The Hitchhiker's Guide to Copyright Infringement

A couple of things combined to give me the idea for this post. The major one being Fantasy Software. I knew they'd had a brush with solicitors acting for Douglas Adams over their game Backpackers Guide To The Universe but I originally thought they had been unlucky and just chosen a bad time to release a game with a title parodying The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy. That is, sort of, the case but it's also the end point of a trend of Fantasy passing off Hitchhikers ideas in the scenarios of their games. After I noticed that, I seemed to keep falling over examples of other companies doing the same. 

Artic

396 James Reckitt Avenue, Hull, HU8 0JA

Artic Computing is a classic success story. It was founded in 1981 with £20 of pocket money by an 18-year-old schoolboy called Richard Turner. Since then it has developed into a software company with an annual turnover of around £750,000, and plans for worldwide expansion.

Platinum Productions

Ayrshire

I'm slowly transferring residents of the Untraceables gulag to pages of their own (see the CGL article for a full explanation why). I was originally planning to move New Generation Software this week but they've unexpected turned out to be more complicated than expected, so they'll have to wait. We're off on a trip to Ayreshire instead. Can I learn anything new about Ocean and US Gold's preferred development house for converting games to the ZX Spectrum?

Atari Corp (UK) Ltd

Atari House, Railway Terrace, Slough, SL2

Atari was founded in 1972, and it took 10 years for them to cross the Atlantic and set up their UK subsidiary. This was well after Commodore, who arrived in 1969 in their guise as a manufacturer of typewriters, and just before Activision, who set up their UK branch in the autumn of 1983. At least, that's the simple answer. I thought the story of Atari UK was going to be an easy one to write. I was wrong.   

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.

Gremlin Graphics

 Alpha House, 10 Carver Street, Sheffield, S1

It's the eve of the millennium and you fall into conversation with an 8-bit time traveller from 1985. "What happened to all the software companies?" The traveller wants to know. "What happened to Ocean?" "Gone," you tell the traveller. "Lost two years ago."
"US Gold. They must still be around."
You shake your head, "US Gold were taken over by Eidos, who were themselves formed out of Domark."
"Mirrorsoft! A company supported by Robert Maxwell's business empire must be flourishing!"
"Gone, and there's quite a story attached to that."
"Ultimate Play the Game?"
"Gone."
"Melbourne House?"
"Gone."
"I loved Highway Encounter. What happened to Vortex?"
"Gone," you sigh.
"Mastertronic?"
"Gone."
"A&F Software?"
"Gone."
"CRL?"
"Gone?"
"Hewson Consultants?"
"Gone."
"Beyond?"
"Gone."
The traveller looks frightened and lost. "Is there no one left?" They whisper.
"Oh yes," you answer, "there's Gremlin Interactive, although you'd have known them as Gremlin Graphics."
The traveller looks confused. "The Monty Mole company?"

Argus Press Software

KNOWLEDGE CHECK! Which magazine publisher was the first to open a software house? If you said Thalamus, the label from Newsfield Ltd, then sit down because they weren't founded until 1986. Mirrorsoft is not right but it's a better guess than Thalamus, as is Beyond Software, owned by East Midlands Allied Press (or EMAP to their friends), both companies were founded around the same time in late 1983. Obviously the correct answer is Argus Press Software because that's who this update is about.

Vortex Software

Vortex House, 24 Kansas Avenue, Salford, M5

I've written before that the foundation of this blog was a list of companies I wanted to cover for different reasons; some were big names, some had an interesting story, some were of niche interest, and some hit my nostalgia button. This is the latter. I've got a huge soft spot for Vortex Software. I spent hours playing T.L.L. and even more playing Highway Encounter. I love Highway Encounter. I think it's brilliant. It's a real neglected gem of a game as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't get talked about anywhere near enough when the ZX Spectrum is mentioned. It's a Top 10 title. It looks great. It plays great. Its got some really clever gameplay elements. And that ending! We'll get to the ending later.

A&F Software

Unit 8, Canal Side Industrial Estate, Woodbine Street East, Rochdale, OL16

A was Doug Anderson and F was Mike Fitzgerald and when they got together it was murder to establish a software house in Manchester. A&F Software is now mainly remembered for a single game, Chuckie Egg, but the company was more than a one-hit-wonder. It shares some similarities with Silversoft. Both companies were pioneers of the early computer games industry and struggled as the market became more established and professional in the mid-eighties, and finally sold out to a bigger brand. The first question, of course is, is the company called A&F or AF or A+F or A'n'F? The answer, it was known as all four at various times across its history. I'll try to use the correct version as we go on because I find that's the kind of perverse pedantry I find funny.

The Edge/ Softek

12/13 Henrietta Street, London, WC2E

It seems silly to sit here and worry about whether I should write about Softek and their better known label The Edge, but that's exactly what I'm doing. I know it's silly. I don't have to write about anyone if I don't want to. I'm not a journalist. I have no obligation to history. I will suffer no consequences if I don't write about Softek, it's not like someone's going to drop an anvil on my head. Plus, I'd quite like to write about Softek. They were one of the first companies I thought of when I started planning this blog. They wrote some notable games. So why am I so worried? Because Softek's founder was Tim Langdell.

Bug-Byte

Mulberry House, Canning Place, Liverpool, L1

Last year, on an intermittently showery day in December, I went for a walk round Liverpool. My route was carefully plotted and I managed to take in the ex-offices of Software Projects, Imagine, Odin, Thor, Denton Designs, and Bug-Byte. What I hadn't taken into account, because it was the early days of the blog, was this material effectively represented five months of updates and once it was spread out I'd be writing about my grand day out almost a year later. Still, here we are, ending with the company that began it all. This then is the final movement of my Liverpool Oratorio. 

Addictive Games

Albert House, Albert Road, Bournemouth

The two things I associate with Addictive Games are Football Manager and Kevin Toms' face. His decision to do a Victor Remmington and put himself on adverts and packaging was smart. It gave Addictive Games a personality and made the company stand out at a time when most software houses were anonymous and programmers were just names or, at best, occasional photographs in a magazine. It helps of course that the game is Football Manager. One of those rare titles which achieved escape velocity and became a cultural touchstone in its own right. I was amazed when idly searching the online British Newspaper Archive to find a 1994 review of Premier Manager 3, for the Amiga, where Football Manager still had enough resonance for the writer open the review with: "Football Management games have been around since the early days of computing, with Kevin Toms' Football Manager setting the standards on the good old Sinclair Spectrum." (NEWCASTLE JOURNAL, Friday 18 November 1994 page 33).

Silversoft

London House, 271/273 King Street, W6

FOR ADDED REALISM PLAY THIS STANDING IN THE BATH. The bold advertising strapline on Silversoft Ltd's advert for Worst Things Happen at Sea got the company dinged by the Advertising Standards Authority. CRASH issue 13 (February 1985 page 59) reported how two members of the public complained on the grounds that electricity and water don't mix, and in a game likely to appeal to children the advert encouraged  a disregard for safety. You can view the offending advert here in CRASH issue 11 (December 1984 page 139). Out of curiosity I sent an email to the ASA, and got a polite but brief reply. "Thank you very much for contacting the Advertising Standards Authority with regard to ruling made against the company Silversoft Ltd in 1984 or 1985. I am afraid I am unable to help you on this occasion, as that ruling was archived off many years ago and we no longer have access to it."