Write up on Tech Geek History :Tiger games

Tiger Electronics was founded in 1978 by Randy Rissman, Gerald Rissman, and Arnold Rissman in Vernon Hills, Illinois. In its’ early days the company mostly made electronic items like phonographs. As the company grew it started branching out into electronic games and toys which is what the company is most known for. Tiger Electronics made their name with their extensive brand of LCD games that people either love or hate. Tiger Electronics had a lot of other successful products though including the 2-XL Robot, Brain Warp, Furby, Giga Pets, Lazer Tag,  Skip It, and the the Talkboy (made popular by the movie Home Alone).

After working with Hasbro for quite a few years, Tiger Electronics was eventually acquired by Hasbro in 1998 and is still a division of Hasbro to this day.

Launch of the LCD games

The first Tiger LCD games arrived in 1985, with Bowling being their initial release. This established the blocky Tiger case design where the LCD screen was sat in the centre of the top half and two sets of controls would be placed on the lower portion; one set on the left and one set on the right. It’s a design that would stick with the games until the end, although the squared case with sharp edges would be re-modelled in 1988 to have smoother corners.

Despite Tiger’s mass-produced nature, their handheld games weren’t entirely cut-and-paste affairs in the design department. The individual games would all have separate control schemes, so only the backs of the cases were interchangeable. The front casing was specifically modelled for the game in question; with different control schemes tailored specifically for each game. Some had multiple buttons on each side, some had one giant button on one side. The complexity varied but nothing ever got too difficult to work out, even without a manual (and yes, they did come with a manual, just in case you couldn’t figure out the four buttons on your own).

Bowling was quickly followed by more sports titles such as Soccer, Boxing and Golf but Tiger would really find their niche when they started licencing popular franchises such as He-Man, Thundercats, Voltron and Transformers. These games, all released in 1985, showed just how quickly Tiger could go from acquiring a licence to pumping out utter trash games with that licence plastered on it.

Tiger’s success really comes down to two things: they had recognisable names on their products, and they were relatively cheap. Tiger games cost $20 at most, while handheld games usually retailed for $30 or more and console games were higher still. You could pick up older Tiger games for a lot less, of course. This meant that Tiger’s products were always available to kids with a little pocket money but not enough saved for a big-name game; and they made perfect last-minute gifts when you forgot to get something for the kid whose birthday party you were going to drop your children off at.

Tiger would continue to licence popular films and TV shows alongside their sports and in-house designed games until they were acquired by Hasbro in the late Nineties. They even partnered up with Sega and Nintendo to produce LCD tie-in games to accompany those companies’ console games. That’s right, you could get an LCD version of a proper game that you might actually want to play! It was madness.

The first year of production saw twelve Tiger LCD games released. Their most productive year was 1994, when they released 17 new games; while their slowest year was 1996, when only four games were produced. Their final LCD title, Rocket Power, was released in 2000 (because apparently it’s possible to go for 25 years selling the same cheap electronic crap over and over again).

Tiger’s LCD gaming division lasted for a quarter of a century, churning out basic game after basic game, but these handheld delights wouldn’t be the only market Tiger would give a try. After Nintendo went into the 3D world of Virtual Reality, you can bet Tiger wanted to give that a try.