Gremlin Industries

Gremlin was founded in 1971 as a contract engineering firm by Harry Frank Fogleman and Carl E. Grindle.[1] The duo had intended to name the company after themselves as "Grindleman Industries," but an employee of the Delaware Secretary of State's office misheard the name over the phone, so the company was incorporated as Gremlin instead.[2] In 1973, Gremlin became a manufacturer of coin-operated wall games with their first game Play Ball (1973).[3] Gremlin joined the video game industry in 1976 by releasing its first video arcade game entitled Blockade (1976).[4]

In 1978, Gremlin was acquired by Sega Enterprises Inc. and their games acquired the label of Gremlin/Sega or Sega/Gremlin.[5] Following the Sega purchase, Gremlin began to release games from both Sega and other Japanese companies. Among these video games were Namco's Gee Bee (1978), Data East's Astro Blaster (1980), Nichibutsu's Moon Cresta and Super Moon Cresta (both 1980) Nintendo's Space Firebird (1980), and Konami's Frogger (1981).

In 1982 the name of the company was changed to Sega Electronics to better strengthen the Sega brand name in the United States.[6] In mid-1983 the arcade assets of the company were sold to Bally Manufacturing and Sega Electronics was shuttered soon afterwards.

The company was renamed Ages Electronics as a subsidiary of CBS.[1]

Sega released emulated and playable versions of some of the early Sega/Gremlin arcade games as vault material for the Sega Genesis Collection for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable.