Relic Entertainment
Relic was started in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada by Alex Garden and Luke Moloney in 1997. Their first title, "Homeworld", was released on September 28, 1999 to critical acclaim and successful sales. Though they did not immediately continue working on the franchise (Sierra Entertainment, the game's publisher, owned the rights), the game did have a spin-off, "", developed by Barking Dog Studios and published by Sierra.
Relic Online
Relic Online was an online gaming system that Relic/THQ uses for matchmaking in some Relic Entertainment games, replacing its previous use of GameSpy Arcade ("Dawn of War") and WON ("Homeworld"). Relic Online was developed by Relic/THQ and Quazal, and is completely separate from any GameSpy/WON systems. It has not been backported to older games such as "Dawn of War" and its expansions, but has appeared in Relic's "Company of Heroes" series of games. "" introduced new features to Relic Online such as arranged team automatches, with the changes being patched into the previous "Company of Heroes" games as well. Relic Online was notably absent in Relic/THQ's "Dawn of War II", however, which instead used a combination of Steam and Games for Windows – Live.