Black Legend (company)

Black Legend was a Swiss-British video game publisher predominantly active in the Amiga games market. Founded in Switzerland in 1992, it moved to Hertfordshire (St Albans, then Welwyn), England, the following year when it became part of distribution company Kompart. Black Legend found success working with smaller developers, often from ex-Soviet Union countries. Following a stark decline of the Amiga games market in 1994, Black Legend shut down in 1996, followed by its German office in Mülheim an der Ruhr later that year.

Black Legend
Subsidiary
IndustryVideo games
FateDissolved
Founded1992 (1992) in Switzerland
FounderRichard M. Holmes
Defunct1996 (1996)
Headquarters
Welwyn
,
England
Number of locations
2 offices
Area served
United Kingdom, Germany
Key people
  • Richard M. Holmes
  • Steven Bailey
  • Duncan Lowthian
ParentKompart (1993–1996)

History

Black Legend was founded in 1992 by Richard M. Holmes, at the time 20 years old and residing in Switzerland. The company targeted the games market for Amiga systems, which was largely neglected at the time, while also working on some games for personal computers. Black Legend worked with external developers, mostly small studios with just a handful of people and teams based in ex-Soviet Union countries. Not long into the company's lifetime, Holmes came in contact with Steven Bailey of British game distribution company Kompart; Bailey visited the Black Legend offices and the two companies struck a partnership. By August 1993, Black Legend had become a part of Kompart, with Holmes, Bailey and Bailey's business partner Duncan Lowthian acting as the companies' joint directors. Through this move, Black Legend became co-located with Kompart in its offices in St Albans, England. With Kompart serving distribution, marketing, and public relations, Black Legend could focus solely on the publishing aspect.[1]

By the holiday season of 1993, Black Legend had published four games: Fatman: The Caped Consumer, which was developed by Hungarian studio I/O Product for Amiga and MS-DOS; Moscow Nights a collection of Russian-based games for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows; Hyperion, a low-budget Amiga game developed by Norwegian team Offence Software; and Hungary for Fun, a compilation of games including Kid Pool, Logic, and Zarcan.[1]

In 1994, Black Legend relocated from St Albans to Welwyn and opened a regional office in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, with staff formerly of developer Blue Byte. This office received Black Legend games in shipments from the England headquarters, localised them, and distributed them in Germany. However, by this time, publishers had started moving on from Amiga systems to more relevant systems like the PlayStation; eventually the Amiga 4000T was the last Amiga model to be released. Kompart realised this in 1995 and consequently decided to close Black Legend, which happened the following year. It was survived by its Germany-based office, which published Colony Wars 2492 from Digital X-citement and Indoor Football Glory before closing as well later in 1996. Founder Holmes subsequently became the European product manager for Eidos Interactive before founding several other video game companies, such as IncaGold, Play Sunshine, and Lolly.[1]

Games published
Year Title Platform(s)
1993 Fatman: The Caped Consumer Amiga, MS-DOS
Moscow Nights Amiga, Microsoft Windows, MS-DOS
Hyperion Amiga
Hungary for Fun Amiga
1994 Football Glory Amiga, MS-DOS
Mega Motion Amiga
Exploration MS-DOS
Crystal Dragon Amiga
Statix Amiga
Tactical Manager Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS
Tactical Manager Italia Amiga
Embryo Amiga
1995 Tower of Souls Amiga, MS-DOS
Behind the Iron Gate Amiga
Tactical Manager 2 Amiga
Wheelspin Amiga
Inordinate Desire MS-DOS
Five-A-Side Soccer Amiga
Demo Maniac Amiga
Turbo Trax Amiga
Citadel Amiga
1996 Colony Wars 2492 Amiga
Indoor Football Glory Amiga
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References
  1. Crookes, David (8 August 2019). "From the Archives: Black Legend". Retro Gamer. No. 197. Future Publishing. pp. 50–53.
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