Black legend
According to Amiga Format in June 1993, fans of Commodore’s celebrated follow-up to the Commodore 64 had millions of reasons to be cheerful. The Amiga had sold 3.8 million units across Europe, including 1.5 million machines in the UK alone. Sales topped 700,000 in North America and 350,000 in Australia and New Zealand.
Perfect timing, then, for a new software publisher to emerge, you would imagine. Only the figures didn’t quite tell the full story. In April that same year, another magazine – Computer Gaming World – suggested the Amiga was “hardly mentioned, let alone seen” at the European Computer Trade Show in London. Yet here was Black Legend, hoping the appetite for Amiga gaming was still alive and well.
Black Legend had been founded in 1992 by a 20-year-old called Richard M Holmes who lived in Switzerland. He was interested in the Amiga demo scene and began working with developers on a handful of games when Steven Bailey, from a games distribution company called Kompart, paid a visit and suggested a partnership.
It felt like a great match. Kompart had worked with top-name publishers such as Domark and Activision and it had
