The Story of Mastertronic and Arcadia: Masters of Budget Games | Kim Justice

Mastertronic became one of the biggest UK studios in the 1980's by releasing quality 8-bit budget titles on a large scale -- other companies hated them for it, but they all had to follow them. This video covers that success, but also their failings, including the Arcadia Select System -- an attempt to put Amiga titles on the arcade floor. Enjoy!
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Have a look at these blinding resources:
The Mastertronic Collectors Archive - www.mastertronic.co.uk/
Games That Weren't - www.gamesthatwerent.com/
0:00 Introduction
1:53 How Mastertronic Dominated the Micro Budget Market
12:16 1987: When Mastertronic Expanded Too Much
16:51 The Arcadia Select System: Why It Failed
22:55 Mastertronic Makes a Deal with Sega
26:00 Looking at the Arcadia Games
27:26 Aaargh!
29:20 Blastaball
30:40 Delta Command
32:24 Leaderboard Golf
33:55 Magic Johnson's Fast Break
35:24 Ninja Mission
36:59 Pharaohs Match
37:55 Roadwars
39:31 Sidewinder
41:03 Space Ranger
42:21 Sporttime Bowling / Sporttime Table Hockey
43:50 Spot!
45:07 World Darts
46:26 World Trophy Soccer
48:14 Xenon
49:30 Unreleased Games (Rockford, Living Daylights, Pool, Mr. Do Run '90 etc.)
#kimjustice #retrogaming #80sgames #arcadegames #zxspectrum #c64 #amiga

[@Kim_Justice]

What are your memories of the almighty Mastertronic? Any particular highlights or lowlights? Did you ever play any of these Arcadia titles? Have a shout in the comments, and thanks for watching!

[@jamesburchill7522]

None. I'm a Yank.

[@v4lgrind]

I remember buying two games from them, and then swearing off paying for games.

[@spunkychops7484]

Top or bottom?

[@chrishill7797]

Ooh, so many memories…Kane sticks out

[@alyndavies]

Ghostbusters on the Spectrum. Their games were pretty much hit and miss from memory.

[@simonplumbe3593]

Thanks for the shout-out! Mastervision has been an absolute nightmare to track down and collect - we know there are at least 60 in the range but identifying the last 40 has been tough. It's costing me a small fortune now to get them! The common tapes haven't been too bad, but I've spent as much as £90 on the rarer ones! Mastersound is just as bad. We know there were only 9 titles, but we don't know how many made it to vinyl. I've only got one of each but I've not even seen a photo of any other vinyl releases apart from Heat Of Soul. At least I've seen about 5 cassettes! Great video though - really enjoyed it!

[@SalientBen]

As an incredibly indecisive council estate kid, mastertronic are responsible for many hours of deliberation for me, i bloody loved them.

[@katieblackmore2004]

The artwork of the games back then were like nothing else..... Absolutely loved them

[@billybollockhead5628]

Mastertronic were “spectrum games at end of aisle in tesco” for me. As such were basically cheap present fodder. If I had to choose a game for friends birthday, mum would take me to shopping at get me to pick out a good game, make me think it was for me (so i didn’t pick out a crap one for my cousin, etc), then she’d put it in cart, and wrap as a present… I fell for it each time… thinking “today really is the day I’d get a game as reward for going shopping with my mum).

[@ststriker]

Basically the gaming equivalent of Charlie Brown kicking the football.

[@jasonrockley3724]

For me they were at a local market stall on a Saturday alongside the Kixx and Codemasters games. It was so exciting having 2 or 3 quid in my Flintstones jeans pockets (in payment for cleaning the bathroom) and heading down there to see what to buy. Happy memories.

[@TheMbuff1]

I loved Mastertronic games on my Amstrad. Kane, Knight Tyme, Werewolves of London, Spellbound, Colony, Feud...... So many good titles for less than £2!

[@oodaloopc9725]

Been a fan for several years, but wanted to finally comment on how much I enjoy your excellent content and fantastic production values. Your videos are always well done and incredibly informative. Keep up the good work. All the best.

[@AgNoSticPope666]

He is the best. Criminally underrated.

[@Bigtimecharliepotatoes]

God I had 100s of games & just got rid of everything. What a waste 😢❤

[@TheBirdSolution]

This'll be a fun watch! I work for Fireshine Games, which used to be Sold Out, which used to be Mastertronic 2.0, so it's nice to study up on the company deep lore - nice one Kim!

[@AfterBurnerTeirusu]

Spot's Gameboy port has great music. It only plays when you don't touch anything, which makes it a really fun game to play.

[@darrenguest2170]

Looking forward to spending my Friday evening watching this with a couple of drinks. I bought quite a few Mastertronic games back in the day, some of them were OK (such as Chiller, Kobayashi Naru, Rigels Revenge), but most of them were terrible (Cage Match, LA Swat, Ninja). What amazes me is I often bought them based on the box and was always optimistic they were going to be great. Oh the Naivety of youth.

[@FintanMoloney]

I'll be joining you for a few drinks and watching this. I bought a lot of Mastertronic stuff for my BBC Master computer back in the 80s.

[@jmogler]

Kane and The Human Race were both quality titles and Shogun is one of my top 10 games on the c64 ever! Shogun was absolutely amazing. An open world game in which you could choose to be any of the 60 or so detailed characters. You start as a lord, samurai, priest, thief, lady or a lowly peasant and even Captain Blackthorne. There were a few unique characters like Toranaga, blackthorne and the Zen Master. You can recruit other characters to your side or just kill every single character in the game. Once killed, a character would reincarnate after a bit and could come back as a lord, peasant, thief or samurai. You might encounter a peasant you killed early in the game who has returned as a powerful samurai. There was ONE sword hidden on the map that made you OP and anyone could pick it up. if you didn't get to it first then you would literally have to track down the owner and kill them to retrieve it. You could send followers to assassinate your enemies. The map was gigantic. One game could take hours, days, or weeks. Once you recruited enough followers a timer would begin in which every character in the game became hostile to you. if you could survive the onslaught in time you become the Shogun and win the game. Other character could also get enough followers and win the game forcing you to drop what youre doing and either kill them or kill their followers. The replayability could not be matched as you could try winning the game with every character. A lord was easy as you started with 10 or so followers, money, fighting ability and influence....or a peasant where you start with nothing. The fact this was a budget title is mindblowing to me.

[@rhysperegrine5100]

This kind of passionate, homegrown content is everything that KZbin was intended for. As a massive fan of British cultural history in general, keep up the good work!

[@duncanrathband5492]

Couldn't agree more 💛 big up Kim and all quality creatives on this platform ✨️

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

I like the colorful image you conjured up at the end of details "crawling around in their archives," like some kind of malevolent vermin!

[@Retromicky82]

One of my favourite brands for micro games back then after codemasters. I think I used to get mine from my local spar and stars newsagents. I can remember my one store even having new copies on his shelves upto like 1995 😅 . I'd love that store display it looks so 80s 😍

[@neilloughran4437]

Awesome. I remember buying Booty along with Blue Max and Decathlon on my birthday in 1984. Not all of them were great but what a change from the quite frankly terrible Atari VCS game pricing. Spellbound, One Man and his Droid and Thrust were pretty good. But the real gem was Kikstart... awesome!

[@DnBclassictunes]

I loved their games and walking into a shop and seeing a new game. Was an awesome time

[@Debagio]

Hey Kim, this'll be my Friday evening's viewing sorted! Thank you for all you do. 😊

[@darkstar1360]

Using a amgia in a arcade machine has been revisited in the last few years. The 8-bit guy made a one off arcade cabinet of his game "Attack of the Petscii Robots", using the Amiga version of the game in it.

[@Avarice666]

So happy another phenomenal documentary has been released. Still the best there is Kim!

[@4CornersGlow]

At this point I can literally put these on in the background, like good music... sometimes on loop. Idk what it is but there is just something very calming about these vids. Kim's delivery and level of knowledge, passion for the subject matter is unmatched. Excellent work as always. Got to get you past the 100k subs mark!

[@hawkeyepearce1066]

Thought I'd seen everything there was to know about Mastertronic, seems every day is a school day! Thanks for producing another great slice of in-depth retrospective.

[@joelanderson8062]

Long time viewer of your channel and rarely comment on videos in general, but I have to say I absolutely love your content! You have become may favorite content creator and it's not really even close at this point. Retro gaming channels are my favorite genre and you cover the topic in depth that no others can compete with. As someone here in the states, I didn't know a lot of these companies even existed until coming across your channel. I very much appreciate the history lessons on a subject I care for dearly. I apologize for the gushing rant haha, but I just wanted to show my appreciation for someone as knowledgeable and talented as yourself and thank you for presenting it all in such an entertaining fashion, cheers!

[@duncanrathband5492]

Amen 🙌

[@budyll1]

KimJustice: The only current KZbin channel of the 21st century which doesn't have sponsored BS in it! Thanks, Kim :)!

[@jonathanstempleton7864]

I remember Blasterball as Hyperbowl on the ZX Spectrum. Good times.

[@TheSocialGamer]

I never played these games back in the day, my buddy was the one who gave me games. I have recently been playing classic computers via emulation. This was a great video!

[@joypadretro2797]

Damn, i'm Dutch and would've loved buying cheap but great games at our local corner shop! But alas, no such concept existed in The Netherlands...

[@glemonsbhatkin514]

We used to call them MasterChronic - but that being said, there were some classics too!

[@caeserromero3013]

SWAT and Ninja were 2 of my favourite games on C64. Still play them now.

[@Wiggins773]

I can't get enough of your videos. The history is a little before me but very interesting none the less :)

[@kevinwhitehouse374]

I was in Mastertronic's target customer base... purchased some great games from the local newsagent for my Commodore 16. Notable mentions to Kikstart, BMX Racers, Video Meanies, Fingers Malone and the fantastic Mr Puniverse!

[@III_Ed_B_III]

I was about 8/9/10 living in a small town in Somerset, and the local independent record shop had a little shelf of games next to the Top 40 45s. Most of those were Mastertronic gems (maybe a couple of US Gold titles in there too). Going to watch now, but Kikstart was the first title to spring to mind when I saw this in the recommended.

[@Sabre_Wulf1]

Absolutely fantastic history lesson again. I was one of those kids that really got into mastertronic games in the speccy. Chiefly down to affording them at 11 yrs old pocket money. So you were bang on as to why the price point was £1.99. Made me chuckle when you said it. Nailed it.

[@skywalkerranch]

Excellent content once again. I didn't know anything about the arcade cabinets so thus was really interesting to watch. Thanks once again for all your efforts as they are greatly appreciated.

[@RedFoxRoaming]

Ohhh! You do pick great documentary topics Kim ! Gonna enjoy this one.. Will watch it after work ! Even the Mastertronic logo is hugely nostalgic.

[@RetroBytesUK]

Really interesting video Kim, I heard someone had made an arcade version of the Amiga, but I did not know the details. So this very much scratched an itch for me. I must admit I've been saving this video up, for a time when I could properly pay some attention to it, rather than just having it on in the background.

[@JayAlmeida.]

Love your stuff Kim been watching since the mega weeviews. I got a c64 late (1993) when loading the tapes was half the experience and in most cases you spent more time loading the game as opposed actually playing it. Your vids on Ocean, Imagine, Ultimate etc. provide valuable insight into an era very close to my heart and one that is rarely covered on this American centric platform.

[@opiejaye]

Aah, Mastertronic. As I had a Commodore Plus/4 as a kid, Mastertronic were my main source for games. It felt like they supported that platform more than anyone else.

[@seshoz]

Very true, I had a lowly C16 and there was nowhere near the choice that C64 and Spectrum owners had, but Mastertronic actually produced some pretty decent stuff. Kickstart and a skiing game that I can't remember the name of were the favourites in our house.

[@Giantwaspface]

11:12 Oh dear God, It's ZUB! That games music has to be the most insidious earworm ever created. It's been carved into my brain meat for decades now and I'll probably still be hearing it on my deathbed.

[@rakido7388]

I knew Richard Aplin in Bristol. I lent him my copy of 'Kernel and Hardware Revealed' (which I still have) when he was writing Invadaload. There were a few other demo/game coders around that time (late 80s) who went on to bigger and better things. Sidewinder (Amiga) was one of my favourites, I played that a lot, partly for the awesome David Whittaker soundtrack.

[@joedent3323]

Great video kim. I've done it three times now, letting it play as I dreamt about being at an Arcade!

[@th45h1zn1t]

Another brilliantly researched and presented video. Thank you!

[@dafpuw4478]

Great video Kim. Mastertronic made up a big chunk of my speccy collection because I was allowed to choose one on the weekly shopping trip to Asda. It was always either them or Firebird, I think this must have been in the days before Codemasters. Favourites of mine were Finders Keepers, Kane, Caves of Doom, Nonteraquos... the list goes on

[@tomkrawec]

A truly fantastic documentary and retrospective.

[@anthonyguter]

Great work, Kim. You must have done a lot of research of your own, as well as drawing very well on the Mastertronic website and you have clearly understood the way that Arcadia got into difficulties. Very enjoyable video.

[@craigwalker3194]

I remember Mastertronic games certainly did vary in Quality but that was their charm. Had a lot of them back in the day. Great vid as always.

[@billybollockhead5628]

“Hi mum, I’m just going upstairs to play on my ariola “.. what were Sega thinking?

[@sambas9257]

I remember 31:07 New York Warriors. Never known it was for Arcadia. I think it has been the best Run and Gun game for Amiga: lot of sprites, good original graphic and fun post-apocaliptic inspiration. I don't mind for the strafe. There have been only ikari warriors with the strafe in those years and graphic sucked. Guerrilla Wars and Super Contra didn't have yet..while Mercs that became the standard was out just in the same year

[@wondrinminstrel]

We had an arcadia system in my local youth club in the late 80's. This machine only ran Xenon, which was a great game and extremely popular.

[@klaxer9224]

WOW WOW WOW bro... You make my day. Great video, fantastic stuff, incredible story. As always - thumbs up

[@chrisfurnell9613]

Awesome as always, thanks Kim.

[@kitezzz360]

As someone who grew up in the 80s with the speccy most the time we knew nothing about the games that were out or whether they were any good or not, obviously pre internet days, so anything we bought felt like a gamble, so budget prices like this helped a lot to entice a purchase

[@pbarratt73]

46:43 "This absolutely wretched title" 😂😂😂 have to say fantastic video loved every minute you've put so much work/research into this... and I've now rediscovered Caves Of Doom - forgot about this game 😮 will play this on the Speccy Next the weekend.

[@big_ry82]

Always lovely to see Feud. That game captured dread like no other.

[@billiondollarman3847]

Meticulously researched, entertaining and we'll presented. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

[@Tossphate]

I started to think I was having Mandela effect with my memory of once seeing a xenon arcade machine in a pub. Thanks for confirming I'm not losing my marbles.

[@summerlaverdure]

omg yes finally someone covers this, thank you for this video!

[@leeosborne3793]

Very interesting. I didn't know Mastertronic were the first budget software house - I didn't own a Spectrum until 1987, and by then there was a plentiful supply of cheap games. I certainly remember some of these titles fondly. You got a lot of bang for your buck - text adventure Rigel's Revenge kept me going for ages.

[@anthonyguter]

Not the first but the first to be accepted by major retailers

[@RichardTroupe]

This was a great deep dive. Well done Kim!

[@CraicPype]

Kim consistently gives us quality content. Thanks Kim

[@johnblue5399]

Great video, thoroughly researched and wonderfully produced. These retrospectives hold so much nostalgia, and it's always interesting to see the earliest incarnations of ideas which are still being used. Would Rocket League exist without Blastaball, or Thumper without Roadwars?! Thanks for another lovely piece of gaming history.

[@gregledbetter5942]

Very good presentation

[@ChrisHopkinsBass]

Speaking as a Commodore Plus/4 owner “back in the day” I’d have been screwed without Mastertronic as hardly anyone else published games for it or the C16

[@Dookie69uk]

That is so true. I had one myself and without them I wouldn't have much of anything to play.

[@GlennStubberfield]

Thank you for such an in depth (and factually correct) piece on this obscure and unloved system. I've researched the Arcadia (EC MGX) since 2017 and it's great to see someone else has also done their homework on what must be a super niche hardware. I always find that the best stories come from failed systems and their games (Konix?). Another obscure system is the PC based Rasterspeed hardware, responsible for arcade versions of Rise of the Robots amd Zool. So much cool and interesting history exists for this system and the development behind it...

[@michaelnorcs]

Thank you Kim 🙏 another well informed and presented video. 11/10

[@mikeuk666]

Always enjoy your documentaries 👍

[@AndreaOsiander]

In italy there were cassettes in the magazines with pirate games and the mastertronic games were the most common ones in these pirate compilations

[@KAZ3EM]

My new favorite retrogame channel! And like british accents. Can't get enough of your stuff!

[@markleither4921]

Love your videos first of all and great to see mastertronic getting the kim treatment ( and also nice to see the mastertronic website and my clean up artwork getting an airing 😊) , but........would have preferred more content on the budget games releases rather than the arcadia stuff ( personally never knew anything about this stuff ) excellent video none the less , cheers

[@Riktenstein]

I had forgotten how brilliant this channels videos are.

[@Aboveup]

Blastaball really feels like something you'd see on a small Subspace Continuum server for some reason. Something you'd load into if you ever got tired of the Deathstar or Trench battle servers.

[@BrianRRenfro]

I get home from a camping trip and there is a long form Kim Justice video out AND a feature film length Gaming Historian on the Oregon Trail?!?! Well I know what i am doing all afternoon!

[@jasonrockley3724]

Cheers Kim.

[@googleboughtmee]

Fantasic vid. I didn't know a thing about that arcade system

[@cronosoft]

Oh wow.... can't wait to watch this. That's my viewing sorted for tonight 😊. Unfortunately, my first two Mastertronic games weren't good. I bought the very early games ... A dodgy Pacman clone Gnasher and a totally awful BASIC game BULLSEYE. Fortunately they redeemed themselves after Finders Keepers.

[@OneSwitch]

Fascinating. With hindsight, for the era and forgetting what SEGA were doing, those games don't look too bad. They just weren't quite good enough. For me, I've fond memories of Chiller being my first Mastertronic purchase/Christmas stocking pressie (can't remember which). And I definitely bought One Man and His Droid, 1985, and a few more. Class act at their height.

[@GlennStubberfield]

Got 3 of these complete systems- all with the same set of 10 games...

[@Ray.Norrish]

I used to buy Rob Hubbard music for the c64 on the Mastertronic label. Occasionally, they thoughtfully bundled an actual game in with it.

[@Rick_Ibbott]

As a kid, used to go to the Market (Preston) back in the day to buy the good old £1.99 budget games. The only other places were Sweetens bookshop and Laskeys.

[@McRcFly]

Brilliant work 👍

[@dminalba]

I loved Mastertronic and used to buy their games at R S McColl’s a Scottish chain, when CodeMasters was a budget label I used to go to John Menzies, I remember Bullfrog, M A D & Ricochet sub brands on Mastertronic’s stable

[@CasperEgas]

My most fun memory of Mastertronic is Scout on the C64. Loved that game and especially the soundtrack by Jeroen Tel.

[@VixTwenty]

This is superb thank you Kim

[@siturl5834]

Brilliant video as always. This was my era. The great thing about mastertronic is they were one of the only games I could buy on the Atari 800xl. The library was so limited in the UK in the 80’s.

[@MrRobHoey]

I'm so excited! I love these videos

[@bigdbaldydom]

I had a Commodore 16 (yes i was poor) and ALL the best games available for it were from Mastertronic: Fingers Malone, Kickstart, Kane, Powerball, One man and his droid, P.O.D. Video Meanies, Prospector pete and my favourite, Bandits at zero. I made the mistake of buying Ghosts and Goblins by Elite Games and it was a complete waste of £10. To this day it's still the worst buyers remorse I've ever had... seriously, take a look, it's dreadful

[@InspiralJez]

Awsome video! Thank you! Ah, the memories of "Kickstart" 1 and 2 i can hear the music even now! Haha

[@jpsplat]

going to an arcade alone and settling for the video game version of air hockey because you don't have any friends is the saddest thing i can think of

[@MatthewJohnCrittenden]

Great stuff, I've been around forever and knew nothing of the Arcadia system.

[@gmo6854]

Great viewing. Kane ftw I never even realised it was a mastertronic cheapie. Makes it even cooler.

[@mrpositronia]

Mastertronic is why we never bothered with cartridge-based consoles. Well, the prices in general. Even the expensive micro titles were a third of the price. That gawd for that. It's no surprise that we never had a games 'crash' over in the UK, or Europe, for that matter.

[@EpicallyCasual]

Liked , commented and will be watching in full later…thanks again Kim :)

[@50factsabout]

Cheers for another top video Kim

[@caeserromero3013]

Had many a mastertronic and code masters budget game from WH Smith or John Menzies in the 80's. Most of my favourite games were budget titles. Almost every full price game i bought was a dissapointment.

[@NeoMK27]

Thank you Kim. Really excellent dive into Mastertronic and a nice trip down memory lane. I was an early Spectrum gamer and it was always a mixed bag. Fued, Agent X, Chronos, Finders Keepers, Viper 3 and Jason’s Gem all highlights, but prior to screenshots you had to guess and I was unlucky enough to buy Alien Kill - taken in by the cover. (Clearly written in basic!) I was also gutted to by bought Election - another basic program about politics - just what every 9 year old kid needed! 😂

[@EvanCWaters]

Spot also ended up on the NES, where it plays pretty much the same complete with cool animations. Which of course makes it clearer that it's yet another 8-bit title given a polish, again not the sort of thing you push to a very competitive arcade market.

[@AgNoSticPope666]

Friday night is now a stellar night. Thanks Kim!

[@mrburgess1698]

Another well produced video Kim. I bought so many Mastertronic games back in the day. One Man and his Droid was the first one back in 1986. My only criticism of this video is you didn’t do a chronological rundown of all Mastertronic games along with their cover art.

[@Scimarad]

Good lord, this brings back memories! I remember really liking Colony though I was struggling to remember what it was called. Also, Feud obviously:)

[@LastDeadMouse50]

Really enjoyed this video, Kim! Had a few of the Mastertronic Commodore 64 games as a kid growing up. Are you going to do a video going over each of the C64 games (or have you already)?

[@timesausages]

I always loved Chiller but had the agonising trial of it failing to load on my C64 about 90% of the time. Out came my little screwdriver (ooer) gave it a twiddle wait 5 minutes for the autostop to kick in, stare at a blank screen, let out a strangled, frustrated gurlgle and try again. The highs and the lows of C64 ownership when being a sprog.