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.

Penguin, Puffin, Collins, Heinemann, Hodder & Stoughton, Century, Arrow, Hutchinson, and Hill MacGibbon

The success of The Hobbit must have left book publishers wondering if they were also sitting on a fortune. The game cost £14.95, expensive at the time (less so today; it works out to just over £50) but the price didn't impact its success. Sales were being estimated at north of 100,000 copies by November 1983 [1]. What if everyone sat down and started singing about gold?

Orpheus

The Smithy, Unit 1, Church Farm, Hatley St. George, Nr. Sandy, Beds, SG19

Orpheus were a relatively short-lived software house who were notable for a couple of games. First, an MSX version of Boulder Dash when they joined the increasingly long line of companies who licenced First Star's game. Secondly for The Young Ones. The looks-like-but-wasn't-officially-licenced game of the BBC comedy series.

The RamJam Corporation

 

Just off Carnaby Street near the Old Coffee House Pub

A software publisher who quickly turned into a development house. The RamJam Corporation only released one game under their own name, the quirky and surprisingly difficult to spell Valkyrie 17. It came out at the end of 1984 when the UK market was maturing and it was becoming increasingly tricky for smaller software houses to get games into shops. The Ramjam Corporation ended up signing a distribution deal with Palace Software (a subsidiary of Palace Pictures) which generated the kind of amusing PR photos that magazines love to use to generate copy.

Electronic Arts

"American Invaders on the Way," was how COMPUTER & VIDEOGAMES announced the existence of Electronic Arts to British computer owners. "Electronic Arts is the name of a new American software house set up by a group of independent games designers." (January 1984 page 16 ). The news was a little out of date. The company had been founded two years previously by ex-Apple Director Trip Hawkins. Now, for the first time, its games would be available in the UK, distributed by Centresoft, who would go on to launch US Gold later in 1984. "If US are Gold then we must be Platinum!" Trip Hawkins later told C&VG*

Realtime Games Ltd

Prospect House, 32 Sovereign Street, Leeds, LS1

"Why would you order a taxi from where I don't know where it is? Why didn't you order it from the station?" The person on the phone outside Leeds station was having a bad day. Don't drive to Leeds I was told but public transport apparently carried its own frustrations. I left him to it, and headed towards Prospect House which I was delighted to discover was barely five minutes walk from the station. If only they could all be this easy.

Piranha / Macmillan Software

 4 Little Essex Street, London, WC2R

"It's a lovely pub isn't it?" The question was directed at me as I started to line up my camera. It was one of the two men who had been standing at the side of Milford Lane discussing the Cheshire Cheese pub and a point of maintenance. "Yes," I agreed, because it is a nice pub. The pair were, I learned in the subsequent conversational back and forth, investigating alternative ways of lighting the sign because the current lack of access is a pain whenever the bulb blows. "Good luck with the sign," I said cheerily as I took my picture and walked away. I didn't have the heart to tell the bloke I was actually more interested in the blandly modern office on the opposite side of Little Essex Street.

Ariolasoft

Carl-Bertelsmann-Str 161, 4830 Gütersloh

In 1983 Ariola Records, the music division of German conglomerate Bertelsmann, set up a software company. This company was named, unsurprisingly, Ariolasoft and went to become the German distributor for Activision, Electronic Arts, and the Sega Master System. The company also published original games including Vermeer, Kaiser, and Ooze: Als die Geister mürbe wurden. Ariolasoft renamed itself United Software in 1990 and was taken over by the German division of MicroProse in 1993. Which is all very interesting but this blog is about the UK software industry and Britain hasn't been a part of Germany since Doggerland was submerged by the rising North Sea.