In 2005, Spacetime Studios was founded by Gary Gattis, Cinco Barnes, Anthony L. Sommers and Jake Rodgers, with collaborative experience working on such titles as
Wing Commander, Star Wars Galaxies and Ultima Online. In March 2006, they successfully contracted to begin development of an original IP for a PC sci-fi MMO for
NCSoft called Blackstar. This was facilitated in part by the veteran game developer's long-standing working partnership with personnel at NCSoft and familiar with their previous work on sci-fi games. After several years of preproduction work, in January 2008, NCSoft cancelled their agreement with STS to publish
Blackstar, citing a change in economic conditions in the market, after poor performance of two other MMOs in their publishing group such as Tabula Rasa and a consequent reassessment of the Korean publisher's North American portfolio strategy. Spacetime Studios had initially contracted the full rights and ownership of the technology and tools for the newly created in-house game engine called the Spacetime Engine, written in C++ for the purpose of massively scalable tools and in-game assets. But NCSoft still owned the Blackstar IP, including all artistic concepts and narration assets. STS laid off 12 team members as a result of this and continues to explore options to bring its flagship IP Blackstar to market in addition to unveiling a first glimpse of Blackstar video clip in February to market the project to a new publisher In May 2008, STS reacquires the Blackstar IP from NCSoft. In June 2009, STS published some concept art from Blackstar in a sign that it is still confident and committed to developing the project. STS announces completion of pre-production ready for mass production of Blackstar The development began in October 2009 and completed the underlying mechanics of a new game called Pocket Legends in January 2010. On 3 April 2010, Spacetime Studios launched Pocket Legends in a stripped-down mobile mmorpg. In September 2010 Spacetime Studios updates the app regularly Spacetime and announces multiplatform support including the Android platform with Investment from
Insight Venture Partners. On February 10, 2011, STS announced development of their original title,
Blackstar, and confirm it will be released Quarter 2 of 2011. Subsequently, Blackstar was showcased at GDC, in March 2011, for the third time in its development history and receives widespread press coverage and interest in the games industry. In April 2011, Spacetime Studios celebrated the anniversary of its fantasy mobile mmo, Pocket Legends release. In 2012, STS announced that their games had exceeded over 250 million play sessions. On January 12, 2014, they explained that no new expansions for Pocket Legends were released since 2012, as the player base has shrunk due to the company's focus on the launch of new titles. == Spacetime Engine ==