Palace Software

275 Pentonville Road, London, N1

 Palace Software always had good strong cover artwork and I was spoilt for choice when choosing a picture. I could have gone for the 2000AD style cover for Sacred Armour of Antirad, or the comic book Biggles of Stifflip & Co. Alternatively, if I was feeling bold, I could go for the moral panic baiting cover for Barbarian 2 or The Evil Dead, or the actual moral panic causing cover for Barbarian. Ultimately I went for a spooky witch because it's nearly Halloween, and there's time for more more story before twelve. Just to keep us warm. 

62 Kensington High Street, London, W8

Palace Software came out of The Palace Group. A video and film distributor, which would later also get involved in film production as Palace Pictures. Peter Stone was the manager of a shop called The Video Palace in Kensington High Street which began to sell computer games as a side line, as he told RETRO GAMER: "Kids started to come into the store with programs they'd made and wanted to sell them. They'd record them on blank cassettes or discs with their own handwritten labels, and we'd buy them." (issue 23 page 66). Adverts for The Video Palace can be seen regularly through 1983, and they normally have a small boxout like the one here asking for games, ACORN USER (May 1983 page 82).

October 2022

Kensington High Street was hosting some sort of apocalypse rehearsal when I arrived. The road was a snarl of traffic with a background of bad tempered horn beeping. Number 62 is the building with the black shop front in the middle of the photo above; and god bless the owners for being the only people in the area to put their street number on the frontage in nice big digits. It seemed for a while this might be the best picture I'd get. The traffic was clogged and everyone was going a bit crazy. I was startled when a black BMW, turning left, mounted the pavement to drive round a car patiently waiting to turn right. I walked on a little bit and waited to see what would happen after the traffic lights cycled a few times. Hermes (the God of roads and losing parcels) rewarded me for my dedication by temporarily parting the traffic like the Red Sea, allowing me to grab this picture.

October 2022

100 Oxford Street, London, W1

PERSONAL COMPUTER GAMES MAGAZINE
(December 1983/January 1984)

October 2022

The Video Palace moved east to Oxford Street, in a building which would later become the Virgin Games Centre; COMPUTER & VIDEO GAMES (December 1983 page 108). Until recently the ground floor was home to Boots the Chemist which has relocated, now with the windows shuttered it looks like 100 Oxford Street has fallen on hard times.

69 Flempton Road, London E10

Meanwhile, further east, was Palace Virgin Gold, formed when Palace Group's home video distributor went into partnership with Richard Branson's Virgin Video label. Nik Powell, one of the co-founders of the Palace Group with Stephen Woolley, had previously founded Virgin Records with Richard Branson. He sold his 40% stake in Virgin to Branson and joined forces with Woolley, the manager of the Scala Cinema in Kings Cross. Peter Stone approached Nik Powell about setting up Palace software and somehow it was decided the new software company's first game should be based on a film for which Palace Pictures held the British film and video rights, The Evil Dead.

Moral Panic #1. The BBFC (which at the time stood for British Board of Film Censors) gave The Evil Dead an X certificate, after requesting 49 seconds of cuts. Palace Pictures released the film on video at a time when home formats were unregulated due to a loophole in existing law. This loophole led Mary Whitehouse and the National Viewers and Listeners Association to run a campaign which caused a panic about the suitability of material available to watch by anyone on domestic formats; and also led to the phrase "video nasty" entering the public vocabulary. Until the law was amended, the only legislation which applied to home videos was the Obscene Publications Act 1959. The Director of Public Prosecutions drew up a list of videos he believed were obscene and the Police had the legal power to seize these videos and prosecute the producers, distributors, and retailers on a case-by-case basis. The Evil Dead was added to the DPP's list and it wasn't until July 1985 that Palace Pictures had their day in Snaresbrook Crown Court, where they successfully argued the film was not obscene.

Palace Software were raided by the Obscene Publications Squad while writing the game. The squad were looking for the video masters and had no jurisdiction over a computer game. The release was announced in POPULAR COMPUTER WEEKLY "Palace raises the spirits," (17-23 May 1984 page 1). The report notes Palace as: "The first film company to move into software. It plans a range of games developed from successful feature films. Palace has the video rights to David Bowie's Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, the thriller Diva and a number of other horror pictures, including Basket Case, Halloween and Chainsaw Massacre." Being part of a film company with distribution rights occasionally caused a problem: "We do get lots of hassle from the film company," Peter Stone told ZX COMPUTING MAGAZINE (July 1986 page 60). "We were hassled about doing a Company of Wolves game and an Absolute Beginners game -can you imagine a game based on Absolute Beginners?" This interview includes a tease that Palace ended up "not working on a proposed tie-in with the pop group Madness". One of Palace's films titles would indeed spawn a successful game. (Can you guess which one it was?). It wasn't The Evil Dead. The game wasn't a success despite Palace's efforts, including using the VHS artwork for the game cover and adverts to tie the game to the film. Magazines seemed more amused than shocked. Reviews were largely positive and no one seemed too outraged; I can't find any letters to magazines or newspapers. Maybe shops were reluctant to stock the game for fear of being raided by the Police, or maybe YOUR COMPUTER put their finger on the problem when they wrote "you might have wondered if home computer graphics were capable of the sort of gory special effects video nasties trade in... there is nothing here to keep even the most unworldly 12-year-old awake at night", or maybe Pete Stone let all the air out of the balloon when he unhyped the game to C&VG: "The game contains no sex." That's not how you sell a game Pete. The Evil Dead came and went in Autumn 1984. It was released for the Commodore 64 and BBC Micro but the Spectrum version ended up being given away for free on the B-side of Cauldron. Only one other game was released through the Flempton Road address; Valkyrie 17 which Palace distributed and released on behalf of The Ramjam Corporation. 

October 2022   

Whatever was at Flempton Road in 1984 is long gone; replaced by the back of the Lea Bridge Industrial Centre. Number 69 was, by my calculation, somewhere on the opposite side of the road near the tree and lamp post in the middle of the picture. I hope whatever was there gave a more interesting view than the blank corrugated metal wall which runs almost the entire length of the road. I always suspected a visit to Flempton Road would be something of an appendix to this post. Palace Software was never really based here (-sshh!), this was probably their distribution address, but it turned out to be surprisingly interesting. My trip by train was possible until 1985 when Lea Bridge Station closed. After that Palace employees would need to find another route to work until the line reopened in 2016. 

You can learn more at Disused Stations. On the platform side up to Tottenham Hale there's also some impressively old industrial units which give more of a sense of what the area was like in Palace's time. Right next to the platform is a rusty thing with a giant chimney. The sign on the side says it was made by Kestner Evaporator and Engineering Co Ltd, out of Greenhithe in Kent. It's a Merilene Heating System; whatever one of those is.

275 Pentonville Road, London, N1

The early history of Palace Software is not confusing. It's just a bit spread out across London. While The Evil Dead and Valkyrie 17 used the Flempton Road address the company was actually based at 275 Pentonville Road where Palace Group had some spare office space. Cauldron, released in early summer 1985 was the first game to use this address, and also the first Palace game to get genuinely warm and enthusiastic reviews. It was also the only Palace game released in 1985. Hold on to your hats because it was also apparently the other game based on a Palace film licence -sort of. Cauldron started out based on the film Halloween and then went in another direction when the team took direct inspiration from the American holiday, and pumpkins and witches, etc. Palace worked twice as hard in 1986 and managed to release two games, Cauldron II and The Sacred Armour of Antirad (which was one of three titles licenced to US company Epyx and released over there as Rad Warrior). Then in 1987 came the Barbarian. 

Moral Panic #2. By 1987 the UK games industry was examining the question of sexism. A bit. Magazine readers, and sometimes the magazines themselves, started pushing back against the representation of women in adverts. One of the worst offenders was Legend of the Amazon Women whose advert and cover art were described by the SINCLAIR USER editorial staff as: "Meanwhile a new tasteless ad arrives in the form of US Gold's Legend of the Amazon Women. Never in the history of hype has such an ill-proportioned bundle of breasts, thighs, buttocks and rampant molars appeared on page three of a reputable computer magazine. Is this a new trend in advertising -producing offensive pictures in order to cancel them in a blaze of publicity when folks complain?" It might seem odd for a magazine to complain about an advert they've printed but in bigger companies the editorial staff didn't always have much control over what the advertising department accepted. Games which crop up regularly in this sort of discussion include Game Over, Samantha Fox Strip Poker and Vixen; which is notable for the robust defence from YOUR SINCLAIR editor Teresa Maughan over the cover linked to there. She wrote: "I think you've missed the point why that picture was used in the first place. Vixen the game features a woman in a prehistoric setting, much like Jane of Tarzan fame or the Wild Women Of Wonga. The image used on both YS's cover and Martech's packaging merely reflects the game. I agree that this type of image should only be used in the right context -I do object to the gratuitous use of adorned female bodies to promote products. In this case I think the image is neither offensive or gratuitous." Another round of complaints came the following month. 

Fortunately everyone involved in the UK computer game industry listened and learned their lesson and nothing similar happened again, ever. And if you believe that don't try a Google image search for the Psycho Pigs UXB advert, 1988. Or the 1999 Tomb Raider 3 advert. Or the Battlecruiser 3000AD advert, 1996.

Into all this gambolled Barbarian. Now, there's obviously an element of sex-sells cynicism to the marketing campaign but, to use a variation on the Maughan defence above, it's clearly also trading off imagery familiar from Conan the Barbarian and other fantasy works. The reaction from ELECTRON USER readers was particularly hot (September 1988 page 6); "ugly pornographic advert," "disgusted... embarrassing cheap," with one reader complaining to the Advertising Standards Agency who took no action. Two things, I think, made this advert a particular target for ire. One was the decision to use photographic models rather than artwork which distances it from the Frank Frazetta pulp-magazine inspiration. Check out the advert for Where Time Stood Still and imagine how it would look using models rather than artwork. Being drawn allows it to retain a B-movie poster feel, and can be more clearly seen as a pastiche.

The other thing which made the Barbarian advert incendiary was using topless model Maria Whittaker. Samantha Fox Strip Poker, Vixen and Barbarian all used Page 3 models and the intrusion of that tacky world into media aimed mainly at teenage boys was always controversial. The bloke, by the way, is Michael Van Wijk who went on to play the part of Wolf in ITV's Gladiators.

Moral Panic #2a Meanwhile, over in Ludlow CRASH had other things to worry about. The release of Barbarian inspired Oliver Frey to draw a cover which was his most controversial ever. Evil, horrific, bloodthirsty, sick, distasteful, violent, obscene, sick (again), bloody, gruesome. That's quite a word cloud. And not a Page 3 model in sight. It's a fantastic piece of art. It's powerful and it resulted in WHSMITHS nearly withdrawing the issue from sale but settling for a written promise that Newsfield Publications would be more careful in the future. Frey was allowed to indulge his gruesome side a little too much, and he's too good an artist to draw a picture like this without giving it an emotional kick. I don't think the blood is the problem. It's the despairing look from the unfortunate and soon to be dispatched opponent. His expression leaves no doubt of the horror of his situation and the little detail that always makes me wince is the way he's trying to turn the blade away with his bare hand. Better to loose a few fingers than get it in the neck. And, just when you think you've taken everything in, you notice the additional hand behind the victorious barbarian. There's another soon-to-be-corpse behind the winner.

  

October 2022

I popped out from the Kings Cross Underground station and trotted down Pentonville Road looking for number 275. I didn't find it because Pentonville Road is very bad at putting numbers on buildings. I knew I was in roughly the right area and while I collected my thoughts at a junction I glanced idly across the road at the big white building opposite. This was the point at which I became eligible for the 2022 slow-on-the-uptake award. Was it possible the Scala Cinema was number 275. Yes, of course it was. Remember how one of the founders of Palace Pictures was Scala Cinema manager Stephen Woolley? I didn't. The spare office space used by Palace Software was actually behind the projection booth. Over on Youtube you can watch a 15 minute Super 8 film by Mark Eason, one of the Palace artists, which goes behind the scenes at Palace Software and includes footage inside their offices and on the roof. 

The Old Forge, 7 Caledonian Road, London, N1

October 2022

Palace Software had moved by the time Barbarian 2 was released in 1988 but not very far. You can see the Scala from the door to 7 Caledonian Road. The building was looking sad and neglected when I visited but hopefully nothing that can't be improved by a bit of repainting and window cleaning. Barbarian 2 rehired Maria Whittaker and Michael Van Wijk for the game cover and advertising campaign, but somehow it didn't have the same impact second time round. Epyx released both Barbarian games in America; the first game was retitled Death Sword and the second Ax of Rage. The both covers are poor, but Ax of Rage is the worst.

Palace set up a new label, as was the fashion at the time, and called it Outlaw. The first game was Shoot-'Em-Up Construction Kit by Sensible Software, released in 1987. There was also a game called Troll by Denton Designs. This move to becoming a publisher rather than a developer changed Palace Software. The company abandoned the ZX Spectrum after Barbarian 2, although Denton's Troll saw a Spectrum release by on US Gold's Kixx budget label. Unusually Palace continued to release games on the Amstrad after they'd finished with the Spectrum. The Commodore 64 also saw continued support but Palace's focus shifted more to the new 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST formats. Then in 1991 Palace Group sold their software label to French company Titus. The sale got a brief mention at the bottom of a page in THE ONE (November 1991 page 14) and then Palace Software just kind of faded away. They are last spotted listed as the distributor, in tiny letters, at the bottom of the advert for Titus' 1992 game Titus The Fox To Marrakech And Back. Ironically Palace Group declared bankruptcy and closed down the same year.