Ariolasoft | Code Like It's 198x

In 1985 a British Commodore 64 owner who bought Lode Runner, Archon or Racing Destruction Set found the name of a record company on the box. Ariolasoft was the software house of Ariola, the German record company owned by Bertelsmann, and it sold the games of two leading American publishers, Electronic Arts and Broderbund, in Europe. Its British arm hired the Hippodrome in London’s West End for its launch, took journalists racing at Brands Hatch and to the golf course at Wentworth, and within two years was paying a team in Budapest to program a golf game from videotapes.

Fast facts

Parent: Ariola, the record company of the German media group Bertelsmann. Your Commodore described Ariolasoft in 1985 as “connected to Arista Records”.
British arm: Ariolasoft U.K. Ltd, launched at the end of 1984 at Asphalte House, Palace Street, London SW1; by 1986 its mail-order address was PO Box 461, London NW1.
Headquarters: in Germany, by 1990 at Rietberg, near Gütersloh.
American games it sold in Britain: Electronic Arts’ Archon, M.U.L.E., One on One, Racing Destruction Set, Marble Madness and Arcticfox; Broderbund’s Lode Runner, Choplifter, Spelunker and Karateka.
Games it commissioned: Golf (1986), The Deactivators (1986) and games on its own labels, Reaktor, Starlight and 39 Steps. It also sold the Spanish studio Dinamic’s Camelot Warriors in Britain.
End: Electronic Arts set up its own British operation in 1987. In 1990 the German company was sold to its manager, Hans-Joachim Krusche, and renamed United Software.

A record company launch

Ariolasoft arrived in Britain in the winter of 1984–85, and Your Commodore filed the story under “Off the record”. Two record companies were “making a song and dance about entering the software market”, it reported: CBS and “Ariolasoft which is connected to Arista Records”. CBS had started “rather modestly”. Ariolasoft “hired the Hippodrome in London’s West End for the night to tell the world about their first twelve titles”. All twelve were imports, and they included at least two American number ones. “Some are now getting a bit long in the tooth, like Lode Runner,” the magazine added, “but the selection does include some brilliant games.”

Commodore Computing International‘s release list for New Year 1985 shows what those games cost. Broderbund’s Choplifter, Lode Runner, Spelunker and Raid on Bungeling Bay and Electronic Arts’ One on One and Realm of Impossibility were £9.95 on cassette and £12.95 on disk. Archon, M.U.L.E., Murder on the Zinderneuf and Operation Whirlwind were £11.95 and £14.95. Spectrum and Amstrad owners paid less: Ariolasoft’s July 1985 advertisement in CRASH priced Realm of Impossibility at £9.95 on Commodore or Atari cassette and £8.95 on Spectrum or Amstrad cassette. By 1986 its Commodore 64 games settled at £9.95 on cassette and £14.95 on disk.

The Spectrum versions were reviewed on their merits. CRASH gave Paul Reiche III’s Archon 83% in July 1985, and called it “very good, though pricey” at £10.95.

Ariolasoft spent money on being noticed. For the launch of Racing Destruction Set in 1985 its marketing and sales director, Frank Brunger, sent reviewers and distributors on a one-day “taster” course at Brands Hatch, where they each drove three laps in a Ford XR3i. In 1986 a coach took Zzap!64 to Wentworth, where Ariolasoft was previewing its golf game.

From importer to publisher

The American catalogue came ready-made, but Ariolasoft soon wanted games of its own. In July 1985 Your Commodore reported that the RamJam Corporation, the team behind the Commodore 64 adventure Valkyrie 17, had signed an exclusive three-year licensing agreement with Ariolasoft, “following in the footsteps of American companies Electronic Arts, Broderbund and Batteries Included”, but the first British company to do so. RamJam’s The Terrors of Trantoss came out under the Ariolasoft name in 1986. At the end of 1985 the trade press reported that Ariolasoft had bought Llamasoft. Jeff Minter told Zzap!64 that it had not: Ariolasoft was marketing one game, Batalyx, as “an experimental deal”.

Golf, programmed in Budapest

The biggest of these projects was Golf, released as Golf Construction Set. According to Computer & Video Games, it was the brainchild of the games designer David Bishop, who ran the Tigress Marketing company, and Ariolasoft’s Ashley Grey. The programming was done in Budapest by one of the teams working for Andromeda Software, the company that had programmed Domark’s Eureka!. None of the Hungarian programmers had seen or played golf. Bishop supplied videotapes of the classic tournaments and details of the courses, and “even took a golf club and golf balls with him on one of his numerous trips to the Hungarian capital”. The videos solved a problem: in early versions the ball “flew for miles with just a tap of the club” and bounced “like one of those compressed rubber Superballs”.

The game offered four championship courses, The Belfry, Wentworth Old Course, Sunningdale and Royal St George’s, and a construction program for designing your own. Zzap!64 reviewed it in July 1986 at £12.95 for two cassettes or £14.95 on disk and gave it 79%. Looking back that Christmas, the magazine judged that U.S. Gold’s Leader Board was “much the better and most enjoyable”.

Bishop’s team worked for Ariolasoft again. Tigress was credited, with System Software, on The Deactivators, which CRASH scored 85% in November 1986. In 1987 Computer Gamer described “Dave Bishop’s team” as major contributors to Ariolasoft’s Reaktor label.

Labels and a Spanish import

By 1987 Ariolasoft was releasing games under several labels. Reaktor published Zarjaz, Centurions, Triaxos and the Commodore 64 shoot ’em up Starfox, whose name later made Nintendo sell its own Star Fox in Europe as Starwing; Starlight, set up by Francis Lee, formerly of Beyond, published Deathscape and Hybrid; and 39 Steps published Bride of Frankenstein. In October 1987 The Games Machine reported that Ariolasoft had “changed direction, moving towards being a publishing house rather than a software label”, with teams of programmers working fairly independently on games for labels that Ariolasoft then published. Tony Crowther joined in early 1987 to turn his unfinished Moebius into the official Gobots game.

Ariolasoft also carried European games the other way. Camelot Warriors, by Victor Ruiz of the Madrid studio Dinamic, came out in Britain under the Ariolasoft name, and CRASH scored it 82% in December 1986.

Electronic Arts goes it alone

Ariolasoft’s British business rested on Electronic Arts, and in 1987 EA left. Commodore Computing International reported that September that EA had timed “its major launch in Europe” to coincide with the Personal Computer World Show, bringing Marble Madness, The Bard’s Tale and the Archon games, “all previously available through Ariolasoft”. EA’s Mark Lewis explained the decision to Amiga Computing the following year: the Ariolasoft years had been “a good experience for a couple of years but we weren’t in touch with the consumers”.

The British arm did not survive long without it. Looking back in January 1990, The One called Ariolasoft “the German distributor’s English software appendage” and said it “didn’t last too long over here”.

The German company

In Germany Ariolasoft carried on as a distributor. In 1989 the British publisher Mandarin Software made it its German partner, and Amiga Computing called it a “giant German distribution house” that would market Mandarin’s games through “its 2,000 strong dealer base”. In March 1990 Amiga Joker visited Ariolasoft’s headquarters at Rietberg, near Gütersloh, for a press day with the German developer Thalion and U.S. Gold, whose games it handled.

The Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum’s account of the company says that in 1990 Bertelsmann sold Ariolasoft to its manager, Hans-Joachim Krusche, and that it was renamed United Software. Amiga Joker noted in October 1990 that a Dracula adventure was one of the last programs United Software would publish “under the old name Ariola Soft”. The same account says the German branch of MicroProse took United Software over in 1993.

Ariola was one of several record companies that tried software in the mid-1980s; see When the Record Companies Sold Software.

Sources

Your Commodore vol. 1 no. 5, February 1985, p. 9, “Off the record”: CBS and Ariolasoft, “connected to Arista Records”, the Hippodrome launch and the first twelve titles.
Commodore Computing International, New Year 1985, p. 29, “New games releases”: Ariolasoft’s first releases, prices and address.
CRASH issue 18, July 1985: Ariolasoft advertisement, p. 19 (Realm of Impossibility prices, Asphalte House); Archon review, pp. 20–21 (Ariolasoft, £10.95, Paul Reiche III, 83%).
Your Commodore vol. 1 no. 8, May 1985, news: Frank Brunger, Ariolasoft’s marketing and sales director. Zzap!64 issue 6, October 1985, news: the Racing Destruction Set launch at Brands Hatch.
Your Commodore vol. 1 no. 10, July 1985, news: RamJam Corporation’s exclusive three-year agreement with Ariolasoft; the address Suite 105/106, Asphalte House. CRASH issue 29, June 1986, Adventure Trail: The Terrors of Trantoss (Ariolasoft; RamJam Corporation).
Zzap!64 issue 9, Christmas Special 1985, p. 82: Jeff Minter on Ariolasoft and Batalyx.
Zzap!64 issues 20, 22, 24 and 27 (December 1986 to July 1987): Ariolasoft reviews and advertisements at £9.95 cassette and £14.95 disk (Marble Madness, Arcticfox, Touchdown Football) and the PO Box 461, London NW1 address.
Computer & Video Games issue 56, June 1986, p. 76, “East meets West”: Golf, David Bishop and Tigress Marketing, Ashley Grey, Andromeda’s teams in Budapest, the videotapes, the club and balls, the four courses and the construction program.
Zzap!64 issue 14, June 1986: the Wentworth preview of Golf Construction Set. Zzap!64 issue 15, July 1986: review (£12.95 twin cassette, £14.95 disk). Zzap!64 issue 21, Christmas Special 1986: the year’s review (Golf Construction Set, 79%; Leader Board “much the better”).
CRASH issue 34, November 1986: The Deactivators (Ariolasoft, £8.95, System Software/Tigress, 85%). CRASH issue 35, December 1986, p. 38: Camelot Warriors (Ariolasoft, Victor Ruiz, 82%).
Sinclair User issue 58, January 1987, Gremlin column: Francis Lee’s Starlight “living inside Ariolasoft”. Computer Gamer issue 23, February 1987: Dave Bishop’s team and Reaktor’s Triaxos. Computer Gamer issue 24, March 1987: Tony Crowther and Gobots; Starlight; 39 Steps; Broderbund’s Karateka “distributed through Ariolasoft”. Commodore Computing International, January 1987: Reaktor’s Zarjaz. The Games Machine issue 1, October 1987: Starlight’s Hybrid, Ariolasoft’s change of direction, Reaktor and Viz Design. CRASH issue 42, July 1987: Deathscape (Ariolasoft).
Commodore Computing International, September 1987, p. 8, “Gamesworld at PCW Show!”: Electronic Arts’ European launch and the games “previously available through Ariolasoft”. Amiga Computing vol. 1 no. 2, July 1988: Mark Lewis of Electronic Arts on the Ariolasoft years.
The One issue 16, January 1990: “the German distributor’s English software appendage”.
Amiga Computing vol. 2 no. 2, July 1989, news, “Ariolasoft links with Mandarin”. Amiga Joker, April 1990, “Ariolasoft präsentiert: Thalion & U.S. Gold” (Rietberg). Amiga Joker, October 1990, adventure review (“unter dem alten Namen Ariola Soft”).
Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum blog, “Ariolasoft – Computerspiele aus Ostwestfalen”, 30 September 2022 (web, secondary): the sale to Hans-Joachim Krusche and the renaming in 1990; MicroProse in 1993. https://blog.hnf.de/ariolasoft-computerspiele-aus-ostwestfalen/
Commodore Disk User vol. 1 no. 2, January 1988, p. 14: review of Starfox (Reaktor/Ariolasoft, £12.99). Computer & Video Games issue 174, May 1996, p. 119: Nintendo’s Starwing renamed because of Ariolasoft’s Starfox.