Kinesoft: History and Key Facts

Kinesoft Development Corporation was an American video game development company founded by Peter Sills in 1991. The firm, based in Illinois, had about 22 employees as of 1997. Mark Achler joined the company in 1994 to serve as president. Along with Director of Technology, Andrew Glaister, Sills developed the concept which became known as Exodus, a video-game development environment for Windows 95. Andrew Glaister took this concept and developed it.

Exodus caught the attention of IBM, Intel, Sega, and Microsoft. Microsoft then used the basic concepts and their relationship with Kinesoft to develop a new set of technologies called DirectX which now forms the basis of all gaming under Windows. Subsequently, Kinesoft's port of Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure was the first commercial game release for Windows 95 and was touted by Bill Gates at that year's COMDEX tradeshow as the launch of the new DirectX technologies for Windows 95, but the game itself does not use DirectX technology. Other Exodus platform games included Windows ports of Earthworm Jim and Gex.

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