U.S. Gold
British video game publisher
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
U.S. Gold Limited was a British video game publisher based in Witton, Birmingham, England. The company was founded in 1984[1] by Anne and Geoff Brown[2] in parallel to their distributor firm, CentreSoft, both of which became part of Woodward Brown Holdings (later renamed CentreGold).
 | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 1984[1][2] |
| Founder | Anne and Geoff Brown[2] |
| Defunct | April 1996 |
| Fate | Closed |
| Headquarters | , England |
| Parent |
|
U.S. Gold started life as a UK distributor and manufacturer for existing games licensed from the US market,[1][3] but soon moved towards publishing original titles.
History
Early history
U.S. Gold was founded in 1984. It initially functioned as a UK manufacturer and distributor for existing games licensed from US publishers (such as Cosmi, Microprose and Synsoft/Synapse)[1][3] that had, until then, only been available on import.
Following negotiations, U.S. Gold were able to sell these games for £10 on the British market, rather than the £30 or so they initially sold for in the United States.[1] Some titles were also converted to run on formats more popular in the UK (e.g. Tapper, which was converted for- amongst others- the ZX Spectrum via Ocean/Platinum Productions[4] and the BBC Micro by Micro Power).[5]
Increasing success
By 1985, U.S. Gold projected a turnover of US$6 million for their first fiscal year, and expected to release further 150 games in the year to come.[1] The company increasingly moved towards being a publisher of original titles in their own right.
In 1987, they launched GO! label with Trantor: The Last Stormtrooper being the first game released under the label.[6] In 1988, U.S. Gold received the Golden Joystick Award for "Software House of the Year".[7] The company also operated the budget range label Kixx.[8]
In 1988, the company struck a deal with Japanese company Capcom to port their arcade video games for home computers in Europe. They paid £2 million or $3,557,642 (equivalent to $9,700,000 in 2025) for a ten-game deal with Capcom. The first four games they announced as part of the deal were ports of the 1987 arcade games Street Fighter, Tiger Road, 1943: The Battle of Midway and Black Tiger for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST and Amiga platforms.[9] Their first five Capcom releases sold over 250,000 copies in the UK by 1989, with their best-selling Capcom release up until then being Bionic Commando with over 70,000 UK sales. Their next Capcom release was Forgotten Worlds in 1989.[10]
Sale and closure
In April 1996, Eidos Interactive acquired the entire CentreGold umbrella (including U.S. Gold) for £17.6 million;[11][12] as a result of this, U.S. Gold and CentreSoft ceased all operations.