| Industry | Toys and video games |
|---|---|
| Fate | Closed by parent company (Acclaim Entertainment) |
| Successor | Acclaim Entertainment |
| Founded | 1970 |
| Defunct | 1994 |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York Lyndhurst, New Jersey |
| Key people | Jack Friedman (Founder) |
| Products | Toys: Wrestling Superstars, Thundercats, E.T, Gremlins Video games: Back to the Future series, Spider-man series, WWF wrestling games |
| Parent | LJN Toys, Ltd.: Independent (1970-1985) MCA (1985-1990) LJN, Ltd.: Acclaim Entertainment (1990-1994) LJN Entertainment, Inc.: Acclaim Entertainment (2000) |
LJN was an American toy company and video game publisher. It created toy lines and video games based on movies, television shows, and celebrities. It was headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City,[1] and later in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.[2]
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LJN Toys Ltd was founded in 1970 by Jack Friedman who later founded other toy companies, notably T*HQ and Jakks Pacific. [3]
The name LJN came from the initials of Lewis J. Norman, the reverse of Norman J. Lewis, whose toy company Friedman had been employed by as a sales representative in the 1960s. Lewis initially backed the company financially, but later sold his interest to a Chinese investor.[4]
In 1985, MCA,[5] which had been actively acquiring companies in the mid-1980s,[4] acquired LJN for $66[5] or $67 million[6] in an effort to retain more profits from the merchandising of its film properties.[7]
LJN began publishing video games for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987. Although this was LJN's first foray into the video game business, it was not for MCA who had previously started MCA Video Games, as a joint venture with Atari, Inc., to create coin-operated and home games and computer software based on various MCA properties.[8]
In 1988, LJN acquired Italian toy company Al'es from the Fassi family.[9]
In 1989, MCA decided to sell LJN after years of losses[5] since 1987 when fallout surrounding toy guns made by LJN's Entertech division plunged MCA's profits 79.5% in the second quarter of that year.[7][10] MCA finally agreed to sell to Acclaim Entertainment in March 1990 for cash and Acclaim common stock.[11]
During the time the company was owned by Acclaim, LJN mostly retained the same movie/cartoon direction for their video games it pursued under MCA. Acclaim rid LJN of its toy division and re-branded it exclusively as a video game developer. During the 8-bit gaming era, Nintendo, as a form of quality control, regulated the number of titles to appear on its console, the Nintendo Entertainment System. As a result, companies like Acclaim used divisions such as LJN to produce more products than Nintendo would have traditionally allowed. Konami also utilized such tactics with their division Ultra. Unlike Ultra which was a brand name of Konami, LJN was still a legal company operating independently from Acclaim. Even after Nintendo dropped its rule in the early 1990s, Acclaim kept LJN operating which published several titles for the Super NES.
There is no video game that has been developed in-house by LJN. All of LJN's video games were developed by external developers, although many of their video games (especially the pre-Acclaim ones) did not disclose the developer.
LJN, along with the Flying Edge and Arena Entertainment labels (the latter two labels which published Acclaim's games to Sega's consoles) were folded into Acclaim in 1994.
In 2000, LJN made a return in name only when Acclaim used the brand to publish the Dreamcast port of Spirit of Speed 1937.