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Richard M. Holmes and the high-price island of Switzerland

by Beat Suter

The video game publisher Black Legend was founded in Switzerland in 1992 by Richard M. Holmes. Holmes lived in Uster in the Canton of Zurich, had grown up here and had just graduated from KZO Wetzikon. The 20-year-old young entrepreneur wanted to produce games for Amiga computers and launch them on the market. He looked around in Switzerland for fellow campaigners, but soon found good contacts in England and finally emigrated to produce some well-performing games for Amiga and PC with his label Black Legend for the Kompart distribution company in the following years. Continue reading Richard M. Holmes and the high-price island of Switzerland

Richard M. Holmes und die Hochpreisinsel Schweiz

von Beat Suter

Der Video Game Publisher Black Legend wurde 1992 in der Schweiz von Richard M. Holmes gegründet. Holmes lebte in Uster, war hier aufgewachsen und hatte gerade die KZO Wetzikon abgeschlossen. Der 20jährige Jungunternehmer wollte Spiele für Amiga Computer produzieren und auf den Markt bringen. Er sah sich in der Schweiz nach Mitstreitern um, fand aber bald gute Kontakte in England und wanderte schliesslich aus, um in den folgenden Jahren mit Black Legend für die Vertriebsgesellschaft Kompart einige gut laufende Spiele für Amiga und PC zu produzieren. Continue reading Richard M. Holmes und die Hochpreisinsel Schweiz

LINEL – a Swiss Game Publisher 4: The Publishing Business

by Beat Suter

LINEL – a Swiss Game Publisher:
Part 1 – A comprehensive list of LINEL’S games
Part 2 – Collaborations and unreleased games
Part 3 – People and Work at LINEL
Part 4 – The Publishing Business

The following text originally appeared here.

LINEL was a software developer and publisher based in Switzerland. The label was active from 1987 to 1995. Part 1 of this essay established a complete list of all games that were published and distributed by the Swiss company LINEL. Part 2 pieces together LINEL’s international collaborations with other publishers and developers and uncovers the games that were never released. Part 3 takes a closer look at founder Markus Grimmer and the developers, studios, and distributors Grimmer’s LINEL worked with in those years.

Part 4 will focus on the publishing business with the physical production of the commercial games, distribution and marketing strategies and communication efforts by LINEL.

Continue reading LINEL – a Swiss Game Publisher 4: The Publishing Business

Case Study: Necronom (Lunatic Software/Linel, 1991, Amiga)

by Aurelia Brandenburg, Adrian Demleitner, Arno Görgen, Addrich Mauch, and Eugen Pfister

Monsters, space, and guns all wrapped up in a shoot-em-up – Necronom, published by Linel in 1991, first got high praises in 1990, but then never took off the way first reports in the press anticipated. With this case study, our team tried to trace the game’s development, its strange course of reception and its contents itself.

Continue reading Case Study: Necronom (Lunatic Software/Linel, 1991, Amiga)

Working with Amiga Floppy Disks in Historical Video Game Research

by Adrian Demleitner

Like most humanity scholars and historians, we work with historical materials that we compile into a corpus. How does this approach apply to researching digital-born media, such as video games designed for the Amiga computing system?

Continue reading Working with Amiga Floppy Disks in Historical Video Game Research