History
Early years (1983–1988)
Mindscape was founded in October 1983 by the Australian entrepreneur Roger Buoy as a wholly owned subsidiary of the holding company SFN Companies. [1] [2] Buoy had previously been a computer analyst for Rolls-Royce and later worked for the software division of Scholastic Inc. before SFN hired him. [2] [3] He acted as the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Mindscape, and the company released its first product in April 1984. [2] Early games include Déjà Vu , Balance of Power , and Sub Mission: A Matter of Life and Death . [3] [4] [5] In its early years, Mindscape lost about US$6 million annually. [6]
In July 1986, Mindscape acquired the assets of Scarborough Systems, a software company from Tarrytown, New York. [7] Scarborough Systems continued its operations through Lifeboat Associates, a subsidiary that Mindscape did not buy. [8] In October, SFN announced that it would sell or close large parts of its business, including plans to liquidate Mindscape. [9] On December 31, Mindscape bought the assets of Learning Well in Roslyn, New York. [7] Since Mindscape was not liquidated by the end of 1986, it was assigned to SFN Partners L.P., a limited partnership company. [7] A new corporation set up by Buoy and SFN's former president and chairman, John Purcell, bought Mindscape from SFN Partners on January 16, 1987, for $3 million. [7] [10] Buoy retained his positions, while Purcell became Mindscape's chairman. Around this time, the company had 74 employees. [7]
With sales of $12 million, Mindscape was profitable for the first time in the fourth quarter of 1986; it started publishing black numbers by 1987. [7] [10] In early 1987, Mindscape introduced the Thunder Mountain label to produce software at a lower price, starting with Rambo: First Blood Part II . [11] In March 1987, Mindscape acquired the software division of Holt, Rinehart and Winston formerly known as CBS Interactive Learning, with all operations transferred to Mindscape's Northbrook, Illinois, headquarters. [1] By June 1988, Mindscape had filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to prepare an initial public offering (IPO) and become a public company. [10] The move aimed at raising $9.6 million through sale of stock to reduce bank loan debts of $9.8 million. [10] The IPO was completed later that month, with the company beginning trading over-the-counter by July. [12] [13] Bob Ingersoll and Dennis O'Malley were appointed the vice president (VP) of marketing and VP of sales, respectively, in May 1987. [14] In November, Mindscape signed a lease of 21,000 square feet (2,000 m2) of office space in Wheeling, Illinois, for $236,000. [15] Robert A. Drell, formerly of Dresher Inc., became the VP of finance and chief financial officer in October 1988. [16]
In December 1989, the video game company The Software Toolworks reached an agreement to acquire Mindscape, exchanging every Mindscape share for 0.4375 shares in newly issued Toolworks common stock. [17] The deal was completed on March 13, 1990, and valued at $21.2 million. [18] [19] A major driver for the acquisition was Mindscape's license to develop for Nintendo platforms, of which there were only approximately forty at the time. [18] [19] [20] The two companies merged, and Buoy joined Les Crane on Toolworks's board of directors. [21] Following the acquisition, Mindscape became Toolworks's division working exclusively on games for Nintendo platforms, which sharply increased Toolworks's earnings. [18] [19] [22] In March 1994, Pearson plc agreed to acquire Toolworks for $462 million, finalizing the deal on May 12, 1994. [23] [24] Pearson was criticized for overpaying in the acquisition, and the acquired operations lost Pearson $69 million during its first few years thereafter. [25] [26]
By November 1994, the Toolworks name was discontinued in favor of the Mindscape brand. [27] Mindscape acquired the video game developer Strategic Simulations in the same year, followed by Micrologic Software of Emeryville, California, in September 1995. [28] [29] In January 1996, John F. Moore became Mindscape's CEO after leaving the same position at Western Publishing. [30] In November, Mindscape laid off twelve developed staff as a cost reduction measure. [31] During 1997, Mindscape's final year under Pearson, it acquired the software company Multimedia Design and became profitable again, earning $2.7 million. [32] [33] One day prior to the release of Lego Island that year, Mindscape fired all of the development team which worked on the game to avoid paying them any bonuses. [34]
Pearson sold Mindscape to The Learning Company (TLC) for $150 million in cash and stock in March 1998, after the Federal Trade Commission lifted its waiting period. [35] [36] TLC expected that its stock would rise $0.05 per share as a result of the acquisition, while Pearson lost around $347 million. [33] [37] Later that year, Mindscape acquired the Petz developer PF.Magic and, when TLC folded its Broderbund division, absorbed its productivity, reference and entertainment brands. [38] [39] TLC was acquired by Mattel in May 1999, which sold it to Gores Technology Group in October 2000. [40] [41] Gores reorganized TLC's entertainment assets under Game Studios in January 2001, dropping the Mindscape name, before selling them to Ubi Soft in March. [41] [42]
Mindscape SA (2001–2010)
In October 2001, Jean-Pierre Nordman, a former executive of TLC's Edusoft subsidiary, purchased TLC's remaining international assets from Gores and reorganized them under Mindscape SA, a new entity in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, a suburb of Paris. [3] [43] [44] In November 2002, the company purchased the assets of the bankrupt software publisher Montparnasse Multimedia. [45] In October 2005, Mindscape purchased the French game company Coktel Vision from Vivendi Universal Games, absorbing its eleven employees. [46] [47] Mindscape bought Violet out of liquidation in October 2009 and took over the production of the Nabaztag smart device range, [48] announcing its third generation, Karotz, in October 2010. [49] In December, now under the leadership of Thierry Bensoussan, the company opened an internal development studio, Punchers Impact, in Paris with forty staffers. [50] The studio's managers, Guillaume Descamps and Jérôme Amouyal, departed in September 2010 to found Birdies Road. [51]
Punchers Impact's karaoke game U-Sing did not meet sales expectations due to expensive music licenses, while the racing game Crashers did not sell well. [52] [53] Mindscape Asia-Pacific was sold off in 2010. [54] In June 2011, Mindscape was placed into insolvency after failing to reach a deal with its lawyers and banks to pay off its accrued debts, announcing an impending restructuring process. [55] On August 10, the company announced its exit from the video game industry by closing Punchers Impact and laying off its forty employees. [56] The tribunal de commerce in Nanterre turned Mindscape's insolvency into a judicial liquidation. [57] Aldebaran Robotics, the makers of the Nao robot range, bought Mindscape's robotic assets in November, while Mark Huijmans and colleague bought out Mindscape B.V., the Benelux division. [58] [59] Huijmans became that company's sole owner in 2013. [59] Keeping its name, Mindscape B.V. took on the distribution for games by GameMill Entertainment, Microids, and U&I Entertainment. [60] [61] [62]
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