Founder Nasir Gebelli Ceased operations 1984 | Founded 1980 | |
Sirius Software was a video game publisher of Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64 and Commodore VIC-20 computer games in the early 1980s. Sirius also developed games for the Atari 2600 which were published by 20th Century Fox Video Games.
History
The company was founded in the early 1980s by Jerry Jewell and Terry Bradley. It gained attention for its dramatically quick rise to prominence and its equally quick collapse in 1984 after 20th Century Fox (Fox Video Games) failed to pay over USD$18 Million in owed royalties. Sirius Software designed and marketed more than 160 computer video games, software products and hardware devices worldwide. Jewell was profiled by author Steven Levy in his book Hackers.
Sirius' quick rise was due in part to a chain of hits by programmer Nasir Gebelli. Gebelli's breakthrough game was Gorgon, which brought the gameplay of the arcade's Defender to the Apple II. His creativity and Jewell's sales and marketing skills combined to create in a single year a multimillion-dollar enterprise operating out of a rented apartment. By June 1982 the game had sold 23,000 copies, making it one of the best-selling computer games at the time. By early 1984 InfoWorld estimated that Sirius was the world's 15th-largest microcomputer-software company, with $11 million in 1983 sales.
Sirius also published a line of graphical adventure games in an attempt to compete with Sierra On-Line, but without much success. Most of the company's games were launched on the Apple II line of computers, but they also released some titles for other platforms, notably the Atari 8-bit family and Commodore 64.
The Smithsonian Museum produced a "living history" video of Jewell's role in the early personal computer industry.