| Created | XXX.XX.XXXX |
| Revised | JUL.03.2026 |
Welcome to NES WORLD's second interview. With great feedback received off the Vance Kozik interview, I decided to search for other people working for any of the unlicensed NES developers/publishers. In a search on Hotbot (a searchengine back in the day) I ended up on a personal page for Dave Ashley, who turns out to be a friend of Richard Frick who ran American Video Entertainment.
As a European I have always had a special interest in the unlicensed NES games released in the US, mainly because we didn't have such here. Sure, other European countries had something similar and Australia had Home Entertainment Suppliers. However the biggest "concentration" of manufacturers of unlicensed NES games was in the United States - not counting all the unlicensed games out of Asia (that I did not know of when making this interview way back).
Please note that this interview was made way back in the late 1990's, my knowledge about American Video Entertainment was limited and I which I had made a more structured "approach" to the interview, like asking Richard about his time at Tengen, American Game Carts and such, but this was what I was capable of doing at that time.
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Here it is so far, sorry for the delay. I haven't thought about these things for several years so it has taken three or four hours of time to collect my thoughts regarding your questions. As I answered these questions, a lot of memories returned, many favorable, many frustrating. I think the mix of games AVE did were of good value. Some much better than others. We had good pricing and good support from the retailers up and until the compatibility became a real problem. Richard Frick |
When was AVE formed?
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Around February 1990. Richard Frick |
By whom?
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Macronix Inc. Richard Frick |
How many employees did AVE have?
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It varied. Macronix had 60 employees but we contracted out manufacturing. American Video (AVE) used Macronix for shipping, purchasing, accounting, etc. AVE had 3 dedicated people, Myself, Phil Mikkelson, and Fred Hoot. Richard Frick |
What exactly was American Game Carts Inc (AGCI)? a subsidiary of AVE?
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ACGI was a wholly owned subsidiary of Share Data of Arizona. ACGI was formed in 1988 or 1989 by Share Data. Share Data was the company that first created the 'Budget' line of software based on the TV game shows 'Jeopardy' and 'Wheel of Fortune'. I was with Share Data before ACGI and produced 'Chiller'. Share Data had approximately 60 employees. Richard Frick |
Wouldn't it have been easier for AVE just to get an official license from Nintendo? I mean, it would've caused a lot less trouble right?
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Macronix was a 'ROM' (Read only Memory) manufacturer, and Nintendo didn't purchase any ROM's from Macronix. 60% to 70% of all ROMs went to video games and Nintendo would not approve any manufacturer of ROM's other than Japanese manufacurers. To try to get some of the Video Game business, Macronix tried to get uncommitted to Nintendo, video game companies to purchase their ROM's along with the 'NintendoCompatible' (NINA) chip. The problem of upsetting Nintendo was outweighed by the better profits they (the uncommitted game companies) would get by purchasing Macronix ROMs and (NINA's). Unfortunately, Macronix was unable to convince any Game companies to use their technology and thus American Video Entertainment. Richard Frick |
AVE couldn't have had original NES development kits, did you reverse-engineer the NES and make one yourself?
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We didn't program any of the games internally. Our developers did their own reverse engineering. We never made a development kit. Richard Frick |
What exatly happened to AVE? Why did they dissapear?
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With Nintendo constantly changing of the base unit's internal workings. We could not come up with new compatibility chips fast enough. We would be 100% compatible, and Nintendo would change a few thousand units and ship them to the US. We could not blame Toys R Us for being uncomfortable selling a cartridge that may or may not work. The changes Nintendo made violated the Anti-trust laws of the United States. We hired Joseph Alioto (the famous and best Anti-Trust lawyer in the United States) and sued Nintendo for anti-trust. Unfortunately due to the judicial appointments made to the Federal Courts by Ronald Reagan and the changing business 'climate' it went from 95% to 45% we would win. This happened during the three years we litigated the lawsuit. Without sufficient revenue from the Nintendo based products we could not get into the SEGA based units. Dave Ashley would have been our source of development systems for the SEGA. Richard Frick |
Where are the remains of AVE today? Prototype cartridges and such....
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I have some of the prototypes to this day. The rest of AVE inventory was sold off as scrap or to discounters. Richard Frick |
Color Dreams' game Menace Beach is on AVE's Maxi15, did AVE buy the rights for the game?
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Yes we bought the rights for multi-game cartridges. Richard Frick |
Which game was AVE's last release?
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The last release was a pool game that was never sold at retail. Richard Frick |
What were the relations between Sachen, Hacker International and AVE? Because two releases were Tiles of Fate and Mermaids of Atlantis, both made by Sachen and both seem like 'censored' versions of 2 hacker titles.
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The Sachen games we sold were 'Double Strike' and 'Pyramid'. As I recall the other titles came from TXC which and made the 'censored' versions for Hacker International. Richard Frick |
Did you ever plan to make more multicartridges than the Maxi15?
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If it had been successful, we had enough games to do a second 15 in one. Richard Frick |
Are AVE games freeware today or are they still copyrighted?
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Most of the games are owned by the original creators. We usually had world wide rights to sell them but the game concept and re-use on other platforms was owned by the creator. Richard Frick |
Did Nintendo often sue AVE for one reason or another? :)
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No. Only once, and only as a result of our suing them first. Richard Frick |
Did you ever plan to sell games in Europe?
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Yes, we actually sold some games in Europe, but the incompatibility in Europe was worse than in the US because Europe got machines later in the production run. We had distributors in Germany, France, UK, Austria, and Holland. The most successful distributor was in Austria. He sold several cases of products. Richard Frick |
Do you know anything about AGCI's unreleased game Crossbow? (there was an add for it in AVE's game Wally Bear) if so, which type was it. Why wasn't it released? Did a prototype even exist?
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Share Data licensed the entire catalog of EXIDY coin operated games. 'Chiller' was chosen as the first title due to it's uniqueness compared to any other Nintendo game. Crossbow never really existed in any other form other than screen shots of various backgrounds. Richard Frick |
That's it, a huge thank you to Richard Frick for taking the time to answer my questions all those years ago.
