Penguin Software was a video game publisher

Video game publisher

A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer....

 from Geneva

Geneva, Illinois

Geneva is the county seat of Kane County, Illinois. It is located on the western fringe of the Chicago suburbs. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 26,652. Geneva is part of a tri-city area, along with St. Charles and Batavia...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 that produced graphics software and games for the Apple II

Apple II

The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...

, Macintosh

Macintosh

The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...

, IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

, Commodore 64

Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

, Amiga

Amiga

The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...

, Atari 8-bit, and Atari ST

Atari ST

The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...

 computers. They are mostly known for their graphics programs Graphics Magician and Complete Graphics System, graphic adventure games such as the Transylvania

Transylvania (computer game)

Transylvania was the name of a trilogy of computer games released for several home computers of the 1980s. The games were graphic adventure games created by Antonio Antiochia and produced by the now defunct Penguin Software.-Transylvania I:...

series, arcade-style games like Spy's Demise

Spy's Demise

Spy's Demise is a 1983 computer game published by Penguin Software. It was originally written for the Apple II by Alan Zeldin and ported to the Atari, Commodore 64, TI-99/4A, and Vector-06c....

, and role-playing video game

Role-playing video game

Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...

s such as Xyphus

Xyphus

Xyphus is a computer role-playing game first released in 1984. The game was designed by Skip Waller and Dave Albert with a Macintosh version by Bob Hardy, for Penguin Software. It was the first RPG ever released on the Macintosh system featuring upgraded graphics and mouse friendly user-interface;...

.

The company was founded in 1978 by Mark Pelczarski

Mark Pelczarski

Mark Pelczarski wrote and published some of the earliest digital multimedia computer software. In 1979 while teaching computer science at Northern Illinois University, he self-published Magic Paintbrush, which was one of the first digital paint programs for the Apple II, the first consumer computer...

 but adopted the name of "Penguin Software" only in 1981. Like many other home computer

Home computer

Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...

 publishers at the time, Penguin Software openly credited the developers

Video game developer

A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...

 of their games on boxes and title screen; developers that were often not direct employees of Penguin Software but rather independent designers that were paid royalties by Penguin Software for the games that sold.

One of the other widely-touted aspects of Penguin Software's titles was that they deliberately stopped using copy protection

Copy protection

Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy obstruction, copy prevention and copy restriction, refer to techniques used for preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media, usually for copyright reasons.- Terminology :Media corporations have always used the term...

, thus making it easier to back up their programs. Pelczarski took out advertisements in many computer magazines to describe his position, and asked that users of their software not abuse their trust.

Penguin Software was confronted by Penguin Books

Penguin Books

Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...

 in regard of infringement

Trademark infringement

Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attaching to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees...

 of their name. Fearing that the legal costs of a lawsuit

Lawsuit

A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...

 could have decimated his company, even in the case of an eventual victory, Pelczarski renamed his company Polarware in 1986, ending the "Penguin Software" brand

Brand

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...

.

In 1987 Polarware was purchased by four employees, Jeffrey (JJ) Jay, Steve Greene, Peg Smith, and Trish Glenn. This new team produced the award-winning children's software series written by Brian A. Rice, The Electric Crayon, a simple electronic coloring book. In 1988, Polarware was acquired by another company and then disbanded later in the year.

Software Titles

• Spy's Demise (1982)
• Transylvania (1982)
• Crime Wave (1983)
• The Quest (1983)
• Expedition Amazon (1983)
• Xyphus (1984)
• Transylvania II: The Crimson Crown (1985)
• Electric Crayon: Fun on the Farm (1985)
• Electric Crayon: This Land Is Your Land (1985)
• Ring Quest (1985)
• The Spy's Adventures in Europe (1986)
• The Spy's Adventures in North America (1986)
• Oo-topos
  Oo-topos
  -History:Oo-Topos was originally published by Sentient Software in 1981 as a text only adventure game. The 1987 re-release added graphical depictions of scenes described by the game's text, which were designed using Penguin Software's in-house software tool Graphics Magician.-Plot summary:You are...
  
   (1987)
• Sesame Street Crayon: Letters For You (1987)
• Sesame Street Crayon: Numbers Count (1987)
• Sesame Street Crayon: Opposites Attract (1987)
• Talisman: Challenging the Sands of Time (1987)
• Electric Crayon Deluxe: Dinosaurs Are Forever (1988)
• Electric Crayon Deluxe: At the Zoo (1989)
• Transylvania III: Vanquish the Night (1990)

External links

• GraphicsMagician.com Mark Pelczarski's website
• Penguin Books letters discussing use of the name
• Penguin Software company profile from MobyGames
  MobyGames
  -Platforms not yet included:- Further reading :* Rusel DeMaria, Johnny L. Wilson, High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media; 2 edition , ISBN 0-07-223172-6...
  
  
• Cover of the game "Crime Wave" from Penguin Software from the Scott Schram website, creator of that game.
• Cover of the game "Pie-Man" from Penguin Software from the Scott Schram website. Scott converted Eagle Berns
  Eagle Berns
  Eagle Berns worked for over thirty-five years in the computer software industry at Apple Computer, Oracle Corporation, and Software Publishing Corporation...
  
  ' original Apple II version of the game to the Atari 800.
• More Apple II games from Penguin Software from the Apple II World site (Japanese website)