Gremlin Interactive

Gremlin Interactive

Gremlin Interactive's logo from 1994 to 1999
Industry	Video games
Fate	Absorbed into Infogrames, later picked up by Urbanscan Ltd. (Ian Stewart's new company)
Successor	Infogrames
Founded	1984
Founder	Ian Stewart
Defunct	1999
Headquarters	Sheffield, United Kingdom
Key people	Patrick Phelan (software manager)
Products	Wanted: Monty Mole, Thing on a Spring, Premier Manager, Actua Soccer, Normality
Website	Wayback Archive

Gremlin Interactive (originally Gremlin Graphics) was a British software house based in Sheffield and working mostly in the home computer market. Like many software houses established in the 1980s, their primary market was the 8-bit range of computers such as the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX, Commodore 16 and Commodore 64.

The company, originally a computer store called Just Micro, was established as a software house in 1984 with the name Gremlin Graphics Software Ltd by Ian Stewart & Kevin Norburn. Gremlin's early success was based on games such as Wanted: Monty Mole for the ZX Spectrum and Thing on a Spring for the Commodore 64.

In 1994, it was renamed as Gremlin Interactive, now concentrating on the 16-bit, PC and console market. Gremlin enjoyed major success with the Zool and Premier Manager series in the early 1990s, and then with Actua Soccer, the first football game in full 3D; other successful games included the Lotus racing series; a futuristic racing game, Motorhead; a stunt car racing game, Fatal Racing (1995); and the 1998 flight simulator Hardwar. Following EA's success with the EA Sports brand, Gremlin also released their own sports videogame series, adding Golf, Tennis and Ice Hockey to their Actua Sports series. During this time, they used a motif from the Siegfried Funeral March from Götterdämmerung as introductory music.