Burnout's origins came by way of Criterion Games, a division of Criterion Software Ltd. established in 1999 to showcase the type of games that its RenderWare game engine was capable of, with Fiona Sperry in charge. Their first game was a fast-paced skateboarding game, TrickStyle, published by Acclaim Entertainment for the Dreamcast and released in 1999. As a follow-up title, Sperry's team, now with Alex Ward on board, developed a racing game that showed off the capabilities of the newest iteration of RenderWare, named Burnout, also published by Acclaim in 2001.[1] Burnout was aimed to be an arcade-style racer, placing fun over realism as series like Gran Turismo offered.[2]