31 Carlton Crescent, Southampton, SO1
No, I haven't gone nuts and you are not seeing double. Electric Dreams really did release two different games called Aliens. One in the winter of 1986 and the other in the spring of 1987. Yes, it was confusing when it happened in the eighties as well. Electric Dreams is the story of what Rod Cousens did after Quicksilva, so lets catch up on the back story first.
At our weekly company meeting in John’s flat in Malmesbury Road, we (me, Nick, John and Caroline) discussed how we would prepare for the future and remembered this guy who had called on Nick, in Maybush, to sell him insurance. This guy had shown an interest in what we were doing and he wore a suit, so it seemed like he must know about business.
That's Mark Eyles of Quicksilva remembering how Rod Cousens joined the company in 1982. Rod's initial brief was to set up an overseas distribution network which he did with tremendous effectiveness and soon became central to not just Quicksilva but the UK computer industry. Quicksilva and Rod Cousens never seemed far from the news. They were a founder member of the Guild of Software Houses, with Rod Cousens as vice-chairman. They and Bug-Byte organised an industry awards dinner called Quick Byte where small Oscar-like busts called Clives were given away to the winners of assorted humorous categories; the Grubby award, The Most Awesome Use of the Word Awesome award, ...Feel the Width award.
If you want to know more about Soft Aid, I recommend the article on Super Chart Island.
The CRASH profile describes the Electric Dreams office as:
It's too original and innovative to allow it to languish in obscurity," says Electric Dreams overlord Rod Cousens. "Marketed properly and at a different price it should get some exposure."
It probably didn't look so good in 1987. The bulk of the building had been converted into a nightclub called Jeeves. The old platforms and engine service yards were being used as a car park. Disused Stations has a great picture from 1984 showing how dilapidated the area looked.
Activision UK simply closed down the day after receiving the final masters and source... It took several years of legal action to even get a royalty statement, followed by several more years to get the royalties.
This advert is basically the last sighting of Electric Dreams. A small logo tucked away in the bottom left-hand corner of a page as Activision UK attempted to wring the a few final drops of money out of the last games they developed. [5]
This Electric Dreams is based in Birmingham. At Unit 10, The Parkway Industrial Centre, Heneage Street. US Gold's address. A second advert ran in both the December issue of ZZAP and the January 1986 issue of YOUR COMPUTER. This was for two different twin-packs Nuclear Nick and Scooter, and Ollie's Follies and Beer Belly Burt's Brew Biz.
To give you some idea of how desirable these rights were, US Gold grabbed them back again around 1989.
Meanwhile, back in Rod Cousens day job. The owners of Quicksilva, Argus Press, decided they no longer wanted to allow Quicksilva to run at arms length in Southampton. April 1985, around the same time the SoftAid compilation reached the shops, saw Quicksilva moved from Southampton up to Argus' London offices. Rod Cousens quit.
31 Carlton Crescent, Southampton, SO1
Rod Cousens resurfaced in September 1985, interviewed in the pages of CRASH. It's an odd one-page interview illustrated with a file photograph and remarkably short on information, noting simply that:His new firm may well surface under the name Electric Dreams at the Personal Computer World Show this month.
It did. And:
In view of his past contacts, it would hardly be surprising if a few famous names from Quicksilva made their mark on the new label. It's been twelve months since the last program from Ant Attack author, Sandy White, hit the streets for example
The interview has the feel of a short telephone chat made after someone at CRASH heard a few nuggets of gossip and gave Rod Cousens a quick call, and then inflated the call into a profile. Rod went into more detail with Graeme Mason in a 2012 RETRO GAMER interview; issue 104 page 80:
"Quicksilva's games were distributed [in America] by CBS Records, who handled a few other publishers, and I got a tip-off that they would be exiting the videogame business shortly after I left Quicksilva," Rod explains.
"One of the other publishers they worked for was Epyx, so I was about to fly to San Francisco and pitch to Epyx for European rights for a new company I was planning."
One fateful phone call the day before Rod was due to leave for the US changed his path immeasurably. "A head-hunter called me about a job for a leading multinational software house who wanted to establish a presence in the UK. I pretty much knew who it was, as there was only one company of that ilk at the time: Activision."
One fateful phone call the day before Rod was due to leave for the US changed his path immeasurably. "A head-hunter called me about a job for a leading multinational software house who wanted to establish a presence in the UK. I pretty much knew who it was, as there was only one company of that ilk at the time: Activision."
With several high-profile Activision personnel already known to Rod from his Quicksilva days, he boarded his plane the next day to California with this key change to his US agenda. In a meeting with
Activision's Greg Fischbach, Rod explained his new venture, a software publishing house based in Southampton in the UK.
Greg called me the day after and said: 'How would you like to be funded?' And that was the start of Electric Dreams."
Greg called me the day after and said: 'How would you like to be funded?' And that was the start of Electric Dreams."
Companies House has a skeleton entry for Electric Dreams Software Ltd (Company number 01944103) founded on 03 Sep 1985 and dissolved on 24 Nov 1992, so the dates match up. I don't know the nature of the relationship between Activision Ltd and Electric Dreams. It's most likely to be the same as the one between Thalamus and Newsfield or ironically Argus and Quicksilva, a company in its own right but with the level of independence relying on the goodwill of the corporate owner. It might seem odd, considering what had happened in April 1985, for Rod Cousens' to immediately tie his new company to a bigger one but Rod Cousens was smart enough to see which way the wind was blowing. A small independent company would struggle but the distribution and marketing muscle of Activision could make all the difference. I don't doubt he was also smart enough to build some escape clauses and legal guarantees of independence into the contract.
When CRASH briefly profiled Rod, he was working with Paul Cooper, also ex-of Quicksilva and later head of Thalamus, on the first game from Electric Dreams called I, of the Mask. It was released on the Spectrum, with Amstrad and Commodore 64 versions planned but getting lost upon the way. I, of the Mask uses shaded graphics to create a solid 3D effect. It looks a lot like Starstrike II, released in spring 1986, and probably made Realtime Games bite through their Spectrums in frustration.
I, of the Mask is a remarkable technical achievement. As a game? You can watch it being played here.
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| June 2025 |
The CRASH profile describes the Electric Dreams office as:
On the top floor of an Insurance company office in Southampton.
The insurance company also belonged to Rod Cousens, as RETRO GAMER noted. Remember, Rod Cousens met Nick Lambert of Quicksilva while trying to sell him insurance. What CRASH doesn't mention is how impressive the building is, a four story Regency-style terrace. It's just to the north of Palmerstone Park, and Quicksilva's old offices in Palmerstone Park Road. At the far end of Carlton Crescent is Carlton Lodge, where Rod Cousens was planning to relocate Quicksilva, until Argus pulled the plug on the company.
Electric Dreams squeezed in three Spectrum games before the end of 1985 alongside a rerelease for the 1984 Automata epic Deus Ex Machina [2] . SINCLAIR USER reported the news in January 1986:
It's too original and innovative to allow it to languish in obscurity," says Electric Dreams overlord Rod Cousens. "Marketed properly and at a different price it should get some exposure."
POPULAR COMPUTING WEELY wrote:
"It's simply a rerelease, with no additions or modifications to the game," said Electric Dreams' managing director Rod Cousens, "We felt that the program deserved it because of its innovative qualities. But we will market it much more strongly."
(28 November-4 December 1985 page 4)
(28 November-4 December 1985 page 4)
According to PCW, the C64 version would be on sale in the second week of December with the Spectrum version to follow. It doesn't look like the Spectrum version made it to the shops. It's not easy to find details about the C64 version either. Most websites use the same tiny photo as this one, below, which I swiped this from Wikipedia.
1986 would be busier, 16 games in total across the Amstrad, C64, and Spectrum formats; that's actually more than Activision Ltd. The 1986 titles are a pleasing mix of originals like Spindizzy; the ripped-from-the-headlines RMS Titanic (the wreck was only discovered in September 1985); and Mermaid Madness, an early game from Software Creations founder Richard Kay. There were also licenced arcade conversions, Tempest and Dandy. The licenced game Back to the Future and the first of two different games based on Aliens. The first, just called Aliens, was by Software Studios. They were the development division of Electric Dreams/Activision and worked mainly with third party developers. In May 1988, THE GAMES MACHINE visited Southampton and described how Software Studios worked:
Software Studios, born in the old Electric Dreams offices, takes care of development both technical and creative, for Activision and its associated labels. Although most product is written out-of-house, the Southampton office is a place where the programmers can come for back-up facilities and advice.
Software Studios is, additionally, the product testing base for Activision games. All games are subjected to rigorous playtesting. Not only to ensure that the required features and effects have been included, but also to check if any refinements can be made.
Rod Cousens also found time in 1986 to organise a second charity compilation. This was Off The Hook, raising money for the work the Prince's Trust was doing for the rehabilitation of drug addicts. Another 10 games were on offer, for £6.99.
The end of the year saw Activision make an effort to export Electric Dreams to America as a spin-off label from the Activision Inc mothership. Three games were advertised in a magazine called COMPUTE'S GAZETTE, Spindizzy, and CRL's The Rockv Horror Show, and Zoids by Martech. CRL and Martech would both join the Electronic Arts Ltd affiliated labels program in 1987 so they were clearly looking for another company to take over the distribution and marketing of their games. The US version of The Rockv Horror Show was rewritten slightly to take better advantage of the C64's graphics, the CRL original looked a lot more like the Spectrum version.
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| COMPUTE'S GAZETTE December 1986 page 56 |
I've only been able to find one other game released on Activision Inc's Electric Dreams label and that was RMS Titanic, renamed Titanic: The Recovery Mission.
Terminus House, Terminus Terrace, Southampton, SO1
Electric Dreams moved from Carlton Crescent early in 1987. Their destination was Terminus House, built in 1834 as the terminus of the London and Southampton railway. Today, it's a casino in a Grade II* listed Italianate style building, and it looks magnificent.
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| June 2024 |
It probably didn't look so good in 1987. The bulk of the building had been converted into a nightclub called Jeeves. The old platforms and engine service yards were being used as a car park. Disused Stations has a great picture from 1984 showing how dilapidated the area looked.
The second Aliens game was out in the spring of 1987. This one had been developed by Activision Inc and was brought across the Atlantic and given to Electric Dreams to release. The UK version doesn't seem to gave made the trip the other way. Manchester-based Mr. Micro converted the game for the Spectrum and Amstrad.
Behind the scenes it looks as if the lines between Electric Dreams and Activision were blurring. At some point in 1986 Rod Cousens became managing director of Activision and by 1988 he was vice-president of Activision Europe. Development of games for Activision and Electric Dreams was run out of Southampton which resulted in this notorious message buried in the game code for Predator:
This program was written in an incredible two months in Leeds and the last week in a hell-hole called Southampton - nothing against the people that live in Southampton, but we did see only three other people the whole time we were there!
The whole message is way too long to quote in full. You can read it here.
Bob Pape, one of the programmers of R-Type described the setup of Electric Dreams:
Although Spectrum R-Type was released under the Electric Dreams label I have always looked on it as an Activision game. Activision at the time were using a number of different names for a variety of reasons - Activision, Electric Dreams, Software Studios, Mediagenic - the distinction of which was lost on me then as it is now. At heart it was the same people in the same building doing the same jobs.
The description comes from his book It's Behind You: the making of a computer game, about his career and experience making R-Type. I can really recommend it[4]. R-Type on the Spectrum is a programming miracle, and a candidate for one of the best Spectrum games. It looks amazing and uses colour in a way that might be illegal. The other home computer versions are more authentic to the arcade machine but there's something about the lurid 8-bit colours of the Spectrum version that really pop and (here comes my controversial opinion) make this the best looking version. Spectrum owners were used to seeing screenshots on the back of boxes that looked stunning but on closer inspection had a small footnote reading "screenshot from Commodore version". In the case of R-Type, whoever made the packaging decided the Spectrum version looked better and swapped pictures: that's how good this game looks. The best thing, they've forgotten to remove the "Commodore screen shot" label. [That's enough R-Type -The Bydo Empire]
Arcade and film licences like Predator and Big Trouble In Little China would squeeze out original titles over the next couple of years and the output of Electric Dreams became indistinguishable from other software houses.
"Electric Dreams never really took
hold in the US; I had been appointed as
international head of Activision, so we
merged the resources and concentrated
on the main brand, which was obviously
Activision itself. The regional markets had
begun to converge with common platforms,
so the necessity to establish and maintain
local imprints was greatly reduced."
(RETRO GAMER, issue 104)
(RETRO GAMER, issue 104)
To translate Rod Cousens' business-speak into English: Quirky home-grown computers like the Spectrum and Amstrad were becoming less important as the global market standardised around the Commodore 64, PC, Amiga, and Atari ST. A brand like Electric Dreams had no reason to exist when games no longer needed extensive conversion so releases could all be funnelled through Activision. Electric Dreams was never wound down but its importance to Activision decreased; 16 games in 1986; 10 in 1987; 7 in 1988; and 5 in 1989.
Mediagenic has all but closed down its UK subsidiary Activision. That firm was responsible for such hits as Ghostbusters, RType, Super Hang-On and, more recently, Powerdrift. It says the future is not with home computers such as the Amiga and ST but with games consoles and DOS machines.
Activision UK, which last week employed 50 people, will only be a two person operation by next year. More than half of the employees had already left by the beginning of this week
Insiders say there is a feeling of extreme bitterness at Activision's Reading headquarters, especially since the UK operation had been a success.
(NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS, 25 August 1990 page 3)
Activision UK, which last week employed 50 people, will only be a two person operation by next year. More than half of the employees had already left by the beginning of this week
Insiders say there is a feeling of extreme bitterness at Activision's Reading headquarters, especially since the UK operation had been a success.
(NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS, 25 August 1990 page 3)
The problem was, in America Activision Inc was still bleeding money. The company had never recovered from the catastrophic game market crash of 1983. Activision Ltd and Electric Dreams existed at the whim of their transatlantic masters. Presumably the closure of the UK business was a cost saving measure by then boss Bruce Davis. He had been the brain behind the baffling Mediagenic rebrand and was once described like this, by original Activision founder and game designer David Crane:
"When the board put Bruce Davis in charge of Activision[around 1986], it was a deathblow. I tried to work with him, but found that he had no creative or marketing skills."
The History of Activision, gamedeveloper.com
The closure of Activision Ltd did for Electric Dreams. They had one game ready for release in 1990, Spindizzy Worlds, a sequel to the 1986 game Spindizzy written by the original author Paul Shirley. Not unreasonably his memories of all this are quite sour and he noted to the 1997 book Halcyon Days: Interviews with Classic Computer and Video Game Programmers
Activision UK simply closed down the day after receiving the final masters and source... It took several years of legal action to even get a royalty statement, followed by several more years to get the royalties.
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| ZERO March 1991 page 35 |
The Mystery of the Electric Dreams Doppelganger
Two months after Electric Dreams was launched at the September 1985 PCW Show, an advert ran in the November issues of ZZAP!64 and YOUR COMPUTER.
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| ZZAP!64 November 1985 page 107 |
This Electric Dreams is based in Birmingham. At Unit 10, The Parkway Industrial Centre, Heneage Street. US Gold's address. A second advert ran in both the December issue of ZZAP and the January 1986 issue of YOUR COMPUTER. This was for two different twin-packs Nuclear Nick and Scooter, and Ollie's Follies and Beer Belly Burt's Brew Biz.
The obvious question, is this a deliberate attempt to poison the Electric Dreams name before the brand gets off the ground or was it a coincidence? Here are some facts I would like to lay before you.
1. Electric Dreams is a great name and it's not unreasonable that more than one person would think of using it. The name was floating round in the public consciousness. Electric Dreams, the song by Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder, spent 15 weeks in the UK Top 100 across the end of 1984 and start of 1985; for 10 of those weeks the song was in the Top 40 and peaked at number three.
Needle swings towards coincidence.
2. As Electric Dreams was being set up, Activision took from US Gold the rights to the Lucasfilm games Rescue on Fractalus! and Ballblazer. A YOUR COMPUTER profile of Activision (February 1986 page 41) notes briefly:
And US Gold are still smarting.To give you some idea of how desirable these rights were, US Gold grabbed them back again around 1989.
Needle swings towards deliberate.
3. THE STORY OF US GOLD by Chris Wilkins and Roger M. Kean (page 99) notes that Geoff Brown owner of US Gold already ran a company called Electric Dreams:
which retailed entertainment software, hardware and peripherals through luxury outlets like HarrodsNeedle swings towards coincidence.
4. The head of US Gold was Tim Chaney. He told THE STORY OF US GOLD about "animosity between me and Rod Cousens". (page 51)
Needle swings towards deliberate.
5. US Gold was not alone in creating a spin-off label. Bug-Byte and Quicksilva had been turned into labels for Argus. Elite had the 2.99 Classic line. Ocean had Imagine.
Needle swings towards coincidence.
6. Tim Chaney told THE STORY OF US GOLD about the business practices he learned while working at Commodore:
‘I stiffed this shop in Greenford, and the guy couldn’t pay his bills and Commodore were going after him to close him down. I remember saying to my boss Paul Welch, I put six grand’s worth of stuff in the shop, he was a believer but it hasn’t worked for him, we need him. We need to show some good will. And Paul said, Tim, when I need goodwill I’ll fucking pay for it. And that was the mentality of Commodore. It was a really good time and I was promoted four times before I left.’
The Story of US Gold page 35
Needle swings towards deliberate.
7. The timing doesn't quite work. To launch a new label in the autumn/winter of 1985 it would need to be planned in summer. The November 1985 issue of ZZAP was on sale from 10th October, so it was being written in September. The lead time for colour adverts means they were probably being created and booked in late July and August.
Needle swings towards coincidence.8. The earliest public mentions of Rod Cousens' Electric Dream came in the 29 August-4 September 1985 issue of POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKY. However, he was a big enough name that there would, presumably, have been rumours floating around the industry before that date.
Needle swings towards deliberate.
You are the jury. You decide.
[1] It falls outside the scope of this article but Soft Aid's distributor Microdealer caused a scandal in November 1985 when they failed to hand over £136.000 of money raised. The short version. It appears that because of the speed the compilation was organised there was no written agreement between Microdealer and Rod Cousens/Band-Aid. Spectrum Group (a photographic and home computer equipment retailer and Microdealers parent company) were experiencing financial problems and somehow the expectation within the company was that money due would be paid in instalments [3] rather than a lump sum (as had happened with an earlier £150,000 payment made in July). It was all sorted out by the following week. Spectrum Group later (apologies if I am hazy on this but details are not easy to find) sold Microdealer to Maxwell's Mirror Group, or possibly his Pergamon company. I've occasionally seem people blame the failure of Microdealer to hand over the Soft Aid cash on the sort of financial irregularities that Robert Maxwell got up to on a regular basis but in this one instance he probably didn't do it. Unless you know differently?
[2] Deus Ex Machina would get a third release from CRL at the end of 1986, for the MSX and Amstrad CPC on their Nu Wave label.
[3] Lessons were learned for the 1986 Off The Hook charity compilation. Rod Cousens told PCW: "The money raised through sales of Off the Hook will be held by Lightning Distribution in a separate bank account, which has already been set up. A committee will make monthly payments to The Prince's Trust.[4] You can download for free here. It's great. One of the facts it reveals: R-Type was written on the top floor of Albemarle House, 45 Shaftesbury Road, Southsea. About five minutes walk from where Automata once had an office. Do you want to know what Albemarle House looks like? Of course you do. It looks like this:
[3] Lessons were learned for the 1986 Off The Hook charity compilation. Rod Cousens told PCW: "The money raised through sales of Off the Hook will be held by Lightning Distribution in a separate bank account, which has already been set up. A committee will make monthly payments to The Prince's Trust.[4] You can download for free here. It's great. One of the facts it reveals: R-Type was written on the top floor of Albemarle House, 45 Shaftesbury Road, Southsea. About five minutes walk from where Automata once had an office. Do you want to know what Albemarle House looks like? Of course you do. It looks like this:
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| August 2025 |
[5] This is of course not the end of the story of Activision Ltd but for that you need to read a different article.
Please leave a comment and follow me on Bluesky. @shammountebank.bsky.social emails can be sent to whereweretheynow@gmail.com, especially if you are Tim Chaney or Rod Cousens and would like to clear up the mystery over the second Electric Dreams label.
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