GTE Interactive Media was a video game development company located in

Carlsbad, California Carlsbad is a coastal city in the North County region of San Diego County, California, United States. The city is south of downtown Los Angeles and north of downtown San Diego. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 114,746. ...

. Its focus was on the development of videos, of

interactive television Interactive television is a form of media convergence, adding data services to traditional television technology. It has included on-demand delivery of content, online shopping, and viewer polls. Interactive TV is an example of how new information ...

platforms, and of interactive video game products for arcade machines, home console cartridges, and CD-ROMs, including development and publishing under the GTE Entertainment brand. It folded in 1997.

History

GTE Interactive was founded as GTE ImagiTrek in 1990 by Richard E. Robinson, as a division of GTE Vantage, a

wholly owned subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company (law), company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company ...

of the now-defunct telecommunications provider

GTE GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation (1955–1982), was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System. The company operated from 1926, with roots tracing furth ...

. Originally named GTE ImagiTrek, it was renamed GTE Interactive Media in 1994. Richard Scott, vice president of New Ventures at GTE said "At its inception, GTE Interactive Media was viewed as a complementary adjunct to GTE's plans to develop broadband video services networks." In January 1995, the division entered a partnership with Nintendo for the development of arcade games and of online networking. In the same month, the partnership previewed its first title, ''

FX Fighter ''FX Fighter'' is a series of video games developed by Argonaut Games and published by GTE Entertainment. The two games in the series are ''FX Fighter'' (1995) for DOS CD-ROM and ''FX Fighter Turbo'' ( 1996) for Windows 95. ''FX Fighter'' The ...

'', at

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

in Las Vegas. In 1995, the division experienced a high of 120 employees. Experiencing difficulties in the video game market and with the

Telecommunications Act of 1996 The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a United States federal law enacted by the 104th United States Congress on January 3, 1996, and signed into law on February 8, 1996, by President Bill Clinton. It primarily amended Chapter 5 of Title 47 of t ...

putting a pinch on GTE due to deregulation, the division began to steadily lay off staff. The parent company GTE planned to cease its own content creation in favor of feeding its networks with the rapidly expanding market of third party content. Failing to find a buyer or partner, the division announced in January 1997 that it would lay off 85 employees and cease operations on March 14, 1997. The remaining "skeleton staff" would provide technical support and further shutdown services through June 30. Citing hardships in the entire CD-ROM market, Dick Nordman, finance director for GTE's New Ventures group in Irving, Texas, explained, "In the beginning, the idea was that we wanted to get into the content business. Now, with everything else going on in the telecommunications industry, we felt our energies would be better spent in the telco arena."

List of games

This is a list of video games designed in whole or in part by GTE Interactive Media."GTE Entertainment Profile"
ameSpot Retrieved on May 12, 2008.

References

External links

GTE Vantage Incorporated
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gte Interactive Media Defunct companies based in California Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Video game publishers Video game companies established in 1990 Companies based in Carlsbad, California Verizon Communications 1990 establishments in California 1997 disestablishments in California Video game companies disestablished in 1997