Accolade, Inc.

Formed in 1984 by Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead. This name was chosen mostly on the basis that their former place of employment (Activision to be specific) was based on an alphabetically higher name than Atari (which both of them worked at before co-founding Activision), and they wanted their name to be above Activision. The company also owned a European distribution office.

Accolade was a success early on, due to their technical prowess, and many former Activision employees coming over to the company. Accolade's luck would turn around in the early 1990's due to the small recession. The company's sales declined in the early 90's, Alan Miller left (in 1994), and it was only a five years later that they were acquired by Infogrames (which ironically changed their name to Atari in 2003, the name of the company the co-founders started at).

They were also involved in an unprecedented lawsuit between them and SEGA over licensing issues with the SEGA Genesis and re-engineering the Genesis to bypass the lockout chips that ensure SEGA's licensing of the games.

The Accolade label was revived in June 2017 by Billion Soft (Hong Kong) Limited, before being bought back by Atari in April 2023.