Geared Gaming (Ascendancy of Man)

### Overview

Geared Gaming was founded in 2034 as a government subsidiary of superior, created to raise morale among the population. Their first games were text based RPGs, and were popular enough even after they lost government subsidiary status, they continued to receive government funding. This was largely due to their ability to sell games and raise morale among the population, essentially fulfilling their original goal, despite being independent. The company is arguably the most successful video game company in the modern world, and remains relevant, despite several hiatus' throughout it's existence.

Geared Gaming is also one of the most profitable company of all time, both pre-war and post-war, bringing in billions of dollars in annual profits. Even when receiving government funding, they have rarely needed it, and have paid back their dents the government. It is estimated around 50 billion Geared Gaming games have been sold, not including any hardware or extra content. Because of this, it has lasted an extremely long time, although it has been inactive during various eras in history. Despite this amazing success, the company is still based in Duluth, the same city were it was founded.

### History

#### Founding

During the immediate aftermath of the nuclear holocaust, the Federation of Superior was founded. However, as nuclear winter set in, the morale in the newly formed nation dropped like a stone, with food becoming increasingly scarce. Because of this, the Superior government launched a program to increase morale, mostly through entertainment. Through this program, a 34 year old man named Oliver Martell was contacted. He had skill programming games, and had independently released several games, and also had held a day job building a website for a retail company.

Oliver, equipped with funding from the superior government, recruited six other people living in Duluth, including his Brother Henry, and five more coders, two of which had been working with game companies before the war. The seven founders set up a headquarters in an apartment provided by the government, and began to build a game engine, based on what was left of the unity engine. The engine, dubbed infinity, was mostly designed for text based RPGs, but despite this, later versions of the engine would provide the basis for many future Games, including Dark Age 3.

With a solid engine, and a demo version of the game that would later become Dark Age, the Martell brothers and their team presented their company to the Entertainment Council, the body in charge of regulating the program to increase morale. Although concerns were raised about the text based nature, most of the members of the council found the game entertaining. Additionally, it was the first piece of interactive media that was presented to the council. This pushed the game through the Entertainment Council, and thus the company Geared Gaming was formed.

#### The First Games

With government approval now fulfilled, The Geared Gamers(as they called themselves) began to work on Dark Age, a text based RPG. While later installments would add rudimentary graphics of maps and items, the original game was designed to be purely text based. The game quickly expanded through development, and soon grew to a huge world, complete with an in game version of hell, and several distinct kingdoms. The main challenge in creating the game was the vast amounts of speech possibilities, which the designers had to work around without destroying the game.

In 2035, the game finally arrived at several stores throughout Duluth, in the form of reused disks. Within the first month of sales, the game sold 5,000 copies, with an additional 3,000 distributed for free by the government, or in rare cases used on public computers. The reception was relatively good, with the tactical combat system a huge hit. The game also served as a proof of concept for Geared Gaming, as it boasted morale, and turned a profit. Because of this, the government gave significant amounts of funding to geared gaming, and also provided them with a larger office space, this time in a refurbished warehouse.

With a new working space, the company hired an additional 14 employees, and began working on a sequel to Dark Age, called Dark Age Two(obviously). The game was designed to be a vast improvement from the original Dark Age, this time including a much more comprehensive story line, as well as more characters, weapons, and locations. It also featured a window for graphics, witch were rudimentary, but could display what a given character looked like, the character's and enemy locations on a map. additionally, when battling, a graphic of your opponent would show up on screen, allowing the player to select targets to attacked. Despite these improvements, the game remained text based, though a re-release in 2067 would create a third person world.

The success of Dark Age two far exceeded that of the original Dark Age, releasing in April 2036, and selling at least 10,000 copies in the first month, and another 8,000 distributed by the government. The added graphics and the more interactive game play brought in great reviews. Sales continued well into 2037 and 2038 and it is estimated the game reached 76,000 copies distributed, 46,000 of which were sold. This was far higher than the original Dark Age, which had sold less the 15,000. Dark Age Two was a massive success, and brought in even more government funding and investment for Geared Gaming.