the Benetti Galaxy. He also planned to invest in space tourism.

Epic Games released Rocket League Sideswipe for Android and iOS in November 2021. Psyonix also created the Rocket Racing game mode for Fortnite, which came out in December 2023.

Games Made by Psyonix

Helping Other Games

Games That Were Canceled

• Proteus
• Vampire Hunter: The Dark Prophecy
• Nosgoth