Leaving Central Street

As the 90s got underway, Ocean Software had established itself as one of the biggest video game companies in the world with separate operations in France and North America, but the next decade would be a difficult one for the company.

In 1992, a group of experienced Ocean employees decided to leave to pursue other opportunities elsewhere, including Mike Lamb, James Higgins, and John Brandwood, who all left to join a California company named Malibu Software in the States. That same year, Ocean also moved out of its iconic Central Street to the newly regenerated Castlefield area of Manchester, taking up residence in the Eastgate Building and recruiting more staff.

Here, Ocean continued to work on successful licenses like The Flintstones, Addams Family, and Jurassic Park, but behind the scenes, trouble started to brew. The company soon found itself struggling to pay for its rapid growth and various operational costs, leading to it selling 23 percent of its shares to the French company Chargeurs for 13.4 million, in order to try and stay afloat.

It soon became clear, however, that this large cash injection from Chargeurs wasn't going to be enough to save the company alone. And, in 1995, the Manchester Evening News reported that Ocean was going going to merge with the French video game Infogrames — a last resort to keep the company going.

Ocean moved offices one final time — this time just down the road to the newly-renovated Merchant Warehouse — but it was increasingly becoming clear that the company's best days were now behind it. Ocean was no longer the powerhouse it had once been, publishing significantly fewer titles than it had back in its heyday and usually with a lot more risk involved.

To add to these problems, its relationship with its new owners wasn't exactly the best, with tensions coming to a head in 1998 when Infogrames CEO Bruno Bonnell controversially rebranded the company to Infogrames United Kingdom, officially retiring the Ocean name. At that year's E3, in protest of this decision, Ocean staff, led by producer Jon Oldham, wore t-shirts bearing the Ocean logo, but it did little to change things. Ocean was dead, with its owners no longer seeing value in the legacy brand.

The final two games to carry the Ocean logo were Mission: Impossible and GT:64 Championship — a sad and somewhat underwhelming ending for a company that had defined so many people's childhoods.