Gremlin Interactive

Not to be confused with Gremlin Industries.

Gremlin Interactive

Founded: 1984

Defunct: 2003

T-series code: T-123

Merged into: Infogrames (1999)

Headquarters:

2-4 Carver Street, Sheffield, England, United Kingdom, S1 4FS^[1]

Gremlin Interactive Ltd. (formerly Gremlin Graphics Software Ltd.) was a British software house based in Sheffield and working mostly in the home computer market. The company was established in 1984 as Gremlin Graphics Software Ltd by Ian Stewart. In 1994, it was renamed as Gremlin Interactive. Like many software houses established in the eighties, their primary market was the 8-bit range of computers such as the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX and Commodore 64.

Gremlin scored big with the Zool and Premier Manager series in the early 1990s, and then with Actua Soccer, the first football game in full 3D, while having success with other games such as the Lotus series, Motorhead or Hardwar. Following EA's success with the EA Sports brand, Gremlin also released their own sports videogame series, adding Golf, Tennis and Ice Hockey to their Actua Sports series (thought, incidentally to be a nod to Sega's Virtua series, both missing the "l" off "Actual" and "Virtual", respectively).

In 1996 Gremlin acquired DMA Design (creators of Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings). In 1999, they themselves were bought by Infogrames and renamed "Infogrames Sheffield House", for a reported fee of around £21m, but the studio closed in 2003. The building they occupied has since been demolished.

In 2003, Zoo Digital Publishing, another company founded by Gremlin founder Ian Stuart, acquired the ex-Gremlin assets from Atari (IESA). A year later, former members of Gremlin Interactive management set up Sumo Digital.