Code Like It's 198x

Eidos Interactive

The video-compression company that bought Domark, U.S. Gold and Lara Croft

Companies & StudiosSource-checked

Eidos began in 1990 as a small listed company selling a video-editing system for the Acorn Archimedes. In 1995 it bought Domark and two developers, in 1996 it bought CentreGold with U.S. Gold and Core Design, and within months it was publishing Tomb Raider. It later published Deus Ex, Thief and Hitman, was taken over by SCi in 2005 and by Square Enix in 2009, and its studios passed to Embracer Group in 2022.

For most of 1995 the company that would publish Tomb Raider had nothing to do with games. Eidos was a small London-listed firm with a turnover of £254,000, and what it owned was a way of squeezing video. Then it bought Domark, then U.S. Gold and Core Design, and in November 1996 Core’s Tomb Raider came out under the Eidos name. At the E3 show that summer, PC Gamer reported, Eidos “threw a big one to tell people who they were”.

Fast facts

  • Founded: Eidos plc joined the London Unlisted Securities Market in December 1990 to sell a video-editing system for the Acorn Archimedes. Stephen Streater was its technical director and co-founder.
  • Into games: agreed in September 1995 to buy Domark, Simis and Big Red Software for £12.9 million, and moved to the main London market in October 1995.
  • CentreGold: bought in 1996 for about £17.2 million, bringing U.S. Gold, the distributor CentreSoft and Core Design.
  • Best-known games: Tomb Raider (1996), Deus Ex (2000), Thief (1998) and Hitman (2000).
  • Later owners: SCi Entertainment (2005), Square Enix (2009) and, for its studios and games, Embracer Group (2022).

A codec looking for a customer

Eidos came out of Stephen Streater’s work on video. When the company floated in December 1990, Computer Business Review described its product, Edit One, as a video-editing system that grew from Streater’s studies at London University and ran on the Acorn Archimedes. It stored a programme’s unedited footage at low resolution on an erasable optical disk, so an editor could rearrange shots “in much the same way that a word processor manipulates characters”. It cost £30,000, and Eidos hoped to sell 81 by the end of 1991. A later Eidos editing suite, Optima, sold “in small numbers to enthusiastic film producers, including the BBC”, according to Acorn User, and was shelved when its picture quality fell behind.

The part that lasted was the compression underneath. Streater’s codec (short for compressor–decompressor) needed no special hardware: it ran in software and got better as processors got faster. Acorn owners met it first. In 1995 Computer Concepts sold its Eagle video card for Acorn machines with “real time video movie compression software from Eidos”. In March 1996 Edge gave the Eidos Software Codec two pages. It claimed a compression ratio of 150:1, enough to fit a 95-minute film on one CD, and technical director Simon Protheroe explained why the codec spent fewer code words on shades of blue: “the human eye is not very sensitive to blue.”

That summer Computer Business Review told the rest of the early story through James Page, one of the company’s investors. After the 1990 float, he said, Eidos had no sales and was “virtually running out of money”. A corporate adviser, Charles Cornwall, became its chairman, and the share price, once about 20p, was by 1996 above £8.

Domark, Simis and Big Red

Eidos’s way into games was a reverse takeover. Its shares were suspended on the Unlisted Securities Market on 15 July 1995 while a deal was prepared. On 24 September 1995 it announced that it would buy three companies for £12.9 million in all: Domark for £10.8 million in shares, the flight-simulation developer Simis for £1.8 million and The Big Red Software Company for £350,000. It also placed new shares to raise £5.5 million. Eidos shares returned to the market in October 1995, now on the main London exchange. Ian Livingstone, who had invested in Domark, later said the new company “floated on the London stock exchange in October 1995, and I became chairman from that day, until 2002”.

The date has been reported in several ways. Edge said in March 1996 that Eidos had announced “last year” that it was in discussion to buy Domark, Big Red and Simis “in a deal worth over £13 million”. Computer Gaming World, reporting from America in February 1996, called it “a deal concluded in early December”. A later reference book gives 25 September 1995, the day after the announcement. Dominic Wheatley’s 2011 interview with MoneyWeek is sometimes read as dating the takeover to 1994. It says that Domark was selling £11 million of games a year “by 1994”, and then went public through Eidos. The trade reports place the announcement in September 1995 and the completion in October.

Eidos wanted more than Domark’s games. Edge reported that one stated reason for the takeover was “to obtain a platform to showcase their technology, primarily in the US”. Three Domark games, Tank Commander, Absolute Zero and Championship Manager II, already used the codec in their intro sequences, and Domark’s Apache was to be the first to use it for in-game graphics. Each company kept its own name at first, under the holding company Eidos plc.

CentreGold, Core and Lara Croft

In March 1996 Eidos agreed to buy CentreGold, the Birmingham group that owned U.S. Gold, CentreSoft and Core Design, for about £17.2 million. CentreGold had bought Core of Derby in October 1994, and U.S. Gold’s founder Geoff Brown had already seen Tomb Raider in development. The acquisition finished Eidos’s transformation. GamePro reported in August 1996 that U.S. Gold and Domark had “joined forces and became one company under a new name, Eidos Interactive”. Eidos dropped the U.S. Gold name and in 1997 sold CentreSoft to Activision.

At ECTS in September 1996 Eidos had its first stand at the London trade show. Edge noted that it had “spent wisely on development studios in the past year” and expected Core’s Tomb Raider and Eidos’s own Deathtrap Dungeon, based on Livingstone’s Fighting Fantasy gamebook, to carry it into what the company saw as “its rightful place in the Premier League of publishers”. Livingstone later remembered it more simply: “A few months later, in November 1996, Eidos launched Tomb Raider starring the wonderful Lara Croft and went on to sell over seven million copies of that classic first title.” Lara Croft, he said, became “the symbol of ‘Cool Britannia’ — and Eidos became the darling of the City.”

Publishing other people’s games

With Tomb Raider paying the bills, Eidos published games from studios it did not own as well as its own.

  • Crystal Dynamics. Eidos bought the Californian developer in 1998. Edge met its founder at ECTS that year while he was showing Soul Reaver, part of the Legacy of Kain series. Livingstone later called moving Tomb Raider from Core Design to Crystal Dynamics “a tough decision”.
  • Looking Glass. Thief: The Dark Project (1998) was a Looking Glass game that Eidos Interactive published.
  • Ion Storm. John Romero’s Ion Storm made Daikatana and, at its Austin studio under Warren Spector, Deus Ex, and Eidos published both. Eidos closed Ion Storm’s Austin studio in February 2005.
  • IO Interactive. The Danish studio’s Hitman: Codename 47 (2000) was “published by Eidos Interactive”. Eidos bought IO Interactive in March 2004, while it was making the third Hitman.

SCi, Square Enix and after

By 2005 Edge was calling Eidos the “beleaguered Tomb Raider publisher”. It received rival takeover bids that spring from Elevation Partners, a Californian investment group, and from the British publisher SCi Entertainment. SCi won, and completed the takeover in May 2005. In April 2009 the Japanese publisher Square Enix bought Eidos. Edge thought Square Enix had got it at “what seemed like a bargain price”. In July 2009 Square Enix retired the Eidos name from publishing in favour of Square Enix Europe, while its studios kept the Eidos brand. A new studio, Eidos-Montréal, made Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011).

In 2022 Square Enix sold Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal and other Western studios, with Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Thief, to the Swedish group Embracer for $300 million. Embracer’s announcement described the deal as a plan “to acquire Eidos, Crystal Dynamics, and Square Enix Montréal”. The name that began on an Acorn video editor survives in a Canadian studio.

Sources

  • Computer Business Review, “Newcomer Eidos perky in early trading on hopes over Apple-Acorn link”, 3 December 1990 (read on the publisher’s archive, web): the USM flotation, Edit One on the Archimedes, Streater’s studies at London University, the £30,000 price, the word-processor comparison, the target of 81 machines. https://www.techmonitor.ai/technology/newcomer_eidos_perky_in_early_trading_on_hopes_over_apple_acorn_link
  • Computer Business Review, “Eidos – a success story after initial hiccups”, 18 July 1996 (read on the publisher’s archive, web): James Page on the early company (“virtually running out of money”), Charles Cornwall as chairman, the share price. https://techmonitor.ai/technology/eidos_a_success_story_after_initial_hiccups
  • Acorn User issue 159, September 1995, Computer Concepts advertisement: the Eagle card sold with “real time video movie compression software from Eidos”. Acorn User issue 174, November 1996, p. 16, “Optima returns”: the Optima editing suite, the BBC, Streater as co-founder, the company’s “inception about five years ago”.
  • Edge issue 12, September 1994, letters: “Eidos movie playback” on Acorn machines. Edge issue 30, March 1996, pp. 20–21, “Techview: Eidos”: turnover of £254,000, the deal “worth over £13 million”, the reverse takeover, the 150:1 ratio, Simon Protheroe, Domark as “a platform to showcase their technology”, the codec in Tank Commander, Absolute Zero, Championship Manager II and Apache.
  • Telecompaper, “Big Red in limelight following Eidos plan”, 30 July 1995; “Eidos acquires three companies, unveils placing”, 24 September 1995; “Eidos shares return to market following acquisition”, 18 October 1995 (web, secondary): the suspension on 15 July 1995, the prices of the three companies, the £5.5 million placing, the move to the main market. https://www.telecompaper.com/news/eidos-acquires-three-companies-unveils-placing--65391 and https://www.telecompaper.com/news/eidos-shares-return-to-market-following-acquisition--67445
  • Computer Gaming World issue 139, February 1996, p. 37, “Domark plays Let’s Make A Deal”: “a deal concluded in early December”; each company to keep its own name under Eidos plc.
  • Alessandro Grussu, Spectrumpedia, volume 1, p. 228 (modern book): the acquisition dated 25 September 1995.
  • MoneyWeek, “Dominic Wheatley: My ‘Eureka’ moment in computer gaming”, 23 February 2011 (web, secondary): Domark’s £11 million sales “by 1994” and the reverse takeover. https://moneyweek.com/30449/my-eureka-moment-in-computer-gaming-52536
  • Retro Gamer issue 102, May 2012, pp. 86–91: interview with Ian Livingstone (the float in October 1995, his chairmanship to 2002, CentreGold “six months later in March 1996”, Core and Tomb Raider, the move to Crystal Dynamics).
  • PC Gamer (UK) issue 32, July 1996, E3 report from p. 30: “Eidos threw a big one to tell people who they were”, and “the UK video-compression technology firm” buying Domark, U.S. Gold, Core and CentreGold.
  • GamePro issue 95, August 1996, p. 19: U.S. Gold and Domark become Eidos Interactive. Chris Wilkins and Roger M. Kean, The Story of US Gold (Fusion Retro Books, 2015), pp. 107–115 (modern book): CentreGold’s purchase of Core, Brown on Tomb Raider, the £17.2 million valuation reported by Computer Business Review in March 1996, the end of the U.S. Gold brand and the sale of CentreSoft.
  • Edge issue 39, December 1996, ECTS report from p. 10: Eidos’s first ECTS stand, Tomb Raider and Deathtrap Dungeon.
  • Edge issue 64, November 1998, news, p. 7: the acquisition of Crystal Dynamics and Soul Reaver.
  • PC Gamer (UK) issue 63, December 1998: Eidos advertisement for Thief: The Dark Project (© Looking Glass Studios; Eidos Interactive). PC Zone issue 97, Christmas 2000: Hitman: Codename 47 advertisement (“Developed by IO-Interactive … Published by Eidos Interactive”). PC Zone issues 95 and 96, November and December 2000: ELSPA charts listing Deus Ex (Ion Storm, Eidos).
  • GameSpot, “Ion Storm closes its doors”, February 2005 (web, secondary): https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ion-storm-closes-its-doors/1100-6118364/ ; Game Developer, “Eidos Acquires IO Interactive”, March 2004 (web, secondary): https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/eidos-acquires-io-interactive
  • Edge issue 150, June 2005, column: “beleaguered Tomb Raider publisher Eidos”, the Elevation Partners bid and SCi’s rival bid. Edge issue 174, April 2007: Elevation Partners “lost out to Britain’s SCi in its bid to acquire Eidos”. Wikipedia, “Eidos Interactive” (web, secondary), for the completion of SCi’s takeover on 16 May 2005: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidos_Interactive
  • Edge issue 213, April 2010, feature on game companies and the stock market: Livingstone on the 1995 flotation, CentreGold, Tomb Raider in November 1996, “over seven million copies” and “Cool Britannia”; Eidos “snapped up by Square Enix at what seemed like a bargain price”.
  • Square Enix Holdings, corporate history (web): Eidos acquired in April 2009. https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/company/history.html ; Kotaku, “Goodbye Eidos, Hello Square Enix Europe”, 8 July 2009 (web, secondary): https://kotaku.com/goodbye-eidos-hello-square-enix-europe-5310196
  • Edge issue 232, October 2011: review of Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Square Enix, Eidos Montreal). Wireframe issue 63, May 2022, p. 20: the sale of Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal and others to Embracer Group for $300 million. Embracer Group, “Embracer Group enters into an agreement to acquire Eidos, Crystal Dynamics, and Square Enix Montréal amongst other assets”, May 2022 (web): https://www.embracer.com/releases/embracer-group-enters-into-an-agreement-to-acquire-eidos-crystal-dynamics-and-square-enix-montreal-amongst-other-assets/

See also

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