International growth
The early success of the first batch of games in the UK encouraged Mastertronic to exhibit at the summer CES show in Chicago in 1984. A partnership with Classic Family Entertainment, based in California, created a joint venture called Mastertronic Inc. Although the man named as president, Sidney Niekerk, had links to Herman’s video business (and therefore they presumably knew each other well) the joint venture did not last very long because in 1985 Mastertronic Inc, commenced production of disk-based software at a facility in Frederick, Maryland.This company was owned 80% by Mastertronic and 20% by the owner of the factory, Gary Snyder6. A few pictures of the company’s production facility are available here.
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In 1986 Martin Alper, who had the most marketing flair, moved to California and established the software design and sourcing arm of the business in Costa Mesa, in the suburbs of Los Angeles, though production continued in Maryland for many years. Mastertronic Inc could only distribute C64 games at the start because all the other 8 bit computers were virtually unknown in the USA. Gradually Alper introduced games for the new 16 bit machines and Mastertronic Inc began to take on a different profile to the UK based business. Links with US software houses provided a new source of games and the label “Entertainment USA” was created to showcase these in Europe. This was balanced by another label, Bulldog (“Best of British”), which took its name from a customer (a subsidary of Melbourne House) acquired when they were on the verge of going bust. |
Gary Snyder |
The business centre at Costa Mesa where Mastertronic Inc relocated. A bit nicer than Paul Street.
Herman also found exclusive distributors in the major European markets and thus created the impression of a truly international group. Mastertronic SA and Mastertronic GmbH were formed in France and Germany respectively, Mastertronic owning 51% of the shares in each with the local distributor keeping 49%. (The registration of the name in France faced obstruction from the literal minded authorities who protested that the word was neither a real name nor that of a product and was therefore unacceptable). Oddly, the men running the three main European distributors were all British; Cameron MacSween in France, John Kellas in Germany and John Holder in Italy (This latter was never owned by Mastertronic). Personal relationships struck at computer shows brought these arrangements into being.
The UK company was now managed by Herman, whilst Sharam increasingly specialised in sales and logistics (warehousing, packaging, controlling production schedules). |
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Alan Sharam |
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.