Armin had been developing games since 1984 and had risen to fame with the hit titles "The Great Giana Sisters" and "The Great Courts". After founding the Spellbound development studio in 1994 his success continued with further hit titles including the "Desperados" and "Airline Tycoon" series.

"For many of us Armin was a personal friend. We still cannot believe that he has passed away," explains Andreas Speer, Spellbound Entertainment AG's Studio Manager. "We will continue following Armin's goals, as he would have wanted us to."

"I worked with Armin very closely for more than 15 years," adds Jean-Marc Haessig, Creative Director of the Spellbound Entertainment AG. "He was a good friend with whom I had a lot in common. Our visions of what to do to make our games great were absolutely the same. Though I will miss him bitterly I will continue to strive to create games that Armin would have been proud of."
As a thoughtful CEO, Armin Gessert cared about his succession and made provision for the case where Spellbound should find itself without him. Spellbound's team of highly experienced developers, recruited by Armin, will continue to operate with Andreas Speer taking over his position as CEO. The creative leadership will continue to be in Jean-Marc Haessig's hands.

Back in the late 1980s, there was no chance to play Jump'n'Run games on home computers like Commodore 64, Amiga or Atari ST. Until 1987, when a small German development team released The Great Giana Sisters.

Their father, Armin Gessert, let them become stars of the genre overnight. The Great Giana Sisters was a Jump'n'Run that had everything home computer gamers back then only could experience on video game consoles: A fantastic game world on many different levels, that challenged the players' hand eye coordination skills to their maximum to jump over deep canyons, collect bonuses and succeed when fighting enemies just by jumping on their back.