Collecting Mastertronic games can be a time-consuming and complicated affair at the best of times. For those of us who buy games across multiple platforms, keeping track of what we’ve bought and what we still need to fill in the gaps is already a difficult task, but Mastertronic didn’t make it any easier with all the different labels they had. But what added to the confusion was the never ending changes of branding within each of the ranges…
“310 Range”
Before I start, you’ll see and hear a lot of Mastertronic collectors (ourselves included) talking about the 310 range. This term is what many of affectionately use when we are referring to the original Mastertronic range. If you look at the first wave of releases, each has a number on the spine with a prefix (1C, 1V, 1S etc) denoting the platform and then a 4-digit number relating to the game title. This ranged from 0001 (Duck Shoot) up to 0310 (Jonah Barrington’s Squash).
There are gaps in the numbering where some titles were planned and never releases, a few instances where multiple games shared the same number (a simple mistake at the design stage) and a few games with higher numbers (the Plus One double game tapes and the Commodore 128 titles) but for the most part there were just 310 releases.
Mastertronic’s Added Dimension
We’ve gone into this in more depth in our article here, but often abbreviated to MAD, this is arguably the most confusing range released by Mastertronic. When this range first landed on the scene in October 1985, the intention was that it was going to carry a higher price tag of £2.99 to imply that the games were of a higher quality. Coming with a new logo and pop-art styling for the artwork, the range was short-lived with just over 20 titles released. But then things got strange.
This was followed by what we have referred to as MAD C (noted by the numbering on the spine). An even shorter range of just 8 titles, again priced at the higher £2.99 point. These appeared primarily to have been re-releases from Creative Sparks with a couple of original titles mixed in. Then the label disappeared.
MAD Returns… Again!
Then the branding appeared again, but this time as a part of the main Mastertronic “310 range”. The MAD logo featured on the front of the packaging, but the spine numbering followed the normal Mastertronic range numbering. The only difference was the price point, sticking to the £2.99 higher price point. The same applied for the limited MAD X range which comprised of just two titles, each containing a second bonus game on the reverse.
PAL Developments
Another strange label here, that sent mixed signals to collectors. Initially set up to cover releases from the company PAL Developments, this range also ended up featuring re-releases from both Mirrorsoft and Activision. Numbering started afresh with a PAL prefix, followed by letters denoting the platform followed by a number between 1 and 18 for the game in question. We are aware (from former developer Rich Stevenson) that there were completed titles that were never released so the full scope of the range is unknown.
To make matters more confusion here, games alternated between Mastertronic and Mastertronic Plus branding on the packaging itself, and there was no consistency in the style of branding used with some having the vertical version of the Mastertronic branding and others having it placed at the bottom of the cover. For such a small range, this seemed bizarre.
Mastertronic Plus
While many think of Mastertronic Plus as a separate range, there is actually a historical reason for the existence of this branding but again confusion did come into play. When the merger took place with Virgin Games to form Virgin Mastertronic, the MAD label was dropped. There was still a need to identify what the company felt were its “premium” budget titles so Mastertronic Plus was born.
A separate line was introduced in 1990 which had new packaging with the game cover art in the centre, a pastel yellow border with a blue pattern on it but most significantly there were no spine numbers. The branding had been introduced earlier during 1989 both in the PAL Developments and the main Mastertronic 310 range leaving gamers wondering just what ranges the games were from – very much like MAD before it!
Bulldog
First impressions would make you think that this is a simple range to understand. UK developed titles and quite distinctive packaging although yet again this is one that has people torn. The numbering is essentially an extension of the core 310 range, just changing the prefix slightly adding a B (so C64 would be BC instead of 1C, Spectrum would be BS instead of 1S and so on). There are some collectors who do regard these as a completely separate range and treat them as such, even isolating them in their collections.
Entertainment USA
As the name suggests, the games were sourced from American developer Sculptured Software for the Commodore 64 and Atari, enhanced with music by Rob Hubbard, then ported to other systems in the UK. Numbering again featured variants on the 310 range, just adding a USA prefix, although some later ports dropped this and reverted to the standard numbering. In fact, while most featured the Entertainment USA branding on the packaging, some (like the ZX Spectrum version of Panther) were released as normal Mastertronic releases.
Americana and Rack-It
I can’t finish this without talking about the two re-release ranges Americana and Rack-It. These were run in partnership with US Gold and Hewson respectively, and there has always been confusion about these and who actually owns both ranges. There are interviews and press reports regarding the launch of Rack-It and how Mastertronic were approached by Hewson to establish and operate a budget label on their behalf. Whether Hewson took over after it was set up, or if Mastertronic took a back set after a while and focused on distribution part way through is unclear, although there was a change in branding part way through.
Americana again has two styles of branding (with slight changes). One batch of games is numbered (and feature Mastertronic’s name and address on the inlay), the rest don’t. Going by release dates, it appears that the Mastertronic branded came second, but whether they were approached to distribute the games initially and then take over the range completely (hence the change) is unclear. The transitional point seems to be the release of Go For The Gold as this was released twice under both variants of the branding.
In both cases, it is really down to the individual collector as to whether they consider either range as Mastertronic or not. Naturally we consider them as part of the company’s history and we will cover each in their entirity.
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As I said at the beginning, all of this confusion does make it difficult for collectors. Some regard all of the MAD releases as a single range, others – as we have categorised them – treat the two original labels individually and have integrated the others. But when it comes to tracking down titles or even deciding how to display your collection, how do you decide with so many variations and inconsistencies?
We’ve tried to keep things as simple as we can here on the site using the spine numbering as the definitive way of cataloguing and sorting their ranges. But even then matters get worse when the printers had their own ideas changing tape labels randomly for some of the games conflicting things further so this is probably one rabbit hole that no collector should ever go down… But that’s a story for another time.
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