Hasbro Interactive

I have two reasons for covering Hasbro Interactive. One, because it is the missing piece in the jigsaw story of MicroProse, and Firebird and Telecomsoft, and Beyond Software. Two, because it will be easy.

MicroProse

I don't normally struggle to pick three covers for the picture to the left. I prefer to choose games that mean a lot to me but sometimes I'll go for ones I know will be eye-catching. Yes Civilisation. Yes, UFO: Enemy Unknown. Yes RollerCoaster Tycoon. But what about Silent Service. What about Railroad Tycoon. What about Civilisation II. What about Transport Tycoon. Man, MicroProse released a lot of good games. Is it possible they are one of my favourite software houses and I never realised?

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.

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?

Mythos Games

19 The Rows, The High, Harlow, Essex, CM2

Julian Gollop quite rightly casts a long shadow over this blog. He created Rebelstar Raiders for Redshift, Chaos for Games Workshop, and, while I worked at Virgin Interactive Entertainment, I was lucky enough to be peripherally involved in the production of Magic & Mayhem. And then there's UFO: Enemy Unknown. Oh, UFO: Enemy Unknown. If there's one game that can eclipse my love for Highway Encounter, it's UFO: Enemy Unknown. It may be my favourite games ever. And it will be forever called UFO: Enemy Unknown, none of this X-COM nonsense.

Infogrames

Mitre House, Abbey Road, Enfield, EN1

Infogrames, the company whose bloody fingerprints are all over the dagger in the back of the corpse of the UK software industry.

Cascade

 Suite 4, 1-3 Haywra Crescent, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG1

"It is impossible to tell you everything about the 50 games on CASSETTE 50 but they include many types such as maze, arcade, missile, tactical, and logic games to suit most tastes in computer game playing. CASSETTE 50 will appeal to people of all ages and the games will provide many hours of entertainment for all the family at a fraction of the cost of other computer games." I remember seeing the advert for Cassette 50 and crunching the numbers in my head. Alien 8 was lots of fun at £9.95 and that was just one game. Logically Cassette 50 had to be fifty times better than Alien 8. It's just mathematics. And it comes with a free calculator watch. Neat! 

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.

Firebird / Telecomsoft

 Wellington House, Upper St. Martin's Lane, London, WC2H

Firebird, or Telecomsoft to give them their more formal name, first appeared in late-1984 with impressive, and presumably expensive, colour double-page adverts in the major computer magazines. Here's an example from COMPUTER AND VIDEOGAMES issue 38 (December 1984 page 82). The lavish advertising campaign was one way of establishing the cheaper Firebird Silver range as different from its major rival Mastertronic, who didn't advertise at all. The other difference was the price. Firebird Silver games cost £2.50. Mastertronic games cost £1.99. The extra 51p was significant in 1984. There was also a Gold range which sold games at full price. A massive £5.95 for the first two titles Demons of Topaz for the Commodore 64, and Buggy Blast for the Spectrum. The Gold and Silver labels were joined in 1985 by the Rainbird label and with some minor tweaking and rebranding all three survived until Telecomsoft was brought by MicroProse.