Brøderbund
:
This article is about the software company. For the organization formerly known as the Broederbond, see Afrikanerbond.Brøderbund Software was an
American maker of
computer games,
educational software and the
Print Shop productivity tools. The company was founded in
Eugene, Oregon, but moved to
San Rafael, California, and later to
Novato, California.
[[Image:Broderbund.jpg|right|frame|Company's {{logo}}]]
Brøderbund scored an early hit with the game
Galactic Empire, written by Doug Carlston for the
TRS-80. The company went on to become a powerhouse in the educational and entertainment software markets with titles like
Fantavision,
Choplifter,
Apple Panic,
Lode Runner,
Karateka,
Wings of Fury,
Prince of Persia,
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and
Myst, which stayed in the top 10 list of home computer games for years.
Brøderbund was easily one of the most dominant
publishers in the computer market of the
1980s, having released
video games for virtually all major computer systems in the
U.S. This included not only the popular
IBM PC-DOS personal computer, but also the leading
home computers from the decade, notably the
TRS-80, the
Apple II, the
Commodore 64 and the
Atari 8-bit. The company even went on licensing some of its titles to
European and
Japanese companies who ported Brøderbund's games to the different home computers of these regions, such as the
Amstrad CPC, the
MSX and the
ZX Spectrum.
Brøderbund also published the
Print Shop series of desktop
greeting card making programs,
Family Tree Maker (a genealogy program supported by hundreds of CD's of public genealogy data) and
3D Home Architect, a program for designing and visualizing family homes. By the end of the
1980s, games represented only a few percent of Brøderbund's annual sales, which by then were heavily focused in the productivity arena and early education and learning areas.
For a short period of time, Brøderbund was involved in the
video game console market when they published a few games for the
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), but all of their NES games, including their own franchises
Lode Runner,
Spelunker and
Raid on Bungeling Bay, were developed by
third-party Japanese companies. Brøderbund also developed and marketed a NES controller device called the
U-Force, which was operated without direct physical contact between the player and the device.
Brøderbund was founded by brothers
Doug and
Gary Carlston in
1980 for the purpose of marketing
Galactic Empire, a computer game that Doug Carlston had created in
1979. Their sister,
Cathy, joined the company a year later. Before founding the company, Doug was a
lawyer and Gary had held a number of jobs, including teaching
Swedish at an
American college.
In
1984, Brøderbund took over the assets of the well-regarded but financially-troubled
Synapse Software. Although intending to keep it running as a business, they were unable to make money from Synapse's products, and closed it down after a year.
Brøderbund
became a public company in
1991 (their NASDAQ symbol, no longer operative, was BROD). Their stock price and market capitalization climbed steadily to a maximum of nearly
USD$80/share in late
1995, and then fell steadily in the face of continued losses for a number of years.
Brøderbund was purchased by
The Learning Company in
1998 for about
USD$420 million in stock. In a move to rationalize costs, The Learning Company promptly terminated 500 employees at Brøderbund the same year, representing 42% of the company's workforce. Then in
1999 the combined company was bought by
Mattel for the astounding sum of $3.6 billion. Mattel reeled from the financial impact of this transaction, and
Jill Barad, the CEO, ended up being forced out in a climate of investor outrage. Mattel then actually gave away The Learning Company in September
2000 to
Gores Technology Group, a private acquisitions firm, for a share of whatever Gores could obtain by selling the company. In
2001, Gores sold The Learning Company's entertainment holdings to
Ubisoft, and most of the other holdings, including the Brøderbund name, to
Irish company
Riverdeep. Currently, all of Brøderbund's games, such as the
Myst series, are published by
Ubisoft.
Broderbund, with an o instead of the
'ø' character, is now the brand name for Riverdeep's graphic design, productivity, and
edutainment titles, such as
The Print Shop,
Carmen Sandiego,
Mavis Beacon,
the Living Books series, and
Reader Rabbit titles, and also publishes software for other companies, notably
Zone Labs'
ZoneAlarm.
The word "brøderbund" is not an actual word in any language, but is a somewhat loose translation of "band of brothers" into a mixture of Swedish,
Danish and
German. The Danish
ø was used simply because it looks like the programmer's 0 (Ø – the
slashed zero). The Brøderbund name, therefore, may be the first widely known example of
leetspeak and also contributes an element of foreign exoticism (see
heavy metal umlaut).
Internally during the 1980s the company's name was pronounced
BRU-der-bund by employees instead of the publicly used
BRO-der-bund, echoing its semi-Nordic roots.
*
:Category:Brøderbund games*
Broderbund website*
History of Brøderbund at Classicgaming.com
*
Profile at
MobyGames*
Brøderbund profile at Home of the Underdogs
