In 1992 Kompart U.K. Ltd was a small mail-order firm at 25 Hart Road, St Albans, selling games to Amstrad CPC owners, including every cartridge for Amstrad’s new CPC Plus machines at £27.99. Three years later its name was on the boxes of some of the most talked-about games on the Amiga, made in Germany, Austria and Croatia. Kompart sat between those developers and British shops, and when the Amiga trade collapsed it went with it.
Fast facts
- Base: St Albans, Hertfordshire: 25 Hart Road in 1992, later Guildford House, 20 Guildford Road.
- People: Duncan Lothian (spelt Lowthian by Amiga Format), who handled its sales and publicity; Richard Holmes, founder of the Black Legend label.
- Developers handled: Blue Byte (Germany), Max Design (Austria), Croteam (Croatia), Arcane (Britain), and others from across Europe.
- Games: Battle Isle 2, The Settlers, Burntime, Naughty Ones, Football Glory, Embryo, Tactical Manager, Turbo Trax, and the A1200 version of Civilization.
- Prices: from £20 to £39.99 in Amiga Power’s listings, most often £26 to £35.
- End: voluntary liquidation, reported in April 1996.
A mail-order firm finds a German partner
The earliest trace of the company is that Amstrad Action advertisement of March 1992. The same year Amiga Format listed “Play Byte/Kompart UK” at the same Hart Road address. Play Byte was a label of the German developer Blue Byte, and by August 1993 Amiga Format was describing Kompart UK as the company that “act as a distributor for quality German software house Blue Byte”. It had picked up other games too: when the publisher DMI closed that summer, its Nippon Safes Inc. and Woody’s World were to “live on” through Kompart.
Blue Byte brought Kompart its strategy games. Amiga Power previewed Battle Isle 2 in December 1993 with the credit “Publisher: Kompart. Authors: Blue Byte”. The Settlers, Blue Byte’s game of roads, carriers and slowly growing economies, was in Amiga Format’s top ten in spring 1994 as “The Settlers (Kompart)”, and Edge still credited it to “Kompart/Blue Byte” when it looked back in 1999.
Kompart’s catalogue was broader than that. Duncan Lothian’s stand at the autumn 1993 trade show, The One reported, had “Aircraft Company Simulator, Civilization (for the A1200), a platformer called Fatman”, and more. Amiga Power reviewed the A1200 Civilisation in February 1994 under Kompart’s name. From Max Design, a studio in Schladming, Austria, came Burntime, a game of survival in a ruined world, which Amiga Power listed at £30 in August 1994. Naughty Ones, a platform game, was credited to Melon Dezign and Interactivision.
Black Legend and Croteam
In October 1993 Amiga Format introduced Black Legend, “a new kind of software house” set up by Richard Holmes, who had lived most of his life in Switzerland. It was less a developer than “a vehicle which enables programmers to get their software published and distributed without having vast sums of money behind them”, with contacts in ten European countries “from Russia to Scandinavia”. Its first games included Fatman, a platformer from Poland. Kompart would act as its sales and marketing representative. “Black Legend approached us and asked us to sell their products,” Lothian said. “Our role is to represent the commercial face of Black Legend.”
By the following summer Amiga Format was calling Black Legend “Kompart’s publishing arm”. Its best-known developers, Amiga Action said, were “without a doubt Croteam”, a team in Zagreb working on through the war in Croatia; Holmes told the magazine that hardware was so hard to get there that the programmers had to “get the very best from what they have”. Croteam’s Football Glory was the label’s hit. Amiga Format gave it 80%, and in February 1995 it was number six in the magazine’s chart. It also looked a lot like Sensible Soccer. The One reported in December 1994 that Sensible Software’s Jon Hare had said “it’s trying to trade on our success. We’ve got a problem with it”, and that Lothian had replied that the fuss was proof “Football Glory is frightening the opposition”. Edge in 1995 counted Croteam as one of two East European teams working for Kompart, the other being Warsaw’s Union Interactive.
Losing Blue Byte, and the end
Early in 1995 Blue Byte began publishing for itself in Britain; by February The One was listing The Settlers under Blue Byte’s own name. Kompart carried on with its other games, among them Black Legend’s Tactical Manager and Wheelspin and Arcane’s racing game Turbo Trax. In October 1995 The One described Black Legend’s latest two games as a test of “if there is still a market for Amiga games”, each eighteen months in development and “the subject of very large financial investment”.
It was not enough. In April 1996 Amiga Computing reported that Kompart, “publisher of Football Glory and Tactical Manager”, had “fallen into voluntary liquidation”, in the same round-up that recorded the Silica retailer’s owner seeking an Administration Order and the publisher Rasputin disappearing. CU Amiga blamed the loss of the Blue Byte label “early last year”, which “appears to have done more damage in the long run than they realised”, and credited Kompart with being “extremely important to the Amiga’s game scene over the past year”. By November Amiga Format was telling a reader who could not get through on the phone that “Kompart are no longer in business”.
The developers outlived it. Max Design went on to make Anno 1602 with Sunflowers, listed by PC Player in November 1997, and Blue Byte kept The Settlers going on the PC.
Sources
- Amstrad Action issue 78, March 1992: Kompart U.K. Ltd mail-order advertisement, 25 Hart Road, St Albans (“Amstrad cartridges all £27.99”).
- Retro Gamer issue 46, 2008: “mail order company Kompart UK” and its April 1992 Amstrad Action advertisement.
- Amiga Format Special issue 1, 1992: directory entry, “Play Byte/Kompart UK”, 25 Hart Road, St Albans.
- Amiga Format issue 49, August 1993, news: Kompart UK as distributor for Blue Byte; DMI’s games.
- Amiga Format issue 51, October 1993: feature on Black Legend and Richard Holmes; Kompart as its sales and marketing representatives; Duncan Lowthian’s comments.
- The One issue 61, October 1993: trade-show report, Duncan Lothian’s stand.
- Amiga Power issue 32, December 1993: Battle Isle 2 preview (Publisher: Kompart, Authors: Blue Byte). Issue 34, February 1994: Civilisation (A1200) review, Publisher Kompart, £39.99. Issue 35, March 1994: Naughty Ones preview (Melon Dezign and Interactivision). Issue 40, August 1994: Burntime (Max Design, £30).
- Amiga Format issue 58, April 1994, and issue 59, May 1994: charts, “The Settlers (Kompart)”. Issue 68, February 1995: chart, Football Glory at number six, with its 80% review score. Issue 61, July 1994, news: “Kompart’s publishing arm Black Legend”.
- The One issue 75, December 1994, news: the Football Glory row, with Jon Hare’s and Duncan Lothian’s words.
- Amiga Action issue 71, June 1995: Croteam, Football Glory and Evil’s Doom; Richard Holmes on equipment in Croatia.
- Edge issue 20, May 1995: European developers survey, Black Legend in Zagreb and Union Interactive in Warsaw.
- The One issue 77, February 1995: The Settlers, publisher Blue Byte. Issue 85, October 1995: Black Legend’s Wheelspin and Citadel.
- Amiga Computing issue 98, April 1996; CU Amiga, April 1996; Amiga Format issue 90, November 1996: Kompart’s liquidation and closure.
- Edge issue 69, March 1999: The Settlers (1993, Kompart/Blue Byte).
- PC Player (Germany), June 1993: Max Design’s address in Schladming, Austria. November 1997: Anno 1602, Max Design/Sunflowers.