COMPUTER-GAMES FIRM MOVING TO CALIFORNIA
BOSTON GLOBE (BG) - MONDAY May 22, 1989
By: Ronald Rosenberg, Globe Staff
Edition: THIRD Section: BUSINESS Page: 8
Word Count: 400
TEXT:
*Infocom* Inc., which pioneered the personal computer software
text-adventure genre with such fantasy games as Zork, Wishbringer and
Leather Goddess of Phobos, is closing its doors in Cambridge and moving to
Menlo Park, Calif., next month.
That's headquarters for Mediagenic, formerly Activision Inc., which
puchased *Infocom* three years ago for close to $9 million. The relocation
is a cost-saving measure, since *Infocom* has been losing an average of
$200,000 per fiscal quarter for the past two years, according to Laura L.
Stagnitto, Mediagenic's director of corporate communications.
She said 11 of the remaining 26 Infocom employees were offered a chance
to move to California, but only five have accepted, including Joseph
Ybarra, president. He will become vice president of Mediagenic's
entertainment division. Robert Sears will continue as general manager of
Infocom in Menlo Park.
Infocom is best known as the developer of the thinking person's computer
games -- a niche that reached its peak in 1985 when Infocom had revenues of
$11.5 million and employed 110 people.
But a combination of internal problems, including an expensive failure
to diversify into the business market with a database product called
Cornerstone, plus new consumer preference for games with graphics and
sound, severely hurt Infocom.
Moreover, fast-paced action games for Nintendo video-game machines that
continue to appeal to a young audience have affected personal computer
entertainment software sales. Stagnitto of Mediagenic said that while its
total sales rose largely from video-game software sold to owners of
Nintendo and Sega game systems, personal computer game sales for the Apple
and IBM machines have declined.
Another factor for Infocom's declining fortunes is the aging of
Infocom's traditional audience, composed of early computer users who spent
evenings and weekends hunched over a terminal drawing maps in text-only
games that took 20 to 50 hours to solve.
"Computers are a mass-merchandising market and we found it difficult to
interest consumers in products that did not capture their attention
immediately through superficial characteristics, such as fancy graphics,"
said Joel Berez, Infocom's founder and former president. Berez resigned
last summer to return to his family's 70-year-old housewares business in
Pittsburgh.
Mediagenic said it will continue to publish some of Infocom's titles,
notably the Zork series, which has sold more than 1 million copies, along
with newer software that uses computer graphics.
