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Nadeo is a French video game developer, based in Issy-les-Moulineaux, Paris. They are the developers of the TrackMania and Virtual Skipper series of video games.

History[ | ]

Nadeo was originally founded in 2000 as a gaming club by Florent Castelnérac and his school friends. Originally, they helped Duran Duboi with their projects, such as providing the 3D animation for the film Immortal and helping develop Virtual Skipper 2. They also created an engine that could make animated films and later used it to develop video games.

Nadeo began working on TrackMania, one of their first games, in 2002 with the idea of combining driving and building in mind. In late December, Castelnérac tested the game with his family and found out that they had more interest in beating their records rather than the puzzle. This gave him the idea to include a multiplayer mode. TrackMania was eventually launched in 2003 along with Virtual Skipper 3. TrackMania allowed players to create their own tracks and share them online. However, the game originally did not sell well as only fifty people had connected online.

The small community that the game did create, though, encouraged Nadeo not to give up. They created an expansion pack called Power Up! and since then, TrackMania became an instant hit and attracted a stronger fanbase. The game would later be followed by sequels, including TrackMania Sunrise in 2005, which had more features compared to its predecesor. Besides creating and sharing tracks, players could now create their own videos, car skins, 3D car models, mods and more.

After that, more sequels came out, which included Nations, United and Forever. Besides TrackMania, Nadeo also developed Virtual Skipepr 4 and Virtual Skipper 5: 32nd America's Cup.

In February of 2009, advertisements began appearing occasionally on TrackMania load screens for Nadeo's ShootMania and QuestMania, presumably a first-person shooter and RPG, respectively. There were websites created for both of these games: ShootMania.com and QuestMania.com. The QuestMania website currently offers nothing in exception of backgrounds. On October 5, 2009, the company was acquired by French publisher Ubisoft.[1]

In 2011, Nadeo released TrackMania 2: Canyon, their first game in three years, which included a new environment, Canyon. It later became part of ManiaPlanet in 2012, the world's first user-powered PC gaming zone. It was originally intended to allow players to play the racing, FPS and RPG in the same game and it managed to bring in FPS with ShootMania, but QuestMania has yet to be developed.

Games developed[ | ]

Almost all games are for Windows, and have been published through Focus Home Interactive (and international partners) up until 2010 and then by Ubisoft.

2000[ | ]

2001/2002[ | ]

  • Virtual Skipper 2

2003[ | ]

  • TrackMania
  • Virtual Skipper 3

2004[ | ]

  • TrackMania: Power Up!

2005[ | ]

2006[ | ]

2007[ | ]

  • Virtual Skipper 5: 32nd America's Cup: The Game

2008[ | ]

2011[ | ]

2013[ | ]

2016[ | ]

2017[ | ]

TBA[ | ]

  • Questmania

References[ | ]

External Links[ | ]

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