GameTek

Origins

I.J.E. was initially established in 1977 by Jerry Weiner and Irwin H. Schwartz of Disneyland Records under the name I.J.E. Distributing, Inc. to distribute pre-recorded children's entertainment products under the trade name "Kid Stuff." From 1977 to 1985 I.J.E. and its affiliated acquired a number of licenses to develop entertainment products based upon certain television shows, sports entities and name brand children's products.

Expansion into video gaming

In 1983, the company entered the video game business, when I.J.E. founded a video game company The Great Game Company, to adapt television game shows for the home video game market, with the first seven games being Family Feud, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, The Price Is Right, Password, The Joker's Wild and Tic-Tac-Dough, with an eighth, The $25,000 Pyramid being added later on. The video game label eventually collapsed before releasing any games due to the 1983 video game crash.

I.J.E.'s original founder Irwin H. Schwartz sold I.J.E. to an unaffiliated third party in 1985 and then formed Gabco, Inc. in 1987 to reacquire I.J.E. GameTek was founded as a result to exploit these licenses in the software market.

Originally, I.J.E. licensed these titles to ShareData of Chandler, Arizona for major game show titles like Wheel of Fortune, Classic Concentration and Jeopardy! and Box Office of St. Paul, Minnesota for lesser-known titles like The $100,000 Pyramid and High Rollers; however, when I.J.E. saw ShareData's success with the titles, I.J.E. decided to publish the titles themselves, resulting in the founding of GameTek.

The company was award a Nintendo license in late 1987, and granted the license to five titles Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, Hollywood Squares, The Price Is Right and Password. In 1988, when it was clear that the company was delaying its game show titles, the company introduced the KidTek label, was used for Milton Bradley Company game licenses and acquiring the rights to the game show Double Dare. The company then acquired the rights to Fisher-Price titles to go beyond its game show licenses.

Further expansion

After establishing distribution for the game show titles, GameTek expanded by licensing European titles for the North American market, including Frontier: Elite II and The Humans. In 1991, it attempted to launch the InfoGenius Systems franchise for the Game Boy. The company expanded into the UK market in 1993. Also in 1993, the company entered into a publishing partnership with Konami, in order that GameTek handled distribution of Konami's PC titles.

In October 1993 the company changed its name to GameTek (FL), Inc. and Gabco, Inc. became GameTek, Inc. In 1994, the company launched a new label, Cybersoft, used to circumvent game limits on Nintendo publishing. In July 1994, the company partnered with upstart Take-Two Interactive Software to publish five titles worldwide. The company then regrouped its development studios in London and Miami into Alternative Reality Technologies. In February 1995, after the success, the company acquired a stake in Take-Two Interactive Software, aligning it with its in-house Alternative Reality Technologies.

On March 9, 1995, the company acquired Imagexcel and reformed the Canadian studio as a unit of its in-house development studio Alternative Reality Technologies. Kevin Hoare, Ed Zolnieryk, Greg Bick, and Ray Larabie, both Imagexcel members formed the core of GameTek's Canadian development operations. After the acquisition, the former Imagexcel studio was also referred to as GameTek Canada. In 1995, the company, through Alternative Reality Technologies, made a deal to purchase game developer Malibu Interactive from Malibu Comics and renamed to Padded Cell Studios.