Deck Nine

Idol Minds, LLC, since 2017 doing business as Deck Nine, is an American video game developer based in Westminster, Colorado. The studio was founded in March 1997 by Mark Lyons, who currently serves as president and chief technology officer of the company.

History
Idol Minds was founded by video game programmer Mark Lyon on March 31, 1997, after moving with his family from California to Colorado. Originally located in Boulder, the company later moved to Louisville in 2003, and to Westminster in 2015. Idol Minds became widely known for their ragdoll physics-based game Pain, which was first released on November 29, 2007. The game went on to become the "all time top downloaded game" on PlayStation Network of 2008. On October 21, 2009, it was reported that Idol Minds, in a series of layoffs, had made 26 of its 46 employees redundant. An employee of the company cited budget cuts from Pain publisher Sony Computer Entertainment as primary reason for the staff reduction.

On June 7, 2011, at that year's E3, Sony Computer Entertainment announced Ruin, a "Diablo-style action role-playing game" for PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 3, to be in development at Idol Minds, in co-operation with SCE San Diego Studio. Later retitled Warrior's Lair on January 13, 2012, Idol Minds was taken off the project on April 2 that year. Warrior's Lair was eventually canceled in July 2013.

On May 31, 2017, Idol Minds announced that the studio had changed its direction of development to focus on narrative-driven games, and effectively adopted the trading name "Deck Nine". The company stated that a "brand new addition to a critically acclaimed franchise" was already in development. The day after, on June 1, 2017, multiple images from a supposed prequel to the 2015 graphic adventure game Life Is Strange leaked through Deck Nine's website. The leak surprised journalists, as a sequel to Life Is Strange, Life Is Strange 2 had been announced to be in development at Dontnod Entertainment, the creators of the franchise, the month before. On June 11, 2017, at Microsoft's E3 2017 press conference, Life Is Strange publisher Square Enix announced the game in development at Deck Nine to be Life Is Strange: Before the Storm. The first out of three episodes from Before the Storm was released on August 31, 2017.