Gaming Ads: Virgin Games/Interactive

Virgin Group Ltd. is a British company founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in 1970, and Virgin Games was established in 1983. It began as a developer and publisher of computer games, and expanded quite a bit in 1987 after acquiring Mastertronic, a budget publisher that was also a distributor of the Sega Master System in the U.K. Virgin Mastertronic was formed and from there increased its distribution agreement with Sega into parts of mainland Europe, and also distributed the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis). In 1993 the company became Virgin Interactive Entertainment, though the Virgin Games name was still used for some of its development studios.

Following a management buyout in 1998, Virgin Interactive broke away from Virgin Group and was dismantled. Its U.S. operations were sold to Electronic Arts and the French company Titus Software purchased the company's assets in 1999. For the most part that was the end of Virgin Games, however, there was a Virgin brand in Spain until 2009. Most of the ads do say Virgin Games but some say Virgin Interactive or Virgin Mastertronic. Also, there is some overlap with Westwood Studios which I'll be posting next week. It's difficult to say which company is responsible for some of those ads so I've got a few here and a few under Westwood.

More ads can be found at Facebook: Virgin Games/Interactive