Gray Matter Studios

Drew Markham and his business partner Barry Dempsey founded Xatrix Entertainment in March 1993. The studio's first release was Cyberia in 1994.[1] Among its later projects was Quake II Mission Pack: The Reckoning, for which it worked with publisher Activision.[2] Around 1999, some of the original business partners sought to exit the company. To handle this efficiently, Xatrix was transferred to a new corporation under Markham as creative director.[3] With the assistance of Activision, Gray Matter Studios was established on June 17, 1999, and took over most of the former employees.[4][5] Activision initially owned 40% of the studio.[6] It bought the remaining 60% in January 2002, after the successful release of Return to Castle Wolfenstein.[2][7] The publisher paid 133,690 shares of common stock, at the time worth around US$3.2 million.[7] Post-acquisition, the studio was put to work on the Call of Duty: United Offensive expansion.[8] It also worked on Trinity: The Shatter Effect, which was announced and then canceled in late 2003.[9] In 2005, during the development of Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, Gray Matter Studios was merged into Activision's Treyarch studio. As part of Treyarch, the former Gray Matter Studios team worked on Call of Duty 3.[8][10]