About Broderbund

The Broderbund has been founded in 1980 by brothers Doug and Gary Carlston for the purpose of marketing Galactic Empire, a computer game that Doug Carlston had created in 1979. Broderbund sister, Cathy, joined the company a year later. Before founding the company, Doug was a lawyer and Gary had held a number of jobs, including teaching Swedish at an American college. In 1984, Broderbund took over the assets of the well-regarded but financially-troubled Synapse Software. Although intending to keep it running as a business, they were unable to make money from Synapse's products and closed it down after a year.

Broderbund became a public company in 1991. Their stock price and market capitalization climbed steadily to a maximum of nearly USD $80/share in late 1995, and then fell steadily in the face of continued losses for a number of years. Broderbund was purchased by The Learning Company in 1998 for about USD $420 million in stock. Ironically, Broderbund had initially attempted to purchase the original The Learning Company in 1995, but was outbid by Softkey, who purchased The Learning Company for $606 million in cash and then adopted its name. In a move to rationalize costs.

The Learning Company promptly terminated 500 employees at Broderbund the same year, representing 42% of the company's workforce. Then in 1999 the combined company was bought by Mattel for the astounding sum of $3.6 billion. Mattel reeled from the financial impact of this transaction and Jill Barad, the CEO, ended up being forced out in a climate of investor outrage. Mattel then actually gave away The Learning Company in September 2000 to Gores Technology Group, a private acquisitions firm, for a share of whatever Gores could obtain by selling the company. In 2001, Gores sold The Learning Company's entertainment holdings to Ubisoft and most of the other holdings, including the Broderbund name, to Irish company Riverdeep. Currently, all of Broderbund's games, such as the Myst series, are published by Ubisoft.