The company is best known for popular games such as Prince of Persia, Karateka, Myst, Lode Runner, and the educational Carmen Sandiego franchise. The company also licensed certain series overseas, allowing its games to appear on systems such as the British ZX Spectrum and Japanese MSX. The company’s name comes from the Afrikaans word 'Broederbond,' loosely translated as 'association of brothers.' In order to distance themselves from a South African white supremacist group that shared the same name, the Carlstons altered the spelling and added the Scandinavian letter Ø, which also represents the slashed zero found in computer codes.īrøderbund’s popularity stemmed from its wide range of products, as well as the fact that it released games for nearly every home computer system in America. Their sister, Cathy Carlston, joined the venture a year later.

Brothers Doug and Gary Carlston founded the company in 1980, in order to market Doug’s strategy game, Galactic Empire. In 1986, it was the 9th-largest United States computer software company, and by 1997, the company had annual revenues of $190 million.īrøderbund began as a truly family affair. became one of the leading producers and distributors of home computer video games and electronic software. In the 1980s and 1990s, Brøderbund Software, Inc.

Prince of percia 1991