The company matures
![]() |
Rapid growth required more staff and the development of internal systems for accounting, sales, stock control and royalties. The company left George Street for a flat overlooking Regent’s Park in a block everyone called Park Lawn (it was actually named Park Lorne). By now there was a games buyer, John Maxwell, with two assistants and some PR, accounting and secretarial staff. Terry Medway ceased to be actively involved at this time, according to Colin Gershinson, though he remained as a director of Mastertronic Ltd until 1987. Gershinson himself played no part in the management of the business, other than attend some board meetings. I was Company Secretary from late 1985 onwards and never met either Medway or Gershinson. Board meetings, with Herman as chairman,were about as casual as it is possible for such events to be. |
John Maxwell |
Alison Beasley, who was the PR person and general assistant at the time, has told me that the Darlings rented the flat above and she lived there for a while. The boys would come up from school to spend weekends writing games
I joined in August 1985 as Financial Controller. I had to put in financial systems and replace a useless computer system with something suitable for such a fast-growing business. Because the company relied on outside sourcing for all product, I was scrupulous about keeping good records and paying royalties promptly (four times a year). This was one of my key responsibilities. It also brought me into contact with many of the programmers.
Park Lorne was too small and in September 1985 Mastertronic found new offices in Paul Street (where the warehouse was situated). The company stayed there until merging with Virgin Games in September 1988.
New models of computers began complicating the business, because it now had to consider whether it was worth making conversions of existing hits and what to do about new games. The more types of computer, the less shelf space available for each individual format in the shops so that in a way this reduced the choice of games. The Amstrad, C16, MSX and Atari computers all became established in this year. Few competitors took much notice of the C16 and for a while Mastertronic was the only company with a range of games for this machine. Each title sold in huge quantities. For example Squirm on the C64 sold 41,000 but a year later the C16 version sold 82,000.
In late 1985 the launch of the MAD label was the first, deliberate, step away from the “pure budget” game. MAD was an acronym of “Mastertronic Added Dimension”. The new label was launched with a party on a boat on the Thames where the authors demonstrated the first games in the range – The Last V8, Master Of Magic, Spellbound and Hero Of The Golden Talisman
The MAD launch was an exception to the policy of not spending a lot on marketing. Competitors spent plenty on advertising, mainly in magazines.Mastertronic rarely advertised. This probably reduced the amount of editorial coverage about the company and “puffs” for forthcoming releases but there were fair reviews once games were released. The press had been fairly contemptuous at first. In 1985 there was a grudging acceptance that some budget games were good value for money (for the traditional view see this snippet about Action Biker) and some as good as any full price product, and the dismissive attitudes gave way to a “How can they do it at the price?” admiration. In 1986 Mastertronic became “cool”.
The company began to be deluged with games, game ideas and propositions. Sample tapes arrived daily and were placed in the “magic postbox” for evaluation. People would walk in off the street and if their work impressed they could be offered a contract there and then. I once overheard Frank Herman asking a hopeful programmer if he had an Amiga. When the kid said he did not, Frank told him to take a spare one from the testing area4. The popular TV show “Jim’ll fix it” featured the creation of a game for a youngster. This was marketed as Super Trolley and featured a cover with a cartoon Jimmy Savile.
Some programmers visited us regularly. I enjoyed meeting guys like David Jones (Magic Knight series), Clive Brooker (Empire Strikes Back, One Man & His Droid, Lap of the Gods), Kevin Green (Skyjet, Flash Gordon, Space Hunter) and Jim Ferrari (King Tut, Human Race, Hollywood or Bust). Now and then Rob Hubbard would pop in to hand over his latest tune. We even had the odd visit from the shaggy-haired boss of Llamasoft, Jeff Minter, several of whose titles we republished.
Several programmers worked for the company for a while as technical advisors – Stephen Curtis (Nonterraqueous, Soul of a Robot, Into Oblivion) Richard Aplin (Destructo, Fly Spy, Ultimate Combat Mission) Tony Takoushi (Frenesis, Hyperforce and a journalist for magazines such as The Games Machine).
In 1986 the business outgrew the little warehouse in Paul Street. Distribution was outsourced to a packaging company in Dagenham, confusingly called Masterpack5. Mastertronic soon became the biggest customer of Masterpack and eventually had its own dedicated warehouse on the site. In this the company continued to be different to nearly all of its competitors who relied upon wholesalers to stock and distribute their product.
continues…
Neil from the RetroManCave/Retro Collective on Youtube now owns the Mastertronic trademark and is planning to release a load of budget games using it. Its mentioned on their latest update video.