Code Like It's 198x

Addictive Games

Football Manager's publisher, from a Milton Keynes post box to Prism Leisure

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Kevin Toms's company, set up to sell Football Manager. It advertised by mail order from Milton Keynes in February 1982, moved to Bournemouth by the end of 1983 and sold the game in WH Smith. Prism Leisure bought it in 1987 and kept Addictive as a label into the 1990s, for Football Manager 2, its sequels and other games.

Addictive Games was the company Kevin Toms ran to sell his Football Manager, and for most of its life that one game was the business. It began as a mail-order address in Milton Keynes in February 1982. Within two years it was in Bournemouth, selling through WH Smith and putting Toms’s bearded face on the box. In 1987 Prism Leisure bought it, and kept the Addictive name as a label for another six years, on Toms’s sequels and on games he had nothing to do with.

Fast facts

  • Run by: Kevin Toms, with John Croft, the finance director, in charge of day-to-day business from late 1984.
  • First advertised: February 1982, Football Manager for the ZX81, ZX80, TRS-80 and Video Genie, £9.95 by post.
  • Addresses: 267B Conniburrow Boulevard, Milton Keynes (February 1982); PO Box 278, Conniburrow, Milton Keynes (1982–83); Albert House, Albert Road, Bournemouth (December 1983); 7a Richmond Hill, Bournemouth (1984–85); 10 Albert Road, Bournemouth (1986–87).
  • Sideline: Silicon Joy, a label for other people’s programs, launched in 1984.
  • Bought by: Prism Leisure Corporation, spring 1987.
  • Later Addictive releases: Football Manager 2 (1988), Hotshot (1988), The Kristal (1988), Football Manager World Cup Edition (1990), Football Manager 3 (Spectrum review January 1993).

A post box in Milton Keynes

The first advertisement ran in Your Computer in February 1982. It listed the game’s features, from four divisions and the FA Cup to a save-game facility, all “packed tightly into 16K RAM”, and asked for a cheque or postal order for £9.95 made payable to Addictive Games at 267B Conniburrow Boulevard, Milton Keynes. “Please allow 28 days for Delivery.” Within two months the address had become a post office box, PO Box 278, Conniburrow, and that is where orders went for the next year and a half.

The Spectrum 48K version arrived in September 1982, and it changed the business. The advertisement for it explained the game’s appeal and ended with a warning that doubled as the company’s name: “BUT BEWARE, this game is extremely addictive!” By the summer of 1983 the advertisements were no longer mail order only. They named shops that stocked the game, among them Buffer Micro Shop in London, Microware in Leicester and Dragon Byte in Leeds, “and other good computer shops”, with the Spectrum version at £6.95 and the ZX81 at £5.95.

Bournemouth and the high street

At the end of 1983 Addictive moved to Bournemouth. Its advertisements in December gave the address as Albert House, Albert Road, said that Football Manager was “available from computer software stockists nationwide, including” WH Smith, and asked dealers to send their headed notepaper for urgent stocks. They also began to quote happy customers by name. “I am writing to say what a great game it is. I have spent over 45 hours on it,” wrote one from Gloucestershire.

By the summer of 1984 the company was at 7a Richmond Hill, Bournemouth, selling versions for the BBC Micro, Commodore 64, Spectrum and ZX81, and the advertisements carried Football Manager‘s nomination as Strategy Game of the Year in Computer & Video Games’ Golden Joystick Awards. Every one of them said “Designed by Kevin Toms”, and Personal Computer Games listed it as the fourth best-selling Spectrum game of 1984.

Silicon Joy, and the other games

In November 1984 CRASH reported two changes at once. Toms was handing day-to-day responsibility for Addictive to the company’s finance director, John Croft, “so that he could concentrate more on the creative side”, and a new label, Silicon Joy, had appeared with three games almost ready: Grand Prix Manager, a boxing game and Trio, three games on one cassette. At the PCW Show that autumn Toms was on the Addictive stand, “looking very happy with his new project”. Silicon Joy’s own advertisements called it “a division of Addictive Games Ltd”.

Addictive tried to become more than a one-game company. From 10 Albert Road in 1986 it advertised Boffin and Kirel, a 3D puzzle game with “seventy mind stretching screens”, alongside Football Manager, by then on Amstrad, Atari, BBC, Commodore 64, C16 and Plus/4, Dragon, Electron, Spectrum, VIC-20 and ZX81. Fans could buy an Addictive T-shirt for £3.75: “If you play Addictive games you must want one of these (the shirt!!)”. The American football game Headcoach followed in 1986 and Toms’s strategy game President in 1987. Looking back in 1990, The One summed up the catalogue: “ADDICTIVE GAMES. Well, only one of them seemed to be — perennial favourite Football Manager”.

Prism Leisure

In May 1987 CRASH reported that Prism Leisure had “just bought up ADDICTIVE GAMES — the company that pushed Kevin Tom’s face into the limelight, and produced the infinitely popular Football Manager”. Prism’s first move was to re-release Football Manager at £2.99. Computer & Video Games’ directory of software houses that June listed the company as “Addictive/Prism Leisure”, still at 10 Albert Road.

Prism kept the Addictive name as its full-price label. The 1988 advertisements for Toms’s Football Manager 2 ended “Addictive Games is a division of: Prism Leisure Corporation plc”, at Unit 1, Baird Road, Enfield. The same year Computer & Video Games previewed the arcade adventure The Kristal as coming “from Addictive Games, a subsidiary of Prism Leisure”, and ACE reviewed Hotshot, “a wacky simultaneous two-player game with a couple of Breakout features”, as “released under the Addictive label”. In November 1989 Commodore User said that The Kristal’s follow-up, Aquanaut, would be published “by Prism Leisure through their Addictive label”.

The One wrote the company’s obituary in advance in January 1990, in a guide to the first ten years of the leisure software business. “Since Addictive was bought by Prism Leisure, Kevin seems to have been out of the limelight and no-one’s really sure what he’s up to at the moment,” it said, and Aquanaut would be Addictive’s “last release as the company’s due to disappear in the near future”. The obituary was early. Addictive’s advertisements for Toms’s Football Manager World Cup Edition ran that May, with the line “six years (and half a million copies sold) later”. ST Format reported in September 1991 that graphics were being drawn for “Addictive’s next game — Football Manager 3”, made without Toms, and Sinclair User reviewed the Spectrum version in January 1993 under the label “Addictive”, at £10.99 on tape. In the Spectrum charts that followed, the same game was listed under Prism.

Sources

  • Your Computer, February 1982, p. 53: the first Addictive Games advertisement (267B Conniburrow Boulevard; £9.95; “Please allow 28 days for Delivery”).
  • Your Computer, April 1982 and December 1982: advertisements from PO Box 278, Conniburrow, Milton Keynes MK14 7NE.
  • Your Computer, September 1982, p. 112: the Spectrum 48K advertisement (“BUT BEWARE, this game is extremely addictive!”).
  • Sinclair User issue 11, February 1983: Football Manager review, with the PO Box 278 address.
  • Your Computer, July 1983: advertisement listing stockists (Buffer Micro Shop, Microware, Anirog Computers, Success Services, The Computer Shop, Dragon Byte; £6.95 and £5.95).
  • Sinclair User issue 21, December 1983, and Computer & Video Games issue 27, January 1984: advertisements from Albert House, Albert Road, Bournemouth (WH Smith; dealers; customers’ letters).
  • Personal Computer Games issue 9, August 1984, and Acorn User issue 28, November 1984: advertisements from 7a Richmond Hill, Bournemouth (four versions and prices; “Designed by Kevin Toms”; the Golden Joystick nomination).
  • Personal Computer Games issue 15, February 1985, p. 8: best-selling games of 1984.
  • CRASH issue 10, November 1984, p. 40: news item on John Croft and Silicon Joy. The same issue: Silicon Joy advertisement (“a division of Addictive Games Ltd”).
  • CRASH issue 29, June 1986: Addictive Games advertisement from 10 Albert Road (Kirel, Boffin, Football Manager versions and prices, T-shirts).
  • CRASH issue 35, December 1986: Headcoach. Your Sinclair issue 17, May 1987: President.
  • CRASH issue 40, May 1987, p. 11: news item, Prism Leisure buys Addictive Games; Football Manager re-released at £2.99.
  • Computer & Video Games issue 68, June 1987: software house directory (“Addictive/Prism Leisure”).
  • Your Sinclair issue 31, July 1988, and Sinclair User issue 80, November 1988: Football Manager 2 advertisements (“Addictive Games is a division of: Prism Leisure Corporation plc”).
  • Computer & Video Games issue 82, August 1988: The Kristal (“from Addictive Games, a subsidiary of Prism Leisure”).
  • ACE issue 12, September 1988, p. 35: Hotshot (“Released under the Addictive label”).
  • Commodore User, November 1989: Aquanaut to be published “by Prism Leisure through their Addictive label”.
  • The One issue 16, January 1990, p. 128: “Leisure software — the first ten years”, entry for Addictive Games.
  • Sinclair User issue 99, May 1990, p. 25: Addictive Games advertisement for Football Manager World Cup Edition.
  • ST Format issue 26, September 1991: graphics for “Addictive’s next game — Football Manager 3”.
  • Sinclair User issue 131, January 1993: Football Manager 3 review (“LABEL: Addictive”, £10.99 tape, £15.99 disk). Issue 132, February 1993: Spectrum chart (Football Manager 3, Prism).
  • Retro Gamer issue 4, 2004: Football Manager 3 made without Toms.

See also

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