Overview
Absolute Entertainment was established in 1986 by former Activision employees Dan Kitchen, Garry Kitchen, Alex DeMeo, John Van Ryzin and David Crane, several of whom were involved in the formation of Activision after leaving Atari. They both developed and published titles for a number of platforms including the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Atari 2600 & 7800, Sega Genesis, Game Gear, Sega CD and Master System as well as the PC and Amiga. The company's name was primarily chosen because it appeared alphabetically higher than Activision, a strategy that was used by Activision themselves and several others including Accolade and Acclaim when developing for Atari.
The company's games met with a fair amount of success in the late 80s and early 90s but experienced a sharp drop in overall quality which resulted in negative reviews and poor sales. Under growing financial pressure, management decided to shut Absolute down in 1995. A new company called SkyWorks Technologies was founded by several of the original Absolute staff before the closure and continues to operate successfully to this day.
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