Audiogenic

This article includes a improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (May 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message )

Audiogenic

Industry	Video games
Founded	1975 (Audiogenic Ltd.), 1985 (Audiogenic Software Ltd.)
Headquarters	United Kingdom

Audiogenic was the name of two related UK-based businesses involved in video game publishing and development from the late 1970s until 1997. The original business started out as a recording studio and cassette duplication service which moved into video game publishing from the late 1970s onwards.

Following its demise, a new company- which also traded as Audiogenic- was formed in 1985 to acquire its assets. It published its last new title in 1997, after the core of the development team were taken over by

Though almost unknown in the United States, the company was successful in the United Kingdom and in Australia with a line of cricket and rugby games, some versions of which were licensed to other publishers. Several games were also published under licence in Japan, including World Class Rugby for the Super NES, and a follow-up, World Class Rugby 2, both of which were published by Imagineer.

First company

The original company, Audiogenic Limited, was started as a recording studio called Sun in

Around 1979 Audiogenic became interested in the Commodore PET computer and gained a contract to duplicate computer software on cassette. Subsequently Commodore International gave Audiogenic the software manufacturing and selling rights, but this arrangement came to an end with the advent of the VIC-20. Martin Maynard flew to California and signed agreements with United Microware Industries, Cosmi, Creative Software and Broderbund, some of the biggest suppliers of VIC software at that time.

Audiogenic published software successfully in the UK, but a decision to diversify by importing peripherals, notably the

The second Audiogenic, Audiogenic Software Limited was formed to acquire the assets and goodwill of the original company. Although financed and controlled by Supersoft, run by Peter Calver and Pearl Wellard, a minority stake was held by Martin Maynard. At this time the company employed Darryl Still, who produced a number of successful releases for the BBC Micro, such as Psycastria and Thunderstruck, written by former members of the Icon Software team in North East England. Peter Scott and Gary Partis amongst them. Maynard left the board in 1987 and Still went on to manage the launch of the Atari ST, Lynx handheld and Jaguar consoles in Europe, before stints with Electronic Arts and Nvidia.

In 1996 the Audiogenic came to an arrangement with

Games

Audiogenic published and/or developed many popular games for a variety of computers and games consoles. The company's first release in 1985 was

With Emlyn Hughes International Soccer in 1988 Audiogenic pioneered the concept of a fast-moving sports simulation featuring on-screen commentary, named players and management elements; later with World Class Rugby and then European Champions Audiogenic introduced the concept of sports simulations with a choice of viewpoints.

Other titles included Exterminator (a coin-op conversion), Helter Skelter, Impact, Krusty's Fun House, Bubble & Squeak, Exile, and Loopz.