A History Of Mastertronic

“Uncle” Frank Herman – the man who started it all.

This history is dedicated to the memory of Frank Herman, who died 30 March 2009. See here for an obituary in the trade press.

Remembering also:

Martin Alper d. 2012
Alan Sharam d. 2015

The business that became Mastertronic was started in London late in 1983 by four experienced businessmen:- Frank Herman, Martin Alper, Terry Medway and Alan Sharam. Unlike many of its competitors in the games software business, the company was not set up by programmers seeking an outlet for their creations, nor was it part of an established business with money to spare, dipping its corporate toe in the games industry’s rising tide. As the business grew, Herman, Alper and Sharam gave up their other interests and committed themselves to succeeding as publishers by selling games as cheaply as possible. Other publishers seemed to be concerned only with the process of creating the software and marketing an image, a strategy aimed directly at the consumer, with the hope that customer demand would somehow bring the games into the shops. In contrast, Mastertronic aimed its strategy at the distributors and retailers. If the games could be put on the shelves then the low selling price would do the rest.

The core of the strategy was the idea of “budget” software – games priced at less than £3.00 at a time when most good sofware was £5.99 or more. In fact, Mastertronic went for £1.99 as the basic price.This is explained further on. Within three years the company was the leading supplier of games software in the UK and selling all over the world.

Origins

The story of how the business began is not wholly clear and it rests on a couple of coincidences. Herman was the distributor for a line of American videos and knew enough about the duplication process to see how this could apply to computer tapes. Alper and Medway were running a video shop in the West End, Video Tapes International, (and they may have had other business interests, including a restaurant in which former champion boxer John Conteh was involved). Sharam was a partner in a surveyor’s practice, Hirshfields, based in George Street in London.

The first coincidence is that Alper and Medway’s video shop was also in George Street and Hirshfields were the commercial managers of the building in which the video shop was located. The second is that Herman, who knew Alper and Medway through the video business (I assume he supplied them with product) also knew one of the partners in Hirshfields, Colin Gershinson. Herman and Gershinson had met not only through property deals but through charity work, in which Herman had an abiding interest, and had known each other for many years.

It is likely that it was Herman who thought that a cut-price games business could be commercially successful, got Alper and Medway enthused, and then had a word with Gershinson about finding a space for them to start up. (Gershinson has told me that he never knew Alper or Medway until Herman introduced them to him). This in turn involved Sharam who probably handled the arrangements for letting out a basement location in the George Street building that Hirshfields managed. But before that space was available it appears that games were being produced and sent over to Sharam’s office – in Gershinson’s words “I recall with Frank putting the tapes into boxes for shipment on various occasions”. Ken Dye, Sharam’s assistant (who worked for Mastertronic until the Sega takeover and then continued as stock controller with Sega) claims that the business actually started in the stationery cupboard at Hirshfields. It is likely that at this time the games were simply old stock purchased from other publishers and the customers a limited range of video shops.


George Street. Elegant, expensive and where, in a basement, it all began.	Ken Dye

Before this back office business could grow, it was necessary to move the product into a much wider range of shops. At this time one of Herman’s key contacts in the video distribution business was Richard Bielby, ex-professional cricketer for Nottinghamshire. Bielby supported by his wife Alison, had a network of distributors who would take videos directly to local video shops, grocers, newsagents – any small business that wanted a sideline. The video rental business had also been through boom and bust and computer games seemed an ideal supplementary line. A meeting was convened at the Clifton Ford Hotel, just round the corner from George Street, at which the idea of Mastertronic was pitched to Bielby and his team. The enthusiasm was sufficient to launch the business. Gershinson and Medway put up enough money for licences to be bought, cover art designed, tapes duplicated and packed and the necessary overheads, including the creation of the distinctive Mastertronic logos and brand imaging. Sharam and Dye became involved in the logistical aspects and gradually committed to working full-time for Mastertronic. The company started trading on 1 April 1984. My involvement began in August 1985.

continues…