We’re working on a rather special project here at Infinite Frontiers right now, and one that will appeal to the retro gaming fans out there… Working alongside the Mastertronic Collector’s Group on Facebook, we’re producing a new video for our YouTube channel dedicated to the classic software company from the 80s and 90s.
Who Is Mastertronic?
For those of you who aren’t familiar with them, Mastertronic was lauched in April 1984 by Frank Herman along with business partners Martin Alper, Terry Medway and Alan Sharam. Born at the height of the 8-bit games industry. It quickly became a pioneer in the business, revolutionising the way games were sold to the public.
Instead of selling their games through typical video game stores via a distributor, they sold their titles directly to smaller retailers, cutting out the middle men. In doing so they were able to dramatically cut costs and offer games at the astonishingly low retail price of just £1.99 each while still maintaining a healthy profit. During the company’s lifetime they released games for almost every major 8-bit and 16-bit system, with over 400 titles to their name.
The Video – “Mastertronic Memories”
Mastertronic games are still popular today amongst retro gaming fans and collectors. Games are still easy to pick up from most retro outlets and are just as addictive today as they were back in the 80s. And with more gamers discovering their releases for the first time, we wanted to share our passion and showcase some of the best Mastertonic had to offer. So this is what has prompted the creation of this new video.
Mastertronic Memories is a retrospective look back at Mastertronic from a fan’s point of view. Instead of a documentary looking at the history of the company, we wanted to make a video exploring the passion held by the collectors themselves. It will feature a number of fans talking about their favourite games, and what makes the company – and their collections – special to them.
The Format
The video will take the form of a series of questions, each discussed by a number of Mastertronic collectors in a series of short vox-pop style clips. Questions will cover a wide range of topics related to Mastertronic, including fan favourite games, their favourite memories of the company, and finding out just why they collect Mastertronic games.
As well as the fans on screen, we’ll be mixing in footage from some of the games Mastertronic released during their 8-bit and 16-bit era, and mixing in a few other surprises as well! We’re extremely excited about the project and it’s already set to be something rather special…
The Creative Team
We’ve already got a few people involved in the video already. Heading up the project is our own Simon Plumbe. As well as being the founder of Infinite Frontiers, Simon launched a dedicated Facebook group for collectors of Mastertronic games which has almost 1,000 members including many former staff and developers from the company. He owns over 1,200 Mastertronic titles in his collection and has also been featured in Retro Gamer and GamesTM magazines about his collection.
Mat Corne is a well known Mastertronic collector, having covered the Commodore 64 releases on his blog dedicated to the range, and subsequently on YouTube where he attempted to look at the entire range, in addition to other publishers and retro games. His channel can be found at https://youtube.com/c/witchfinder1976
Andrew Fisher is a freelance writer, counting Retro Gamer amongst his credits, and is a lifelong Mastertronic fan. His YouTube channel can be found at https://www.youtube.com/c/merman1974
Join The Team
We’re looking for more Mastertronic fans and collectors who would love to be a part of this project. There are no real qualifications that you need, other than a love for Mastertronic and access to a HD video camera (most mobile phones will be more than up to the task for this). In terms of what we’d ask you to do, all you would need is to film yourself answering as few or as many of the questions we have put together as you like. We have a discussion group set up where our team are planning the content of the video so you’ll be a part of that and will have an input on the content as well.
This may end up being the first part of a larger series on Mastertronic depending on how well this video does but for now we want to get this one created. You don’t need any previous YouTube or video editing experience as we can handle all of that and give you any help along the way that you may need. Just drop us an email to contact@infinitefrontiers.org.uk and we can take it from there!
Progress So Far…
Work is already coming along well with the video. The opening title sequence has already been edited, with fully licensed music from Rob Hubbard thanks to Chris Abbott at c64audio.com. Caption screens and graphics are being edited and the list of questions is being prepared. Filming should be completed on the introduction this week, and we’re also hoping to have a complete section of the video edited by the end of the week as well which should take us up to around 5 minutes of 100% completed and edited video.
We don’t have a release date for the finished video yet as we want to be happy with the end result rather than rush something out to meet a deadline, we hope to have it completed during the first quarter of 2023.
Interested in the project but not to be on camera. I first discovered Mastertronic when i went to a show in Solihull Birmingham and my dad bought some titles for £2 each from the stand, before this Mastertronic were unheard of. He bought Gems such as Vegas Jackpot, Duck Shoot, Phantom Attack all for the VIC20 as software for that device was scarce , the quality of those games was sensational all for a small price.
I was the same, starting out with their Vic 20 releases before collecting all their Commodore 64 games. My collection has grown a lot since then and now fills a couple of bookshelves and spans over 1,200 cassettes, disks, CDs, cartridges, VHS tapes and more!
As for the video, we’re talking at the moment about all the help we need and if there are ways people can be a part of the project beyond on-screen work. The first thing I’d probably suggest if you haven’t already done so is to join the Mastertronic Collector’s Group on Facebook which I set up a few years ago. We’ll be using this to help with the video, but drop me an email and we can take things from there.