Core Design

Speaking in the House of Commons in 2010, Chris Williamson, MP for Derby North, described the city as "the birthplace of Lara Croft". His fellow MP Mike Weatherley disagreed and said the following year: "Lara Croft was born in Wimbledon". Technically they are both right. Eidos, the publisher of the Tomb Raider games was based in Wimbledon but Chris Williamson is more correct because Lara Croft's creators, Core Design, were based in Derby.

Gizmondo Europe

The story of the Gizmondo handheld console and it's parent company Tiger Telematics Inc is massively entertaining. A steamy mixture of crime, car crashes, Sting, million dollar salaries, and a racehorse. Obviously most of that falls outside of the remit of this blog but I do have pictures of office buildings. Imagine the story of Gizmondo is the most amazing party in the world. Well this blog is in the flat next door trying to sleep with a pillow over its ears.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Copyright Infringement

A couple of things combined to give me the idea for this post. The major one being Fantasy Software. I knew they'd had a brush with solicitors acting for Douglas Adams over their game Backpackers Guide To The Universe but I originally thought they had been unlucky and just chosen a bad time to release a game with a title parodying The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy. That is, sort of, the case but it's also the end point of a trend of Fantasy passing off Hitchhikers ideas in the scenarios of their games. After I noticed that, I seemed to keep falling over examples of other companies doing the same. 

Fantasy

The way in which companies go bust is often telling, There are, of course, very strict legal rules covering the matter, but they are often easy to get around. Bug-Byte's receivers informed all creditors (including CRASH) of the situation Micromania's Dominic Wood wrote a letter to the effect that he was bankrupt — at least you know where you stand. Fantasy's demise was less ethical.

Nintendo

Having looked at Atari, and Sony, and SEGA, and 3DO, there's only one possible choice to do next. Nintendo. A company about whom I know very little indeed. I hope this is easier than writing about SEGA. Fortunately for me, much of the initial hard work has been done by some kind soul who created this page. Thank you. I'll try to build on your work and not just copy it.

Mikro-Gen

Not to sound dismissive but I've gone backwards and forwards several times on whether to cover Mikro-Gen. They are an old company and similar in many ways to others I've already written about; like Bug-Byte, Quicksilva, dk'tronics,Automata, Hewson Consultants, Artic, J.K. Greye and so on, and so on. I have two main questions. One, what can I say that makes this article different? Two, is it wise to reveal these doubts in the introduction when I should be using it to lure people in?

Intelligent Software

Excelsior! I've finally done it! A post that combines my twin obsessions of old software house offices and Blake's 7. This is clearly the apogee of this blog. Even more exciting than that time I got emails from Charles Cecil and Richard Turner about Artic. It can only be downhill from here.

The (Mystery) Machine

December 1991. THE ONE magazine published an article by Dave Gruisin about a Los Angeles conference with the grim name of InterTainment 91 (was there ever an InterTainment 92?). The hot news at this industry shindig concerned something called "The Machine". The Machine was protected behind a wall of non-disclosure agreements and yet somehow everyone knew all about it even though no one was talking. According to Dave Gruisin: "The Machine is quite simply going to revolutionise home-computer entertainment." So what was it?

3DO

Here come some absolutely gross assumptions guaranteed to make experts wince. The Mega Drive and SNES are commonly referred to as part of the fourth generation of consoles, but in the UK it was the second generation at best. The eighties were dominated by 8-bit computers, not consoles. It was only really as the eighties ended that Virgin Mastertronic began to have some success selling the SEGA Master System. Around the same time, home grown companies had a go at cracking the console marker. Konix really tried to be a contender with the Multisystem in 1989. Amstrad had a go with the GX4000 console in 1990. But nobody cracked it because consoles didn't break into the wider public consciousness until the period kickstarted by the release of Tetris for the Game Boy, in September 1990, and consolidated by the June 1991 release of Sonic the Hedgehog. That's when the UK market became ripe for plucking.

SEGA

I assumed SEGA was going to be easy. I sat down with the expectation that I'd have a couple of addresses to check out and then I could move on, job done. I wallowed in my ignorance. What is there to say about SEGA's presence in the UK? Megadrive, Saturn, Dreamcast? That's it, isn't it? Obviously the answer is no. I was dealing with two separate SEGAs and nine addresses after a couple of hours of basic research on Companies House. Plus, I needed not to forget about SEGA World London, and another one in Bournemouth, and Virgin Mastertronic. Pass the aspirin.

Mike Andrews Meets The Computer Game Stars

Riverside, BBC2's weekly magazine programme for young people covered music, arts, fashion, and style. In it's third and final series, 24 October 1983, it turned its gaze on the burgeoning software industry and asked; are computer game programmers the new rock stars? Mike Andrews went to Liverpool to find out and spoke to the team at Imagine Software. [1] 

Rage Software

I got an email from Jake Smith in December 2024. He'd gone for a casual interview with the Rage managing director Paul Finnegan, back in 1993/94. They chatted about design and using Photoshop, and what skills they were looking for from people who wanted to start a career in games development. Jake even included an address and a scan of Paul Finnegan's business card. "This is great", I thought, "I wonder who Rage Software were?"

Dave Lawson

What struck me while watching the BBC documentary The Battle for Santa's Software was the absence of Dave Lawson. He's only seen in the background of the segment about the Bandersnatch packaging. Where he is also the only person in the room who doesn't speak. I wanted to track down more information about him because Dave Lawson is the line of continuity through the founding of Imagine and into Psygnosis. He joins Bug-Byte and leaves with Mark Butler to set up Imagine. He's present through the chaos of the liquidation and Finchspeed and Fireiron and the fight over the rights to Bandersnatch. He sets up Psygnosis with fellow ex-Imagine director Ian Hetherington, and then abruptly leaves in 1988. Dave Lawson died aged 62 in August 2021. There are plenty tributes to him online but they all follow the lead of Martyn Carroll who wrote about him for Eurogamer. All the tributes hit the same basic beats of Imagine, bankruptcy, Psygnosis. I haven't done anything very much different so what I wanted to do was track down interviews with him and give him the chance to be heard in his own words.

Psygnosis

Regular readers of this blog might have worked out the area of my cone of ignorance. I have a very sharp and narrow knowledge of eighties games and software houses which gets wider and hazier into the nineties and fades out almost entirely post-millennium. What company released Rockstar Ate My Hamster? Codemasters! Who released any game in the Call Of Duty series? EA? Activision?

Sony Electronic Publishing / Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

This was supposed to be Pysgnosis but that will have to wait for another two weeks. I'd planned a quick look at Sony's UK presence as a follow up but events [1] have conspired to make me swap them round. This is a more bare bones article than normal. It's Sony. You know. Sony. The PlayStation. The console that sold 100 million units. You probably owned one or knew someone who did. If you don't remember the PlayStation then you probably remember the PlayStation 2 which sold 160 million units or the PlayStation 4 (117 million). It's only really the PlayStation 3 and 5 [2] which let the brand down, and they both managed sales of around 85 million so I imagine Sony is not to distressed. Anyway, that's why this is a less detailed write up than normal. Consider it an apéritif for Psygnosis. (Secretly, it's because this is being written to a very short turnaround and because I know bugger all about Sony in the UK. I hope to get out of here quickly before my ignorance shows too much.)