U.S. Gold Ltd

From Wikipedia

U.S. Gold was founded in Birmingham in 1984 by Geoff Brown as the publishing division of Centresoft, a computer game distribution company he founded in 1983. Their primary purpose was to publish popular American Atari and Commodore 64 games in the UK and Europe and later convert them to other popular 8-bit home computer formats in the European market, such as the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. This business plan proved to be an instant success, prompting U.S. Gold to expand by acquiring smaller developers and seeking out licences that they could commercialise. Various popular video games were ported by the company to IBM PC including Street Fighter II, World Cup Italia '90 and World Cup USA '94.

The publisher continued to expand their operation well into the 1990s. However, a number of their more lucrative licensing deals, particularly one with LucasArts (formerly Lucasfilm Games), fell through, threatening to affect their income. In order to help consolidate their finances, they joined forces with UK software distributor CentreSoft to form the CentreGold Plc Group. Internal game development studios owned by U.S. Gold were the internally formed Silicon Dreams and acquired Core Design.

The three-way partnership at the heart of CentreGold didn't last long, however, as the group was acquired by Eidos Interactive in April 1996. Eidos sold off CentreSoft and maintained Core Design as a developer but decided to discontinue the U.S. Gold brand. Silicon Dreams Studios was sold back to U.S. Gold founder Geoff Brown and became the keystone for his new development venture Geoff Brown Holdings (GBH).

The last retail game to bear the U.S. Gold logo was Olympic Games: Atlanta 1996, released in June 1996 for the Sega Saturn, PlayStation, PC and 3DO. The remaining U.S. Gold games awaiting publication at the time of their acquisition by Eidos were released in August 1996 with the exception of Dream Team Basketball. Dream Team Basketball was to be released on the Sony PlayStation but was cancelled.