Frictionless Insight, June 5, 2003

E3 Roundup: 1C

1C is a Russian company founded in 1991 that originally focused on business software, distributing productivity software from companies like Microsoft, Novell and IBM. In 1996 1C entered the game publishing business, and has since taken on many roles in the game industry, including publishing, development, support, distribution and localization of games. They often work with other publishers and distributors for regions outside of Russia, so you may not realize that 1C had a role in games such as IL-2 Sturmovik, which was published worldwide by Ubisoft. They also serve as a distributor for games in Russia, so if you see a Tropico box with the title in Cyrillic, it was put there by 1C. At E3, 1C was showing off a slate of titles, and the following is FI’s brief take on each of them.

Rig'n'Roll: Big Rig trucking simulations have been seen on PC screens before, notably the Hard Truck series from Buka. Now, 1C plans on offering some competition for Buka’s upcoming Hard Truck Tycoon. 1C's Rig'n'Roll sets you up as a man with a dream - a dream to dominate the cargo hauling market in California. Players start out hauling loads to improve their supply of cash, and can expand into a vast shipping empire by hiring other drivers. Rig'n'Roll's other big catch is that the developers claim to have accurately modeled thousands of miles of roads in California. For instance, while we were at E3 in the L.A. Convention Center, we saw an in-game trucker drive by a certain Convention Center. It only remains for us to discover how big the trucking-simulation genre is.

Kyle Ackerman

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