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For the airport, see Brazoria County Airport LJN was an American toy company and video game publisher. It created toy lines and video games based on movies, television shows, and celebrities.
[edit] History[edit] FoundingLJN was founded in 1970 by Jack Friedman (who later founded the toy companies THQ and Jakks Pacific). The name LJN came from the initials of Lewis J. Norman, the reverse of Norman J. Lewis, whose toy company Friedman had been employed by as a sales representative. Lewis initially backed the company financially, but later sold his interest to a Chinese investor.[1] [edit] MCA eraIn 1985, MCA[2], which had been actively acquiring companies in the mid-1980s[1], acquired LJN for $66[2] or $67 million[3] in an effort to retain more profits from the merchandising of its film properties.[4] LJN began publishing video games for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987. This was not MCA's first foray into the video game business, however; it had previously started MCA Video Games, which formed a joint venture with Atari, Inc. to create coin-operated and home games and computer software based on various MCA properties.[5] In 1988, LJN acquired Italian toy company Al'es from the Fassi family.[6] In 1989, MCA decided to sell LJN after years of losses[2] since 1987 when fallout surrounding toy guns made by LJN's Entertech division plunged MCA's profits 79.5% in the second quarter of that year.[4][7] MCA finally agreed to sell to Acclaim Entertainment in March 1990 for cash and Acclaim common stock.[8] [edit] Acclaim eraUnder Acclaim, LJN pretty much kept the same movie/cartoon direction for their video games as when they were under MCA. Acclaim got rid of LJN's toy division and turned LJN into a video game only company. During the 8-bit gaming era, Nintendo, as a form of quality control, regulated the number of titles to appear on its console, the Nintendo Entertainment System. As a result, companies like Acclaim used divisions such as LJN to produce more products than Nintendo would have traditionally allowed. Konami also utilized such tactics with their division Ultra. Unlike Ultra which was a brand name of Konami, LJN was still a legal company operating independently and at a different location from Acclaim. Even after Nintendo dropped its rule in the early 1990s, Acclaim kept LJN operating which published several titles for the Super NES. Whether for the NES or Super NES, there is no known video game that has been developed by LJN themselves even though many of their games, especially the pre-Acclaim ones, did not disclose the developer. Some of the licensed titles published by LJN were developed by the then-unknown Rare Ltd., which later developed best-selling, acclaimed video games by Nintendo. LJN, along with the Flying Edge and Arena Entertainment labels (the latter two labels which published Acclaim's games to Sega's consoles) were folded into Acclaim in 1994. In 2000, LJN made a return in name only when Acclaim used the brand to publish Spirit of Speed 1937, a video game title for the Dreamcast. [edit] Toylines
[edit] Video games
[edit] See also[edit] References
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