Acclaim Studios Manchester (formerly Software Creations) was a British

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

based in Manchester, England. The company was established in 1985 by Richard Kay. They were primarily known for their video games based on movie and comic licences like Marvel Comics, '' Cutthroat Island'', Disney's '' Beauty and the Beast'' and the original titles '' Plok'', '' Solstice'', and its sequel '' Equinox''.

History

According to Richard Kay, Software Creations began in 1986 when Steve Ruddy responded to an advertisement he had placed in the '' Manchester Evening News'': Most of these early games were ports of budget titles to other platforms such as the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

, ZX Spectrum,

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

, NES and the Game Boy. The company's breakthrough game was the Commodore 64 version of the arcade hit '' Bubble Bobble'', a conversion which won critical acclaim and commercial success, and led to Software Creations being asked to do many more ports of popular arcade games. By this time the company had grown to include brothers Mike, Tim, and Geoff Follin, and artist Mark Wilson. An early demo of '' Solstice'' won Software Creations a contract with

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...

, leading to some high-profile NES and Super NES games. During the early 1990s, Software Creations was responsible for the development of sound tools used in the creation of music for the Nintendo 64 and its development systems. On 1 May 2002 Acclaim announced that they had acquired Software Creations, which was renamed Acclaim Studios Manchester. At the time, Software Creations had approximately 70 employees. Acclaim Studios Manchester was closed as part of Acclaim Studios and all of its development facilities on 27 August 2004. Rod Cousens and Barry Jafrato, who served as chief executive officer and head of publishing, respectively, for Acclaim, announced in September 2004 that they were planning to create as new video game publisher, Exclaim, with the help of Europlay Capital Advisers. Exclaim was set to acquire and reinstantiate Acclaim's two UK studios, namely Manchester and Cheltenham, and re-employ their roughly 160 previous members. Exclaim's opening was expected on 11 October, however, Cousen's ownership over the two studios was challenged by Acclaim's liquidator, Allan Mendelsohn, leaving the UK staff in a state of limbo. A successor to Acclaim Studios Manchester, SilverBack Studios, was founded by Jon Oldham in April 2005 and employed 15 former Acclaim Studios Manchester staff.

Games

References

{{Authority control Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game companies established in 1987 Video game companies disestablished in 2004 Defunct companies based in Manchester