Homeworld
Relic Entertainment was founded in Vancouver, Canada, on June 1, 1997, and began work on "Homeworld" as their first title. Relic co-founders Alex Garden and Luke Moloney served as the director and lead programmer for the game, respectively, while Erin Daly was the designer and Aaron Kambeitz the lead artist. Garden was 22 years old when he founded the company. Writer David J. Williams is credited with the original story concept, while the script itself was written by Martin Cirulis and the background lore was written by author Arinn Dembo. Cirulis and Dembo, credited jointly as "Marcus Skyler", were selected by the publisher, Sierra Studios, partway through development to expand the story concept of Relic and Williams. Sierra agreed to publish the game early in development based on, according to Garden, "two whiteboard presentations and no demo". The development of the game took over two years; the game systems were largely complete by the final eight months, which Relic spent polishing and improving the game, including adding the whole-map Sensors Manager view. The game was initially expected to be released at the end of 1998; Garden stated in a 1999 interview that the team found creating the core game itself much easier than getting it to the quality level they wanted, and that if they had known how difficult it was going to be they may have chosen not to do the project. Several ideas for the game, including ship customization, convoy routes, and different unit types for the Kushan and Taidann fleets were cut during development as they could not be done well enough for the project.
Cinemark Theatres
Cinemark was started by Lee Roy Mitchell as a chain of theatres in California, Texas, and Utah. It is unclear when Cinemark was first founded. While Cinemark officially claims to have launched in 1984 (and previously claimed a 1983 founding date), online records show Cinemark might have started as early as 1977. With the opening of the Movies 8 Texarkana in 1987, Cinemark began building theaters with colorful interiors and large video game arcades. The following year, Cinemark introduced its Front Row Joe mascot. This animated cat appeared in policy trailers and on kids' concession products. The mascot was retired in 1998 when Cinemark had begun to open Art Deco-style theatres, and was revived in 2002. In 1992, Cinemark opened a new theater concept called Hollywood USA in Garland, Texas. The following year, Cinemark expanded to Latin America with the opening of a theater in Santiago, Chile. The next year, Cinemark opened four theaters in Mexico. In 1998, Cinemark announced that it would replace its bright color interiors with what Cinemark characterized as a more classic Art Deco design. Through new theatre construction and acquisitions, it became the third largest theatre chain in the United States and the second largest theatre chain in the world. Mitchell's son Kevin Mitchell worked with the company as an executive until leaving in 2007 to found ShowBiz Cinemas. In 2013, Cinemark decided to sell all of its Mexican theaters to Cinemex.