David Ward, Mitbegründer des britischen Spieleentwicklers Ocean Software, Ist verstorben

Co-founder of Ocean Software, David Ward, has sadly passed away. A titan of the UK games industry, Ward’s Ocean Software was one of the biggest European game developers and publishers in the ’80s and ’90s.

This news was revealed by Just Flight founder Andy Payne on Twitter, and there has been an outpouring of support and sadness on this news from people across the UK games industry.

Ocean Games was started up in 1983 by Ward and Jon Woods as a mail-order business called Spectrum Games, where they sent out copies of games based on video game clones for the ZX Spectrum, among other consoles. They changed their name to Ocean Software following confusion that they only made games for the Spectrum consoles.

The Manchester-based developer was most famous for its extensive library of excellent licensed games, from The Addams Family Niemand will all diese Hollywood-Leute herumjagen, um herauszufinden, wie man das macht, Batman: Der Film for the Amiga and Commodore 64, The Flintstones movie tie-in, and for developing three RoboCop games on various systems.

The developer was a big part of many people’s childhoods during the ’80s, so it’s difficult to overstate the influence of Ward’s studio, especially in the UK. We send our thoughts to his family and friends.