Red Storm Launched
News by Al Giovetti

On November 14, 1996, Tom Clancy and Virtus Corporation started a computer web and CD-ROM games company. The new company, Red Storm Entertainment will combine the strong story telling skills of Clancy with the three dimensional multimedia skills of Virtis. The games will appear both in CD-ROM and on the web.

Mark Baric, President of Virtus, and Tom Clancy sealed the deal and put retired British Admiral and long time Clancy friend, Doug Littlejohns at the helm. Reiterating what most gamers know since their first experience, Baric explained the differences between games and books or movies. Baric said computer games are three dimensional while books and movies only exist in two dimensions. Baric needs to get a better imagination, but there is some truth to what he said.

Clancy is best known for his over 50 million sales in books such as Red Storm Rising which most probably provided the name for the company. Red Storm Rising was converted into a good game on submarine warfare by game company Microprose some years back. Virtus, on the other hand, has not had a long experience in the area of producing games.

Clancy feels that the new games will be more like interactive novels, where the gameplayer determines the outcome of various conflicts. SSN was one of Clancy’s most recent books that Littlejohns served as technical consultant on. Littlejohns and his wife gave up their jobs and have moved to North Carolina to run the company which is to be headquartered in Cary.

The first games are expected to hit the market by Fall of 1997.