Gametek
Gametek were a prominent game publishing company in the late 1990s. Their most well-known games were the Elite sequels Frontier: Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters.
They published many games, including a few based on television game shows like Wheel of Fortune and Gladiators. There were a few surprise hits from the publishing house, including Humans and its sequel Humans 2, Pinball Dreams, Bureau 13 and Nomad for the PC.
They published games for many platforms, including Amiga, NES, Playstation, Game Boy and Sega systems.
The biggest Elite related issue regarding the company was the release of Frontier: First Encounters before the game had been completed. Frontier Developments, at the time working for Gametek, had missed several deadlines for the game, and Gametek foced them to release the game in its current state in Easter 1995. The resulting bugs and issues with gameplay resulted in an outcry from the gaming public and in part contributed to Frontier Developments' decision to file a law suit against Gametek. This was settled in 1999 with a substantial out of court settlement awarded in Frontier Developments' favour. It is probably that this law suit was the deciding factor in Gametek's collapse, since the company folded before the settlement was reached.
Gametek filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1997 in order to try and alleviate internal debts, but the company still could not remain solvent and finally closed down in July 1998. Much of their intellectual property was awarded to Take Two Interactive games, allowing some of the software to be released on a budget label.
