NaturalMotion

Torsten Reil was a biology researcher evolving neural networks that taught simulated figures to walk, and in 2001 that became a company in Oxford. First came the animation package endorphin, then Euphoria, which makes game characters try to break a fall instead of folding up like a ragdoll. GTA IV and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (both 2008) were the breakthrough, and Rockstar built the technology into RAGE. The morpheme animation engine was licensed to other studios.

Around 2011 the company pivoted to mobile games such as CSR Racing and Clumsy Ninja. In 2014 Zynga bought it for just over half a billion dollars — an unusual end point for something that began as research into how a simulated body keeps its balance.