Addictive Games was a UK video game publisher in the 1980s and early 1990s. It is best known for the '' Football Manager'' series of games created by company founder

Kevin Toms Kevin Toms (born 22, April 1957 in Paignton) is a British video game designer who founded Addictive Games and created the original ''Football Manager'', a simulation game released in the early 1980s. It included a portrait of his bearded face on ...

. The company was originally based in

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...

, England and later relocated to

Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the Southern ...

, in southern England.

History

The company was set up by Kevin Toms in 1982 in order to launch the '' Football Manager'' game he had written for the TRS-80 and ZX81 computers. Initially this was just by mail order from advertisements placed in computer magazines. In September 1982 Addictive Games launched the ZX Spectrum version of ''Football Manager'', with added match action graphics. The addition of the graphics actions was very popular, and the game went on to be a number one best seller, with the games being stocked in major retailers. The success of Football Manager allowed Toms to move the company to commercial premises in Richmond Hill in the centre of

. In 1984 the game was ported to the BBC Micro and

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

. By 1987, ''Football Manager'' had been ported to 16 different platforms. In 1984, Addictive used the short-lived ''Silicon Joy'' label for games by other authors, 'specially selected' by Kevin Toms, but in 1985, after Toms launched his next game '' Software Star'', Addictive also began publishing games by other authors including '' Boffin'' by Paul Julian O'Malley and '' Kirel'' by Siegfried Kurtz. '' Headcoach'', an American football sports strategy game written by Simon Davies was released in the summer of 1986 and reached No. 3 in the W H Smith UK sales charts.ZX Computing, November 1986; p5.
/ref> Toms went on to write the political strategy game '' President'' released in 1987. The company was bought by

Prism Leisure Corporation Prism Leisure Corporation Plc was a distribution and publishing company that primarily focused on reissues and compilations, often at low prices. The company was located in Enfield, Middlesex, United Kingdom, History The company was founded in ...

in 1987. Prism used the Addictive name for full price game releases (including '' HotShot'' in 1988, ''

The Kristal ''The Kristal'' is an action game/adventure game first released in 1989 for the Amiga computer. It was later released for the Atari ST and MS-DOS. It was developed by the UK-based company Fissionchip Software, and published in Europe by Addicti ...

'' in 1989 and the later ''Football Manager'' games), as well as selling older Addictive games (particularly ''Football Manager'') in their budget ranges and in compilations.

Releases

Addictive Games

*'' Football Manager'', 1982 ( TRS-80, ZX81, ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro,

C64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness Wo ...

, Oric, Amstrad CPC, Electron,

Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

VIC-20 The VIC-20 (known as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PE ...

Atari 8-bit The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...

, C16/

Plus/4 The Commodore Plus/4 is a home computer released by Commodore International in 1984. The "Plus/4" name refers to the four-application ROM resident office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, database, and graphing); it was billed as "the produc ...

MSX MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, then vice-p ...

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

, PC) *'' Software Star'', 1985 (ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad CPC) *''Stringer'', 1985 (C64) *'' Boffin'', 1985 (BBC Micro, Electron) *''Arac'', 1986 (C64) *'' Kirel'', 1986 (ZX Spectrum) *'' Head Coach'', 1986 (ZX Spectrum, C64) *''President'', 1987 (ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad CPC) *'' Football Manager 2'', 1988 (ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST, PC) *'' Hot Shot'', 1988 (ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST, PC) *''Battle Stations'', 1988 (C64) *''Metaplex'', 1988 (ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad CPC) *''Hyperforce'', 1989 (Amiga, Atari ST) *''

'', 1989 (Amiga, Atari ST, PC) *''Aquanaut'', 1989 (Amiga, Atari ST) *'' Football Manager World Cup Edition'', 1990 (ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad CPC, MSX, Amiga, Atari ST, PC) *'' Football Manager 3'', 1992 (ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad CPC, PC)

Silicon Joy

*''Caves of Rigel'', 1984 (Atari 8-bit) *''

Grand Prix Manager ''Grand Prix Manager'' (GPM) is a Formula 1 management game released in December 1995 by MicroProse. It featured the 1995 Formula One season, 1995 Formula 1 season. Description The goal of this game is to manage a successful Formula 1 Grand Pr ...

'', 1984 (ZX Spectrum) *''Boxing'', 1984 (ZX Spectrum) *''Run Your Own League'', 1984 (ZX Spectrum) *''Trio'', 1984 (ZX Spectrum) - 3 games: ''Ascot'', ''Chaotic Caverns'', ''Dracula's Castle''

References

{{Reflist Video game companies established in 1982 Companies based in Bournemouth Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom 1982 establishments in England