Broderbund Software

USA · Founded 1980 · Developer / Publisher

Broderbund published Jordan Mechner's Karateka and Prince of Persia, co-published Myst, and launched Carmen Sandiego into an educational franchise spanning games, television, and schools.

Brothers Doug and Gary Carlston founded Broderbund Software in Eugene, Oregon in 1980, initially distributing games acquired from small developers before building an in-house publishing operation. The company's aesthetic leaned toward thoughtful, well-crafted experiences rather than action spectacle: Karateka (1984), Jordan Mechner's debut game, integrated cinematic storytelling and fluid rotoscoped animation into a karate game of unusual emotional weight. Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (1985) was designed as an educational product to teach geography through detective gameplay; it sold over six million copies across its variants and spawned a long-running PBS television series. Mechner returned with Prince of Persia (1989), which used rotoscoped motion capture of his brother to produce a protagonist whose movement felt genuinely athletic and mortal — stumbling, grabbing ledges, dying from misjudged jumps. The game influenced every subsequent action-platformer that cared about physicality. Broderbund co-published Myst (1993) with Cyan, which became the best-selling PC game of its era with over six million copies sold. The Learning Company acquired Broderbund in 1998.