Golden era of the Spanish software industry

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The Golden Age of Spanish software [ industry ] ( Spanish Edad de oro del software español ) was in the years 1983 to 1992 and made Spain the second largest software producer country in Europe for entertainment software on the 8-bit behind the United Kingdom . The end of this era was accompanied by the disappearance of the 8-bit architecture, which was replaced by computers in the 16-bit architecture . It spawned some software manufacturers such as Dinamic Software , Topo Soft , Opera Soft , Made in Spain and Zigurat . The name Edad de oro del soft español was coined by specialist magazines of the time and is still used today.

history

Promotion (1983–1985)

In 1983 the first home computers reached Spain. Everything was 8 bit machines. The ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad CPC , identical in construction to the Schneider CPC in Germany , were among the best-selling in Spain, followed by the MSX and the C64 and others. They were simple machines with few resources that were easy to manipulate, and many young programmers began to experiment on these devices.

The golden era of Spanish software began with the commercialization of the Bugaboo video game by Indescomp . It was the first to be massively exported from Spain. Shortly afterwards, Fred (Roland in the Caves) from the same programmers followed , this time from the manufacturer Made in Spain and was another export success, whereupon the owners of Made in Spain decided to found the distributor of software Zigurat and, in addition to their own, software of independent companies to act. Made in Spain has been transformed into a Zigurat manufacturing company. Years later, Made in Spain and Zigurat were merged again as a company.

In the meantime, Dinamic Software has taken its first steps with the text adventure Yength on the ZX Spectrum. The Spanish software retailer Erbe Software became active and remained so for over a decade. Erbe Software initially tried to develop games itself, but soon stopped doing so.

Climax (1985–1989)

With the birth of Micromanía and Microhobby magazines in 1985, video games grew in popularity and the rest of the leading companies of the era began operations: Opera Soft 1986; Topo Soft was released in 1987 with Livingstone, I presume , followed by Spirits . Then the programmers for Erbe Software worked on Las tres luces de Glaurung , which was also sold under the name Conquestador .

The newly founded company Zigurat experienced its successes with Sir Fred and El misterio del Nilo , the unofficial game for the film On the Hunt for the Jewel of the Nile , with which there were problems because one of the characters resembled Michael Douglas too much and the programmers did so Forcibly changed the figure in export versions.

Dinamic's first notable success was the Johny Jones Trilogy , which included Saimazoom , Babaliba , and especially Abu Simbel Profanation . This was followed by the trilogy Moves , Army Moves , Navy Moves and Arctic Moves published much later . Games based on famous athletes follow. Dinamic was the first to portray Fernando Martín with basket master and other companies followed the concept and portrayed Ángel Nieto , Carlos Sainz , Poli Díaz, Emilio Butragueño and others in games.

Meanwhile, published Opera Soft games Goody , Sol Negro , Cosa Nostra and La Abadía del Crimen that on Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose is based, one of the best games that existed for the ZX Spectrum. The last of the great Topo Soft released games like Mad Mix Game and Survivor .

Of Dinamic Software , the text adventure was Don Quixote so successful, a specialized department of the company than that Aventuras AD regardless ausgründete. A number of games such as El Jabato were released .

Relegation (1989–1992)

At the end of the 1980s came the 16-bit machines, with the Commodore Amiga , the Atari ST , the IBM PC in 16-bit, followed by game consoles such as Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and the Sega Mega Drive . Spanish companies didn't bother looking at it, and never seriously switched to 16-bit machines. They persisted in the declining market segment of 8-bit computers, which had already died out all over Europe and only had strengths in Spain, which was essentially maintained by the dominant wholesaler Erbe Software , who tried to get rid of software piracy by squandered every game for a retail price of 875 pesetas (= 5.26 euros).

At that moment, the Spanish computer game manufacturers got serious financial problems. One by one they brought out their last game. The former founders of Topo Soft left the company in 1989 to start Animagic . This is where Mortadelo y Filemon II ( Clever & Smart II) was created . The start in bad times resulted in an early end. Topo Soft published Lorna , Journey to the Center of the Earth and, last but not least, Gremlins 2 and was the first Spanish computer game manufacturer to obtain the exclusive trademark rights of a Hollywood film for all of Europe. Aware of the importance of 16-bit technology, an attempt was made in 1991 to switch to this with the development of a user interface for MS-DOS. The project was unsuccessful and Topo Soft went bankrupt in 1992.

Meanwhile, Opera Soft had liquidated its remaining companies following the release of Gonzalezzz , Mot and Angel Nieto Pole 500 . In the company's last business month , La Colmena and a game for Barcelona in 1992 were released . Some, such as programmers like Gonzalo Suárez Girard later moved to Pyro Studios ( Pyro Mobile ) and work on games like Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines ( Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines ) .

Aventuras AD , paradoxically, had its greatest successes during the period of descent. Games like The Ci-U-Than Legends Trilogy , which consisted of La diosa de Cozumel , Los templos sagrados and Chichén Itzá , and the predecessor of the Adventures La aventura espacial , which got menu control. Nevertheless, sales collapsed and Aventuras AD gave up in 1992.

Zigurat and Dinamic were the only companies that survived this era. They had to restructure and leave their previous business area. After the market for 8-bit games collapsed, Zigurat began producing arcade games for slot machines . Dinamic Software had After the War , Narco Police and Risky Woods put on the market and went bankrupt ; was re-established in 1993 as Dinamic Multimedia and had its sales success with Pc Futbol . In 2001, Dinamic Multimedia succumbed to the dot-com bubble . The founders left the company in 1999 and put their money into FX Interactive .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Spectrum 128 perfect ten games.