SNK Corporation is a Japanese video gaming and interactive entertainment company. It was founded in 1978 as Shin Nihon Kikaku by Eikichi Kawasaki and began by developing coin-op games. SNK is known for its Neo Geo arcade system on which the company produced many in-house games and now-classic franchises during the 1990s, including Aggressors of Dark Kombat, Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, King of the Monsters, Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown, The King of Fighters, The Last Blade, Twinkle Star Sprites, and World Heroes; they continue to develop and publish new titles in some of these franchises on contemporary arcade and home platforms. Since the 2000s, SNK have diversified from their traditional arcade focus into pachislot machines, mobile game development, and recently character licensing.
Atari Games Corporation was an American producer of arcade video games, active from 1985 to 1999, then as Midway Games West Inc. until 2003. It was formed when the coin-operated video game division of Atari, Inc. was transferred by its owner Warner Communications to a joint venture with Namco, being one of several successor companies to use the name Atari.
Technōs Japan Corp. was a Japanese video game developer, best known for the Double Dragon and Kunio-kun franchises as well as Karate Champ, The Combatribes and Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer. As of June 2015, Arc System Works owns the intellectual properties of Technōs Japan.
Midway Games Inc. was an American video game company that existed from 1958 to 2010. Midway's franchises included Mortal Kombat, Rampage, Spy Hunter, NBA Jam, Cruis'n and NFL Blitz. Midway also acquired the rights to video games that were originally developed by WMS Industries and Atari Games, such as Defender, Joust, Robotron: 2084, Gauntlet and the Rush series.
Double Dragon is a beat 'em up video game series originally developed and published by Technōs Japan. It began with the release of the arcade game Double Dragon in 1987. The series features twin martial artists, Billy and Jimmy Lee, as they fight against various adversaries and rivals.
Battletoads is a platform beat 'em up developed by Rare and published by Tradewest. It is the first installment of the Battletoads series and was originally released in June 1991 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was subsequently ported to the Mega Drive and Game Gear in 1993, to the Amiga and Amiga CD32 in 1994, and released with some changes for the Game Boy in 1993 in the form of Battletoads in Ragnarok's World. In the game, three space humanoid warrior toads form a group known as the Battletoads. Two of the Battletoads, Rash and Zitz, embark on a mission to defeat the evil Dark Queen on her planet and rescue their kidnapped friends: Pimple, the third member of the Battletoads, and Princess Angelica.
Ikari Warriors, known as Ikari in Japan, is a vertically scrolling run and gun video game released for arcades by SNK in 1986. It was published in North America by Tradewest. At the time there were many Commando clones on the market. What distinguished Ikari Warriors were rotary joysticks and a two-player cooperative mode. The rotary joystick controls were in turn based on SNK's earlier TNK III (1985). Ikari was originally intended to be an official licensed adaptation of the film Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), but SNK were initially unable to acquire the rights to the film.
WMS Industries, Inc. was an American electronic gaming and amusement manufacturer in Enterprise, Nevada. It was merged into Scientific Games in 2016. WMS's predecessor was the Williams Manufacturing Company, founded in 1943 by Harry E. Williams. However, the company that became WMS Industries was formally founded in 1974 as Williams Electronics, Inc.
Cinematronics Incorporated was an arcade game developer that primarily released vector graphics games in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While other companies released games based on raster displays, early in their history, Cinematronics and Atari, Inc. released vector-display games, which offered a distinctive look and a greater graphic capability, at the cost of being only black and white (initially). Cinematronics also published Dragon's Lair in 1983, the first major LaserDisc video game.
Battletoads/Double Dragon is a 1993 beat 'em up developed by Rare and published by Tradewest. It was originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System and later ported to the Mega Drive/Genesis, Super NES, and Game Boy. The SNES version was released on Nintendo Switch Online in September 2024; it was the game's first re-release as it was not released on the Rare Replay collection.
1996 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Super Mario 64, Duke Nukem 3D, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Super Mario RPG, King's Field III, Virtua Fighter 3, along with new titles such as Blazing Heroes, NiGHTS into Dreams..., Crash Bandicoot, Pokémon Red/Green/Blue, Resident Evil, Dead or Alive, Soul Edge, Quake and Tomb Raider.
1992 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Dragon Quest V, Final Fantasy V, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, and Super Mario Kart, along with new titles such as Art of Fighting, Lethal Enforcers, Mortal Kombat and Virtua Racing.
Battletoads in Battlemaniacs is a beat 'em up platform game developed by Rare for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Part of the Battletoads series, the game was released in North America by Tradewest in June 1993, in Europe by Nintendo in October 1993 and in Japan by Masaya on January 7, 1994. It was also ported for the Master System and released exclusively in Brazil. It was released around the same time as Battletoads & Double Dragon, another installment in the series. The game received its first official re-release on the Nintendo Switch Online service on February 21, 2024, as it was not included in the Rare Replay collection for the Xbox One.
Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart's Super Off Road is an arcade video game released in 1989 by Leland Corporation. The game was designed and managed by John Morgan who was also lead programmer, and endorsed by professional off-road racer Ivan Stewart. Virgin Games produced several home versions in 1990. In 1991, a home console version for the Nintendo Entertainment System was later released by Leland's Tradewest subsidiary, followed by versions for most major home formats including the Master System, Genesis, Super NES, Amiga, and MS-DOS. A port for the Atari Jaguar was announced but never released. Some of the ports removed Ivan Stewart's name from the title due to licensing issues and are known simply as Super Off Road.
Time Warner Interactive (Group) (TWI) was a video game publishing division within Time Warner. It was formed in 1993 after Time Warner acquired a controlling interest in Atari Games, which was already partly held by Time Warner. It was active until 1996 when WMS Industries, the owners of the Williams, Bally and Midway arcade brands, bought the company.
The Leland Corporation California-based was an arcade video game company formed on June 5, 1987 from the assets of Cinematronics. It was a subsidiary of arcade and home game producer Tradewest, which acquired those assets out of the former company’s bankruptcy. After 1992, the company moved to development of home games to be published by Tradewest and other companies like Williams under the name Leland Interactive Media. In 1994, when WMS Industries acquired Tradewest, Leland was absorbed into their internal development.
Battletoads is a video game franchise by Rare that began with the original beat 'em up game Battletoads in 1991. Starring three anthropomorphic toads named after skin conditions, Rash, Zitz, and Pimple, the series was created to rival the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games series. The original Battletoads game for the NES was renowned for its extreme difficulty, but still received a cult following, spawning sequels for various platforms including a crossover with the Double Dragon series and a modern reboot after a 25-year gap in releases. In each of the games, the objective is to defeat the toads' nemesis the Dark Queen and her army of space mutants.
THQ San Diego, known as Midway Studios San Diego until 2009, was an American game developer based in San Diego, California. It was the successor to the Leland Corporation and Cinematronics.
Byron Cook is an American businessman, rancher, and Republican politician from his native Corsicana in east central Texas, who is a former state representative for District 8, which encompasses the counties of Anderson, Freestone, Hill, and Navarro. In October 2017, Cook announced that he would not seek re-election in 2018.
Game Refuge Inc. is an independent video-game developer with offices in Downers Grove, Illinois. It was founded in 1992 by Brian Colin and Jeff Nauman, the creators of Rampage, Arch Rivals and many other arcade games for Bally/Midway. The company has developed over 45 games for a variety of platforms, including consoles, PCs, arcades, touchscreen countertop machines, casino gaming, mobile devices and Facebook.
