Melbourne House
| Melbourne House | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Corporation ("Ltd.") |
| founding | 1977 |
| resolution | 1987 |
| Seat | Melbourne , Australia |
| management | Alfred Milgrom |
Melbourne House was an Australian publisher of computer games that existed from 1977 to 1987.
The brand name was then in use until 2006 under changing owners.
history
Melbourne House was founded in 1977 by Alfred Milgrom and Naomi Besen as a book publisher ; the company name is derived from their hometown Melbourne . Milgrom had a computer science background; Besen came from marketing . At the beginning of the publishing activity the company had five employees and in addition to the company headquarters in Melbourne a branch in the London suburb of Richmond . The original business area were non-fiction books on home computers that were common at the time, with a slight focus on books about computers by the British company Sinclair Research . Initially, the company also published fiction such as The Healers by Gerald Green and The Treasure Hunter by Robin Moore . After a book about the still new ZX80 became a resounding financial success, the publisher concentrated on books about computers.
In February 1981, Milgrom and Besen founded a subsidiary of Melbourne House, Beam Software , whose business purpose was the creation of computer games that would then be sold through the parent company. Melbourne House and Beam Software had the same staff and offices. The subsidiary was Australia's first development studio, and it was successful: two early releases, Penetrator and The Hobbit , were the most successful computer games for the ZX Spectrum in 1983. The Hobbit , first published in 1982, was based on the novel of the same name by JRR Tolkien . The game, which was considered technically innovative at the time, is considered a classic in gaming history, at least in the ZX Spectrum version, and was ported to numerous home computers that were common at the time . For The Hobbit , Melbourne House won the Golden Joystick Award of the British game magazine Computer & Video Games in 1983 - in the category " Strategy Game of the Year"; the “Best Adventure Game of the Year” category was only introduced in 1984. Melbourne House was the first company to get a license for a computer game from Tolkien Estate . Together with author Philip Mitchell, Melbourne House monetized the success of the game with other licensed products such as Lord of the Rings: Game One or The Shadows of Mordor . The collaboration with the author duo Trevor Lever and Peter Jones (Lever / Jones), who actually worked as stand-up comedians , was also successful . By purchasing a program for developing and creating text adventures ( The Quill ), they got into computer game development and produced three text adventures for Melbourne House with their idiosyncratic humor. By 1985 Melbourne House had one of the largest research and development budgets of any software house operating in the UK. A branch in Nashville , USA was added, and Geoff Heath was poached from Activision in May 1985 for the London office, which was responsible for marketing and sales .
In 1986 Melbourne House ran into financial difficulties despite some hit titles like The Way of the Exploding Fist . Geoff Heath went to British publisher Mastertronic in October 1986 . Melbourne House was bought up in February 1987 - by Mastertronic, of all people, who until then had primarily been active in the cheap segment and wanted to position themselves in the premium segment through the acquisition. Part of the purchase was the British branch and the naming rights to the Melbourne House brand; The subsidiary Beam Software, which continued to exist as an independent development studio, was therefore not affected. The former company headquarters in Great Britain were dissolved and the employees moved to the Mastertronic company headquarters in central London. The brand name Melbourne House continued to exist as a label and was used by changing owners until 2006, including initially by Virgin Games (which merged with the financially troubled Mastertronic). Ironically, from 1996 to 1999, Beam Software reserved the trademark rights after the expiry of trademark protection and used them for a development studio in Melbourne, which reversed the ownership structure of the 1980s. In 1999, Beam Software sold the studio and trademark to Infogrames , who renamed the studio Infogrames Melbourne House. After the renaming of Infogrames as Atari , they were the brand owners. In 2006 Atari sold the Melbourne studio to the Australian company Krome Studios , who renamed it Krome Studios Melbourne, with which the name Melbourne House was finally lost.
Co-founder Naomi Besen, who had meanwhile married Alfred Milgrom, became the head of an Australian fashion chain through inheritance and is now one of the richest Australians.
Published games (selection)
| year | title | genre | Systems | Studio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Penetrator | Shoot 'em up | C64 , MicroBee , TRS-80 , ZX Spectrum | Beam software |
| 1982 | The hobbit | Text adventure | Various | Beam software |
| 1983 | Horace Goes Skiing | Skill game | C64, Dragon 32/64 , Timex Sinclair 2068 , ZX Spectrum | Psion |
| 1984 | Hampstead | Text adventure | Acorn Electron , BBC Micro , C64, ZX Spectrum | Lever / Jones |
| 1984 | Sherlock | Text adventure | C64, ZX Spectrum | Beam software |
| 1985 | Castle of Terror | Text adventure | C64 | Beam software |
| 1985 | Fighting Warrior | Beat 'em up | C16 , C64, Commodore Plus / 4 , Schneider CPC, ZX Spectrum | Studio B |
| 1985 | Gyroscope | skill | BBC Micro, C64, Schneider CPC , ZX Spectrum | Catalyst Coders |
| 1985 | Terrormolinos | Text adventure | BBC Micro, C64, Schneider CPC, ZX Spectrum | Lever / Jones |
| 1985 | The Way of the Exploding Fist | Beat 'em up | Various | Beam software |
| 1986 | Asterix and the Magic Cauldron | Action game | C64, Schneider CPC, ZX Spectrum | Beam software |
| 1986 | Dodgy Geezers | Text adventure | BBC Micro, C64, Schneider CPC, ZX Spectrum | Lever / Jones |
| 1986 | Lord of the Rings: Game One | Text adventure | Various | Beam software |
| 1987 | The Shadows of Mordor | Text adventure | Apple II , C64, MS-DOS , Schneider CPC, ZX Spectrum | Beam software |
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Hobbit, Hurg and Holmes . In: Crash Magazine . No. 3, April 1984, p. 56. (PDF, 36 MB)
- ↑ a b Filfre.net: The Hobbit. Retrieved January 2, 2018 .
- ↑ ComputingHistory.org.uk: Computing Books published by Melbourne House. Retrieved January 2, 2018 .
- ^ Sinclair User: Top 50 Software Classics. Retrieved January 2, 2018 .
- ^ Thomas A. Christie: The Spectrum of Adventure . Extremis Publishing, Stirling 2016, ISBN 978-0-9934932-1-8 , pp. 11 .
- ↑ Filfre.net: The Many Faces of Middle-earth, from 1954 to 1989. Retrieved January 6, 2018 .
- ↑ Dave Reeder: Unsung Heroes . In: Computer Gamer . No. 24, March 1987, p. 94.
- ↑ Sean Masterson: A Leprichaun in London - Sitting in on a Melbourne House Working Lunch . In: Crash Magazine . No. 23, December 1985, p. 43.
- ↑ Geoff Heath Hikes over to Mastertronic . In: Popular Computing Weekly . October 23, 1986.
- ↑ Mastertronic Buys Melbourne House . In: Popular Computing Weekly . 6, No. 7, February 12, 1987, p. 4.
- ^ Forbes.com: Asia's Power Businesswomen, 2014: Naomi Milgrom Is All About the Logo. Retrieved January 7, 2018 .