Video Game Industry Veteran Tony Barnes Opens Independent Game Studio in Southern California

June 5, 2020 Patrick Hickey Jr. Video Games 0

For Immediate Release:

June 5, 2020 – Industry veteran and Jerry Lawson Lifetime Achievement Award winner; Tony Barnes, designer of the iconic Strike Series and countless other influential titles, both retro and modern, announces a new game studio, RetroNinja.

“RetroNinja has really been a long time coming,” says Barnes. “I grew up loving action / arcade / adventure games. Those are the types of games I enjoy playing and those are the types of games I enjoy making.”

With one of his early successful titles, The Strike Series, he helped create one of the first open-ended, multi-directional shooters, a process that was refined through several successful sequels. Most recently, his work can be seen in the intensity of Medal of Honor 2010 and the rapid-fire carnage of Strider 2014.

One of the first Black game designers and creators in the games industry, Barnes has been instrumental in leading and maintaining multi-million unit selling franchises, over an extensive and storied career, spanning more than 35 years.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to work on and create dozens of exciting titles, but they’ve always been other people’s properties. It’s really time I make something that represents me, something that’s laser-focused on giving players visceral action experiences, versus something watered down to appeal to the broadest market. Something that contains content that may be shied away from, with larger companies. It’s very exciting to me.”

The studio is already working on the first of several titles.

More information can be found at the RetroNinja website and social media outlets, here:

Site: https://www.retroninja.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RetroNinja5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RetroNinjaGames/

About RetroNinja Inc.
Headquartered in Orange County, California, RetroNinja is focused on developing games targeting gamers who crave visceral arcade action/adventure games, on all leading platforms.

Founded in 2020 by industry veteran, Tony Barnes, RetroNinja brings a wealth of experience to the ever-changing videogame industry. With over 35 years of experience, Barnes has created and maintained franchises, revived cult classics and expanded original and licensed IP’s, with such high profile titles including; The Strike Series, Star Wars: Episode III, Star Trek DS9: The Fallen, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Medal of Honor 2010, and Strider 2014.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13858 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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