Sirius Software was a

video game publisher A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that have been developed either internally by the publisher or externally by a video game developer. They often finance the development, sometimes by paying a video game developer ...

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

Atari 8-bit family 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, ...

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 W ...

, and

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 ...

games in the early 1980s. Sirius also developed games for the

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocesso ...

which were published by 20th Century Fox Video Games.

History

The company was founded in the early 1980s by Jerry Jewell and Terry Bradley. It gained attention for its dramatically quick rise to prominence and its equally quick collapse in 1984 after

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disn ...

(Fox Video Games) failed to pay over

USD$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

18 Million in owed royalties.S. Levy, ''Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution'', Doubleday, Garden City, 1984 Sirius Software designed and marketed more than 160 computer

video games Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedbac ...

, software products and hardware devices worldwide. Jewell was profiled by author

Steven Levy Steven Levy (born 1951) is an American journalist and Editor at Large for ''Wired'' who has written extensively for publications on computers, technology, cryptography, the internet, cybersecurity, and privacy. He is the author of the 1984 book ...

in his book '' Hackers''. Sirius' quick rise was due in part to a chain of hits by

programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

Nasir Gebelli Nasir Gebelli ( fa, ناصر جبلی, also Nasser Gebelli, born 1957) is an Iranian-American programmer and video game designer usually credited in his games as simply Nasir. Gebelli wrote Apple II games for Sirius Software, created his own co ...

. Gebelli's breakthrough game was ''

Gorgon A Gorgon ( /ˈɡɔːrɡən/; plural: Gorgons, Ancient Greek: Γοργών/Γοργώ ''Gorgṓn/Gorgṓ'') is a creature in Greek mythology. Gorgons occur in the earliest examples of Greek literature. While descriptions of Gorgons vary, the te ...

'', which brought the gameplay of the arcade's '' Defender'' to the Apple II. His technical ability and Jewell's sales and marketing skills combined to create in a single year a multimillion-dollar enterprise operating out of a rented apartment. By June 1982 the game had sold 23,000 copies, making it one of the best-selling computer games at the time. By early 1984 ''InfoWorld'' estimated that Sirius was the world's 15th-largest microcomputer-software company, with $11 million in 1983 sales. Sirius also published a line of graphical adventure games in an attempt to compete with

Sierra On-Line Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genr ...

, but without much success. Most of the company's games were launched on the

line of computers, but they also released some titles for other platforms, notably the

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, ...

and

. The

Smithsonian Museum The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

produced a "living history" video of Jewell's role in the early personal computer industry.Smithsonian Institution Archives
/ref>

Games

References

{{reflist Defunct video game companies of the United States Software companies based in California Companies based in Sacramento, California Defunct software companies of the United States Defunct companies based in California Video game companies established in 1980 Video game companies disestablished in 1984 1980 establishments in California 1984 disestablishments in California