Guild of Software Houses | Code Like It's 198x

In the summer of 1983 a group of British software houses made their customers a set of promises: games would arrive within 28 days, tapes that did not load would be replaced, complaints would be answered within a week, and nothing would be advertised before it existed. The group called itself the Guild of Software Houses, and Computer & Video Games enjoyed the acronym: “GOSH for short!” It was the British games industry’s first attempt to police itself. The promises it chose are a fair list of what was going wrong in 1983, and over the next few years the Guild turned most of its energy on a bigger worry, piracy.

Founding

Personal Computer News broke the story in August 1983: “Unsatisfied users who buy faulty software can now air their grievances with the Guild of Software Houses”. The software houses that formed it were members of the Computer Trade Association, and its chairman was Nick Alexander, who had started Virgin Games earlier that year. “If somebody buys a cassette that doesn’t work or has some kind of other problem,” he said, “they now have someone to turn to — an organisation that has a bit of clout.”

The founding members were Bug-Byte, New Generation, Quicksilva, Salamander, Silversoft, Softek and Virgin Games. Its secretary was Mike Johnston, and its address was his: 71 Park Lane, Tottenham, the office of the ZX Microfair, the show for Sinclair users that he organised. Computer & Video Games reported that the Guild had been “founded in response to public demand for a little more discipline from the software houses”, and Commodore Computing International printed its guarantee in full.

The Customers’ Charter

Members undertook to:

Guarantee “a high technical standard of quality and reliability” and replace faulty or defective tapes free of charge.
Fill orders with the minimum of delay, publish their delivery times in their advertising, and keep to them: “In no case will deliveries exceed 28 days.”
Deal with complaints promptly; action “will normally be taken within five working days of receipt”.
“Avoid advertising products as available before this is in fact the case.”
Keep customers informed when difficulties genuinely outside their control occurred.
Keep “high standards of business integrity” and make their terms of trade available on request.

The Guild would back the guarantees and act against any member that failed to meet them. A customer was to complain to the supplier first, and then write to the Guild, which would take the matter up. A Dealers’ Charter made similar promises to shops, and a Code of Conduct governed how members treated each other, outlawing “the poaching of programs and programmers”. A member that broke them faced fines and, in the end, expulsion.

Each clause answered a familiar complaint. Mail-order buyers waited for weeks, tapes failed to load, and adverts showed games that were not finished. Five months after the charter was published, Sinclair Research, which was not a member, launched the QL by mail order on the same 28-day promise and was soon holding money for thousands of machines it could not deliver.

Piracy and the fighting fund

Within a year the Guild’s public voice was mostly about copying. In May 1984 it protested when the Ministry of Defence placed a secrecy order on an anti-copying system devised by JLC Data of Barnsley, which added a signal to a tape that interfered with attempts to copy it. Sinclair User reported that the device could be kept under wraps until 1985 while two government departments decided whether it was a risk to national security. Alexander suggested that if the system worked and the Ministry would not release it, the government should compensate the industry for the money piracy was costing it.

His figures were large, and his colleagues’ did not quite agree with them. In October 1984 he told Acorn User: “For every legitimate tape sold, 10 or 12 copies are made.” Chris Holland of Salamander put the number “nearer six”, but added that “between £100m and £150m is lost in this country alone each year”. Imagine had collapsed in July, and Alexander claimed that “50 to 60 per cent of the problem was due to copying”. He cited a raid in which Salford CID seized 10,000 counterfeit copies of Imagine games.

To pay for prosecutions, the Guild set out to raise a £50,000 fighting fund from its members, then 34 of them. Personal Computer Games reported that the money would cover “the costs of investigations and legal proceedings against the pirates”. Commodore Computing International described the Guild backing Artic Computing’s legal action against an alleged pirate in Hull. In January 1985 its general secretary, Paul Duffy, told Sinclair User that it wanted to bring a major case, at a cost of perhaps £100,000: “Even if we lose that will give us good grounds to go to MPs and say that the law does not stop piracy.” He also said the Guild was writing to local councils to warn that if school equipment was used for copying, “we will hold the school responsible and prosecute them”.

The Guild was not alone. The Federation Against Software Theft (FAST), set up in 1984, lobbied Parliament for a change in copyright law. Personal Computer Games named both bodies in September 1984 and thought FAST was “heading in the right direction”. In 1985 the two worked side by side against tape-copying hardware: GOSH’s Tim Langdell told Your Computer that his advice to anyone tempted by Evesham Micros’ Interface III, a device that dumped a Spectrum’s memory to Microdrive, was “Don’t touch”.

Counting the industry

In December 1984 GOSH gave Commodore Computing International a rough census of the trade: “more than 500 companies dotted the software map just one year ago. This year the figure is more like 350 and it’s likely to slip even further in 1985.” The British software boom is usually told by the companies that survived it. This estimate counts the ones that did not, and puts their number at around a third of the industry in a single year.

Decline

The Guild was still acting in 1986. That June Commodore User reported that GOSH had “shot down” a scheme by CRL to have children sell its games in their schools, keeping £1.95 on a £5.95 game. Its standing was falling. In March 1988 CRASH‘s editorial remarked that the British Micro Federation and the Guild of Software Houses “haven’t done much”. Two months later ACE reported that leading publishers, among them Elite, Hewson and Electronic Arts, had met in a Jersey hotel and voted for a new software publishers’ association, because “since the demise of GOSH (Guild of Software Houses) there has been no effective representative body”. The date the Guild stopped meeting does not appear in the public sources.

When Mike Johnston died in early 1991, Sinclair User remembered him as the Guild’s “first secretary”, as the magazine’s consultant editor at its launch, and for running the ZX Microfairs, which he had started himself.

Sources

Personal Computer News issue 24, 18-24 August 1983, “Software appeal”: GOSH formed by CTA members; Nick Alexander’s quote; the founders; the charter’s 28 days, five working days and advertising clause; the code of conduct; the Tottenham address. Issue 26, 7 September 1983: the CTA “spawning the Guild of Software Houses”.
Commodore Computing International, October 1983, “Omigosh!”: the full Customers’ Guarantee; secretary Mike Johnston, ZX Microfair, 71 Park Lane, London N17.
Computer & Video Games issue 25, November 1983: “GOSH for short!”; “founded in response to public demand for a little more discipline from the software houses”; the founders, the Customers’ and Dealers’ Charters and the Code of Conduct.
Computer & Video Games issue 31, May 1984, and Sinclair User issue 26, May 1984: the Ministry of Defence secrecy order on JLC Data’s anti-copying system and the Guild’s protest.
Acorn User issue 27, October 1984: Nick Alexander and Chris Holland on piracy; Imagine’s collapse; the Salford raid; the £50,000 fund and 34 members.
Personal Computer Games issue 10, September 1984 (GOSH and FAST), and issue 11, October 1984 (the £50,000 “fighting fund”).
Commodore Computing International, December 1984: Artic’s action in Hull and the fund; Viola Gienger, “Defining ’84”, with GOSH’s estimate of 500 and 350 companies and Nick Alexander as GOSH chairman.
Sinclair User issue 34, January 1985: the fighting fund, its 34 members and Paul Duffy’s quotes.
Your Computer, July 1985, “Don’t touch”, and August 1985: GOSH and FAST against Evesham Micros’ Interface III.
Commodore User, June 1986: GOSH and CRL’s school sales scheme.
CRASH issue 50, March 1988, editorial.
ACE issue 8, May 1988: the Jersey meeting and “since the demise of GOSH”.
Sinclair User issue 108, February 1991: Mike Johnston’s death and his roles. Issue 45, December 1985: ZX Microfair advertisement, “Mike Johnston (Organiser) … 71 Park Lane, London N17”.