Accolade

Accolade was an American video game developer and publisher of the 1980s and 1990s. Headquartered in San Jose, California, it was founded in 1984 by game industry veterans Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead. Miller and Whitehead founded Accolade after leaving another game developer and publisher they had founded, Activision, the world's first third-party game developer.

Early years
According to legend, Miller and Whitehead named their company "Accolade" because it came before "Activision" alphabetically—implying that Accolade was superior to their previous company. Apparently when forming Activision, they chose that name because it came before "Atari". Later, a new game development company, Acclaim, another company formed from ex-Activision employees, apparently formulated their name because it came before "Accolade." Absolute Entertainment, again, a third company formed from ex-Activision people, ended up being first with the 'first in the alphabet' race.

Accolade developed for most 1980s-era home computers, including the Commodore 64, Atari 400 & 800, the Amiga, Apple II and the PC. Most of their employees were ex-Activision programmers and producers, therefore their technical prowess came with it. Accolade quickly became known for developing only top-notch games. Some of their first titles include Law of the West, Psi-5 Trading Company, The Dam Busters, Mean 18 Golf, Test Drive, and HardBall!. Test Drive and HardBall! went on to become two of Accolade's longest-running franchises.

As the popularity of other systems waned, Accolade focused on PC and console development, including the NES, Mega Drive/Genesis, SNES and PlayStation during those systems' popularity.

All of Accolade's initial titles were developed in-house. But being a publisher as well as a developer, Accolade began to publish titles produced by other developers as well. By the mid-1990s, most of Accolade software development was done by third-party developers.

In October 1991, Accolade was served with a lawsuit regarding copyright infringement, that eventually led to the concept of reverse engineering for interoperability purposes. Sega wanted to keep a hold on their consoles, and wanted all its games exclusive to Sega. Unwilling to conform to single platform use, Accolade engineers researched through reverse engineering on a way to produce titles for the Sega platform. Sega sued Accolade over the practice and won an initial injunction, forcing Accolade to remove all Genesis product from store shelves. Accolade, however, won on appeal and reached an out of court settlement with Sega that allowed Accolade to continue building their own Genesis cartridges but as an official licensee.

Demise
The company had marginal successes during the early 1990s. Bubsy for the Mega Drive/Genesis and Super Nintendo sold well and was the company's best-selling game until Test Drive 4 came out in 1997. Star Control 2 for the PC (1992, DOS) is still very well regarded and was one of the highest rated games of its time.

However, beginning in the mid-1990s, Accolade started publishing a variety of games of differing genres which were undistinguished and lacked polish.

During a conference of management and producers, Accolade decided to focus only on sports and action games. Accolade already had several franchises based in these categories. Franchises in the sports genre included HardBall!, Unnecessary Roughness and Jack Nicklaus Golf. In the broad "action" category they had the long-running franchise Test Drive.

Alan Miller left Accolade in 1995; Bob Whitehead had left shortly after the founding of the company. Before Miller left, the position of CEO was taken over by Peter Harris who was placed there by Prudential Investments (Prudential had made a USD$10 million investment in the company). Harris was on the board of directors and was formerly the CEO of FAO Schwartz and after Accolade, became the president of the San Francisco 49ers. Harris left the fate of the company in the hands of game industry neophyte, Jim Barnett. Under Barnett's direction, the company relaunched the successful Test Drive series, began the Test Drive Offroad series and introduced both series to the PlayStation platform.

Accolade did well in its early years, but by the 1990s, Accolade's sales suffered and management was forced to enact several rounds of lay-offs. Under Barnett's direction, Accolade was rebuilt around action games and published Test Drive 4, 5 and 6 as well as Test Drive Offroad, all of which sold millions of units and become part of Sony's greatest hits program. Accolade was eventually purchased by French publisher Infogrames in 1999, right after publishing their last game Redline. Accolade was the entry point for Infogrames' North America expansion and was merged with Infogrames' other operations and moved to Los Angeles. All of Accolade's assets are now owned by Atari, SA (née Infogrames). Many employees from the time of the acquisition still work for Atari.

Accolade was located in Silicon Valley (California) at:
 * 5300 Stevens Creek Blvd.
 * Suite 500
 * San Jose, California 95129
 * 37.32237°N, -121.99698°W

Games
Accolade was responsible for developing many influential games. Some of the best known and best-selling series include Star Control, Test Drive, Jack Nicklaus Golf, HardBall and Bubsy.


 * 4th & Inches 1987
 * 4th & Inches Team Construction Disk 1988
 * Accolade Comics  1987
 * Accolade In Action  1990
 * Ace of Aces 1986
 * Altered Destiny 1990
 * Anatomic Man 1988
 * Apollo 18: Mission To The Moon 1987
 * Ballz 1994
 * Bar Games 1989
 * Barkley Shut Up and Jam! 1994
 * Battle Isle 2 (PC) 1993
 * Big Air (PlayStation) 1998
 * Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure 1991
 * Blue Angels: Formation Flight Simulation 1989
 * Brett Hull Hockey 95 1994
 * Bubble Ghost 1987
 * Bubsy 3D: Furbitten Planet 1996
 * Bubsy II 1994
 * Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind 1993
 * Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales 1994
 * Card Sharks 1987
 * The Cardinal of the Kremlin 1990
 * Combat Cars (Sega Genesis) 1994
 * Cyclemania (PC) 1994
 * The Cycles: International Grand Prix Racing 1989
 * The Dam Busters 1984
 * Day of the Viper 1989
 * Deadlock: Planetary Conquest (PC) 1996
 * Deadlock II: Shrine Wars (PC) 1998
 * Don't Go Alone 1989
 * Double Dragon (Mega Drive/Genesis) 1992
 * The Duel: Test Drive II 1989
 * Elvira: Mistress of the Dark 1990
 * Elvira II: The Jaws of Cerberus 1991
 * Eradicator (PC) 1996
 * Fast Break 1988
 * Fight Night 1985
 * Fireteam Rogue unreleased
 * The Game of Harmony 1990
 * The Games: Summer Challenge 1991
 * The Games: Winter Challenge 1992
 * Grand Prix Circuit (game) 1988
 * Grand Prix Unlimited 1992
 * Gunboat 1990
 * Hardball! 1985
 * Hardball II 1989
 * Hardball III 1992
 * HardBall 4 1994
 * HardBall 5 1995
 * HardBall 6 1998
 * HardBall 6 - 2000 Edition 1999
 * Heat Wave 1989
 * Hoverforce 1990
 * Ishido: The Way of Stones 1990
 * Jack Nicklaus 4 1997
 * Jack Nicklaus 5 1998
 * Jack Nicklaus Golf & Course Design: Signature Edition 1992
 * Jack Nicklaus' Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf 1988
 * Jack Nicklaus' Unlimited Golf & Course Design 1990
 * Killed Until Dead 1986
 * Law of the West 1985
 * Les Manley in: Lost in L.A. 1992
 * Les Manley in: Search for the King 1990
 * Mean 18 1986
 * Mike Ditka Power Football 1991
 * Mini-Putt 1987
 * Pelé II: World Tournament Soccer 1994
 * PO'ed 1995
 * Power at Sea 1987
 * Powerboat 1990
 * Pro Sport Challenge 1991
 * Project: Space Station 1985
 * Psi-5 Trading Company 1986
 * Rack 'Em 1988
 * Redline 1999
 * Road & Car 1991
 * Serve & Volley 1988
 * Slave Zero (PC, Dreamcast) 1999
 * Snoopy's Game Club 1992
 * Speed Racer
 * Speed Racer in The Challenge of Racer X
 * Star Control 1990
 * Star Control II 1992
 * Star Control 1 & 2 CD Compendium
 * Star Control 3 1996
 * Star Control Collection
 * Steel Thunder 1988
 * Stratego 1991
 * Strike Aces 1990
 * SunDog: Frozen Legacy
 * Super Bubsy
 * Test Drive 1987
 * Test Drive II: The Duel 1989
 * Test Drive II Car Disk: Musclecars 1989
 * Test Drive II Car Disk: The Supercars 1989
 * Test Drive II Scenery Disk: California Challenge 1990
 * Test Drive II Scenery Disk: European Challenge 1990
 * Test Drive II: The Collection 1991
 * Test Drive III: The Passion 1992
 * Test Drive 4 (PlayStation, PC)
 * Test Drive 5 (PlayStation, PC)
 * Test Drive 6 (PlayStation, PC)
 * Test Drive: Off-Road
 * Test Drive: Off-Road 2
 * Test Drive: Off-Road 3
 * The Third Courier 1990
 * TKO 1988
 * The Train: Escape to Normandy 1987
 * Turrican (Mega Drive/Genesis, TG-16, Game Boy) 1991
 * Universal Soldier (Mega Drive/Genesis, Game Boy) 1992
 * Unnecessary Roughness
 * Unnecessary Roughness '95 (PC, Mega Drive/Genesis)
 * Unnecessary Roughness '96 (PC)
 * Waxworks (Amiga, DOS) 1993
 * Warp Speed (Mega Drive/Genesis)
 * Winter Challenge
 * Zero Tolerance (Mega Drive/Genesis)
 * Zyconix 1992