Big Red Software was incorporated on 16 October 1989[1] by Paul Ranson,[2] and was based in Leamington Spa, England.[3][4] In their early years, they focused on the 8-bit home computer game market, especially for ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. During this time, they formed a close relationship with Codemasters, who published many of their games.[2] This relationship was sufficiently close that Codemasters turned to them to develop the next Dizzy game after the series' creators, the Oliver Twins, moved onto other projects.[5] The resulting game, Magicland Dizzy, was a critical and commercial success. When Retro Gamer released a special retrospective edition of Your Sinclair in 2004, they rated it the 12th best game for ZX Spectrum of all time.[6] Other games released in collaboration with Codemasters include further Dizzy games, the Seymour series, and the PC port of Micro Machines.[2]
In the mid-1990s, as the industry moved away from the older 8-bit computers, Big Red Software started developing games such as Tank Commander and Big Red Racing for MS-DOS, with both these titles being published by Domark. On 25 September 1995, publicly traded Eidos Public Limited Company acquired Domark and Big Red Software, alongside Simis, for a total of £12.9 million.[7] The latter two were merged into Domark to create Eidos Interactive on 31 May 1996.[2][8][9]
