FROM THE ARCHIVES
EIDOS
In the mid-Nineties, it would have been difficult to avoid the name ‘Eidos’. You would see the logo on Manchester City football kits and when a game would boot on a PlayStation console. However, you can’t talk about Eidos without mentioning Domark…
WORDS BY DARYL BAXTER
Mark Strachan and Dominic Wheatley were working at an advertising agency, when they decided to set up their own business in the gaming industry. “My younger brother had bought a Commodore 64 in January of 1983, [he] was playing Heroes Of Khan, and I was watching him type in certain commands to progress, and I was just amazed,” cofounder Dominic says of the early days.
This was the turning point where Dominic decided to pitch the idea of this games business to Mark Strachan, “I took him out to the pub, and said I had this idea, and we agreed to go to this cottage near Goodrich Castle in Wales with our girlfriends, and we drew up a business plan there and then, which became Domark.”
At this point the pair both decided to leave the agency together and moved into a small office in Monster Road to try and raise money. Around 1983, Dominic came up with an idea for a game that was more interactive to the player, and this was where Ian Livingstone CBE came in.
Ian had cofounded Games Workshop in 1975 with Steve Jackson, and he had an opportunity to write a book based upon a chance meeting in 1979. “Penguin Books had taken a stand at a ‘Games Day’ event at the Royal Horticultural Hall in London, and we talked to their editor, Geraldine Cooke," recalls Ian. "She asked if we'd be interested in writing a book about role-playing games.” Both Ian and Steve agreed and the book evolved into the acclaimed The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain.
This led to other published titles in the Fighting Fantasy series, which became extremely popular and are still being made today. This is where Domark took notice, and contacted Ian. Dominic recalls he had been looking to “try and push this idea of a game where the player could win rewards by phoning in, and Dave Bishop was our PR guy who knew Ian”, which led to a meeting at the headquarters of Games Workshop. As Dominic and Mark were still raising money, Ian “wrote a check for £10,000, one of our earliest investors, and soon after that we became friends”.