User:Brookwarner/sandbox

2ndcity Studios (or 2CS) is an christian video game development studio developing The Aetherlight. 2ndcity Studios is parented by PSSM Bible Discovery Trust, and is based in Auckland, New Zealand.

History
PSSM Bible Discovery trust was founded in 1938 by two Christian Businessmen, Robert Laidlaw and James Rowan. They originally started their operations separately but within 6 months of launching learned of the other and so merged their two operations.

PSSM was founded on the idea of the mail order catalogue, something that Robert Laidlaw had recently begun using to gather customers in the rural farming areas of New Zealand for his company Farmers Trading Company. Laidlaw used the mail order catalogue system to send 'sunday school' lessons to children in these rural areas, thus creating the "Postal Sunday School Movement." This continued via post until 2011 when it was transferred to an email based system. At its peak, there were 9,000 subscribers in New Zealand and another 3,000 overseas. Countries served include Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Samoa.

In 2010 the PSSM Trust board decided that after declining rolls and lack of engagement, they needed to strategically reinvent their presence. They hired Legacy Projects to conduct a strategic review, and to suggest some future possibilities. Legacy Projects suggested that PSSM reinvent itself to become an educational games provider, which the trust board accepted and implemented.

At that point, the "Postal Sunday School Movement" became "PSSM" and began trading as "2ndcity," with the intention of their first release (a virtual world based on the bible) having the same name. However after legal advice the trust board decided to not pursue this as a name for their game and instead became "2ndcity Studios", with their Bible Based Virtual world being named "The Aetherlight" in the following year.