Mosaic Publishing

187 Upper Street, London N1 1RQ

"What's the oldest computer game based on a book? This is obviously a trick question because I expect people to say The Hobbit (Melbourne House 1982) or if they are feeling clever Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Supersoft, 1981) which was released with the permission of Pan Books. The actual boring correct answer is probably Space War which was inspired by science fiction stories including the Lensmen series by E. E. "Doc" Smith. This game was playable on a PDP-1 mainframe and written in 1961; I said it was a trick question [1].

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 The news was a little out of date.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*

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.

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. 

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.