was a highly professional operation. The management understood that sourcing games was relatively easy while marketing and distribution was the hard part. Emphasis was set on creating a brand image, establishing distributor chains, persuading the larger high street stores to stock the product and ensuring a fast turn-round from the tape duplicators and the printers so that fresh supplies of successful games could be produced quickly. Much of the early output was supplied by just two producers: the Darling brothers, who formed Codemasters as soon as they could break their contract with the company, and Mr. Chip Software who continued to write games for Mastertronic for some time. Mastertronic never employed in-house programmers to write games. Everything that was published had been produced either by other software houses or by freelance authors. This was an ideal approach for the fast output of many diverse games. At this time thousands of bedroom programmers were trying to get rich quickly by writing games. While this was not so good for creating a consistent throughput of a series or for developing highly complex games, one huge advantage was that it kept overheads low and outsourced the risks of software development to others. Mastertronic did employ specialists to review and test games, to encourage and assist authors and to provide technical expertise. As well as permanent staff temporary assistance came from several game authors, including Nigel Johnstone, Richard Aplin, Mike Harrison, Jeremy Burrell, Stephen N Curtis and Tony Takoushi. One of Mastertronic's key markets was the Commodore 64. Composer Rob Hubbard produced music for the company's C64 range such as One Man and His Droid, Hunter Patrol, Spellbound, Action Biker, Phantom of the Asteroid, and Master of Magic. These are still regarded by many enthusiasts as classics and having music of this quality on budget-priced games greatly enhanced Mastertronic's reputation. References External links A History of Mastertronic by Anthony Guter Interview with Anthony Guter of Mastertronic Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom Defunct companies of England British companies established in 1983 Video game companies established in 1983 Video game companies disestablished in 1991 1983 establishments in England 1991 disestablishments in England Sega divisions and subsidiaries Virgin Group