Infogrames Studios Limited - MobyGames (original) (raw)

Gremlin was founded in 1984 by Ian Stewart, Sales and Marketing Director, and Kevin Norburn, Financial Director. They originally opened a computer shop in Carver Street, Sheffield, called Just Micro. From there they branched out into a software house. Tony Crowther, already well known for a few Commodore programs, was made Company Director. U.S. Gold's Geoff Brown, who had just started Centresoft, was invited to become Managing Director.

In December 1996, Gremlin purchased Scottish developers DMA Design in a deal worth around £4.2 million, as well as Dreamweavers. In April 1999, the company had around 300 employees based at 3 sites.

Gremlin's titles were published in the United States by Interplay. In December 1997, the company signed a new publishing deal for its Actua Sports (and two non-sports) titles with Fox Interactive.

In the UK, Gremlin distributed directly to large multiples and in Europe, the company sourced individual territory distribution deals on a product by product basis whilst still retaining Funsoft as its default distributor. They also had budget label called GBH.

French publisher Infogrames acquired the company for £24m in 1999. In 2003, Ian Stewart was able to buy back the rights to former Gremlin games from them. In the 2000s, the rights to Gremlin titles were carried over to ZOO Digital Publishing, later transferred to Zushi Games, then Urbanscan following ZOO Digital Publishing's closure. Since 2010, rights have been split between Urbanscan, KISS Publishing and Funbox Media.