Leland Corporation

The Leland Corporation California-based was an arcade video game company formed on June 5, 1987 from the assets of Cinematronics. It was a subsidiary of arcade and home game producer Tradewest, which acquired those assets out of the former company’s bankruptcy. After 1992, the company moved to development of home games to be published by Tradewest and other companies like Williams under the name Leland Interactive Media. In 1994, when WMS Industries acquired Tradewest, Leland was absorbed into their internal development.^[1]

Cinematronics Inc. was a manufacturer of arcade video games based in San Diego (later in the suburb of El Cajon). They notably introduced games utilizing vector graphics to the coin-op industry with Space Wars (1977) and the first successful Laserdisc game in Dragon’s Lair (1983). The company had gone bankrupt in August 1982 in the wake of several unsuccessful games and spent more than four years staving off foreclosure under Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Tradewest was a company who licensed arcade games from other companies for manufacture, both as full upright cabinets utilizing outsourced manufacturing and kit games that fit into popular cabinets. Most notably, they released the smash hit SNK game Ikari Warriors (1986). In 1986, they released Cinematronics’ Redline Racer (1986) as a kit game. Looking to expand their operations, the company entered into negotiations to purchase the assets of the privately held Cinematronics. This union was announced at the ACME trade show in March 1987.^[2]

The Leland Corporation was incorporated on June 5, 1987.^[3] Tradewest purchased all the assets including the factory and all of its employees to transfer into the new company. Initially, Cinematronics co-founder Jim Pierce remained President of the new company, but he was eventually supplanted by Tradewest partner John Rowe. Pierce left the company on March 18, 1988. He initially partnered with Tradewest on an independent venture before fully retiring until his death in 2011.^[4]

The first release by Leland was Quarterback (1987), a standalone upright cabinet – a break from their previous strategy of releasing games under their Cinemat hardware. It became a success and prompted the release of updates including the celebrity endorsed John Elway’s Team Quarterback (1988) and All-American Quarterback (1989). The celebrity endorsement strategy was carried over into other games including Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s Super Off-Road (1988) and Danny Sullivan’s Indy Heat (1991). Product development at the company came to involve a large team of specialist game developers, salesmen, and executives. The game concepting involved storyboards and physical mock-ups of objects – an early form of digitization in arcade games.^[5]

Leland’s arcade games found their way to home consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System courtesy of their connection to Tradewest. Developers like British Rare Ltd and Software Creations created versions of their games for the home market. These games often underwent QA testing by Leland’s development team before release. A revised version of the Cinemat system played host to games like Brute Force (1990). The arcade games Aaaargh! (1988) and Ataxx (1990) were created in cooperation with Virgin Interactive, who had opened an office in California under the name Arcadia Systems which Leland did distribution for.^[6]

In 1991, Leland released the long-shelved Dragon’s Lair II: Time Warp in cooperation with Sullivan Bluth Interactive. The game, which had been completed in 1984, had been location tested but not released due to the decline of LaserDisc arcade games. With a revival in interest for games featuring video through CD-ROM multimedia releases and LaserDisc releases like American Laser Games’ Mad Dog McCree (1990). The game was only available in an upright cabinet.

Dragon’s Lair II was Leland’s final arcade release. In 1992, they moved out of their manufacturing facility on Friendship Drive to a small studio located at 4444 Zion Ave in El Cajon.^[7] Their strategy changed to in-house development of Tradewest titles on home systems and the brand of the studio changed to Leland Interactive Media. A large number of their game developers left for other studios while the remaining team created new titles. These included sequels to Leland arcade titles like Super Off Road: The Baja (1993) and original titles like Fun 'N Games (1992).

In April 1994, WMS Industries purchased Tradewest as part of their strategy to become more directly involved in the home video game market.^[1][8] Leland Interactive Media was acquired as part of this deal and the assets were placed in the hold of Williams Home Entertainment. The original company was renamed to Rowe Resources Inc. on May 4, 1994 to be used as a holding company by John Rowe who joined Williams to oversee development efforts. The company was thereafter formally dissolved in February 1997.

All games developed by The Leland Corporation except where otherwise noted.

• Quarterback (November 1987)^[9]
• Super Dodge Ball (February 1988)^[10][11] Developed by Technōs Japan.
• Viper (June 1988)^[12] Sequel to Danger Zone.
• Strike Zone (June 1988)^[13][14]
• John Elway’s Team Quarterback (November 1988)
• Aaaargh! (1988) Developed by Virgin Interactive.
• Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s Super Off-Road (February 1989)^[15]
• All-American Quarterback (October 1989)^[16][17]
• Pig Out (August 1990)^[18]
• Ataxx (October 1990)^[19]
• King Arthur’s Court (1990) Not a game. A redemption prize display distributed by Leland.
• Brute Force (November 1990)^[20][21]
• Danny Sullivan’s Indy Heat (April 1991)^[22][23]
• Dragon’s Lair II: Time Warp (September 1991)^[24][25] Developed by Advanced Microcomputer Systems.

• Pro Quarterback (1992)
• Fun 'N Games (December 1993)^[26]
• Super Off Road: The Baja (1993)
• Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls (September 1994)^[27]
• Kyle Petty's No Fear Racing (April 1995)^[28]

• Leland Corporation profile from MobyGames

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