Gaming Ads: Empire Interactive and Enix America

U.K.-based Empire Interactive Europe was founded in 1987 as Empire Software while the Empire Interactive publishing brand was created in 1989. The company did develop some games at in the U.K. but primarily published games via numerous offices based throughout Europe and North America. Empire also acquired a few developers, most notably Cunning Developments (Pro Pinball) and Razorworks (Ford Racing). In 2006 Empire was purchased by Silverstar Holdings and in 2009 the publisher went out of business. Empire did publish more than 150 games during its 22 years of business but more in Europe than North America, and I currently only have one ad.

Yasuhiro Fukushima founded Eidansha Boshu Service Center in 1975 as a publisher of real estate papers before entering the video game publishing business and changing the company name to Enix in 1982. Enix is best known for publishing the Dragon Quest games that were renamed to Dragon Warrior when released in North America. The Dragon Quest games were actually developed by Chunsoft, a developer founded as a result of a programming contest sponsored by Enix.

Enix had two publishing branches in North America during the '90s. The first was Enix America Corporation based in Redmond, WA that was in business between 1990 and 1995. In 1999 Enix America, Inc. opened in Seattle and closed in 2003 when Enix merged with developer Square to form Square Enix. Today Square Enix develops and publishes many popular game series, such as Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Tomb Raider, and Deus Ex.

Empire Interactive albums: Facebook - Google Photos

Enix America albums: Facebook - Google Photos