[a] In August 2022, games holding company Embracer Group completed its acquisition of studios Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal and Square Enix Montréal and intellectual properties Tomb Raider, Legacy of Kain, Deus Ex and Thief among other assets.

When he returned to his London job as a junior account executive at a small advertising agency, he spoke to Strachan, his colleague, and floated the idea of setting up a company to publish games from third-party developers.

Strachan initially declined but later saw that many retailers in the city had sold out of ZX Spectrum models, which he felt signaled great interest in video games.

To design the adventure game Eureka!, they hired Andromeda Software and the Hungarian developer Novotrade, and brought in Ian Livingstone as its writer.

Strachan and Wheatley further devised a competition in which a telephone number would be shown upon completing the game, and the first person to call it would win £25,000.

Domark were unsure what project to pursue next; Strachan and Wheatley had a contact in the estate of Ian Fleming and approached them with the idea of producing a video game based on James Bond.

Leisure Genius was skeptical about a conversion of Trivial Pursuit, and Domark hired Oxford Digital Enterprises to develop it instead.

In the same year, Livingstone joined Domark's board as an investor, while Wheatley moved with his wife and two children to the US to better manage the company's American contacts.

[2][3] In 1994, Strachan and Wheatley encountered Charles Cornwall, chairman of Eidos, a company that developed video compression software for systems like the Acorn Archimedes.

Domark was struggling on the business side and Eidos had no sales at that time, so the two companies agreed to a reverse merger takeover.

[2] The deal was announced in September 1995 as an acquisition of Domark (alongside developers Simis and Big Red Software) by Eidos for £12.9 million.

CentreGold consisted of distributor CentreSoft[b] and publisher U.S. Gold, which included development subsidiaries Core Design and Silicon Dreams Studio.

[9][10] Eidos Interactive's first major title was soon to be released Tomb Raider by Core Design, which CentreGold had itself acquired two years prior.

[17] The following year Eidos CEO Cornwall left the company to focus on technology and mining interests and was succeeded by former COO Michael McGarvey.

[21] In 2003, Eidos founded Beautiful Game Studios inside their headquarters, which continued its Championship Manager series after splitting with previous developer Sports Interactive.

[25] On 21 March 2005, Eidos received a takeover bid from Elevation Partners, a private equity firm owned by former Electronic Arts president John Riccitiello.

[37] In November 2007, SCi opened a new studio in Montreal, Quebec, which was later named Eidos-Montréal and developed a new game in the Deus Ex franchise.

[45][46] In April 2008, newly appointed CEO Phil Rogers, a former Electronic Arts executive, stated they want to be a "leaner and fitter company", as well as "studio-led".

[47][48] They moved "certain functions" from the United Kingdom to Quebec, Canada, partially due to economic advantages offered by Montreal's government.

[51] On 19 September 2008, SCi opened a Shanghai-based studio, Eidos Shanghai, consisting of a small team to build up relations in Asia.

[56][57] In February 2009, Square Enix reached an agreement to purchase Eidos plc for £84.3 million, pending shareholder approval,[58] with an initial aim of completing the takeover on 6 May 2009.

These included development studios Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, Square Enix Montréal, and intellectual properties such as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain alongside "50 back-catalogue games", with the deal expected to be completed in the second quarter of Embracer's financial year.

[74] Embracer announced that the subsidiaries and IPs would form as their 12th operative group, under the leadership of Phil Rogers, and was later given the name of CDE (Crystal Dynamics - Eidos) Entertainment.