Eagle Software

**Eagle Software** was a company that mainly developed software for home computers that later on went to make games on occasion.

Founded in 1984 by Ntéiv Gounts shortly after leaving IBM to found Eagle Software, his company mainly created software for home computers of the time, and his company would later on go to develop some games.

## Controversies

Earlier while Eagle Mailing Client was in public testing was just known as Godspeed Connection Client in many adverts of the program on BBS servers, but the codename was changed due to religious conflicts with a few users claiming that the name was inappropriate to there religion. Despite only 3% of users in the program agreeing, the company changed the name.

In 1989 they were sued by a unknown company for patent infringement on one of there programs they have created that had some form of digital messaging which was ahead of the time, but didn't work too well as it only supported connection through dial up. This was settled out of court, and was made so that **Eagle Software** couldn't make software that contained any sort of online communication for 20 years. The company that started the lawsuit went defunct a few years later due to financing troubles.

## History

One day when IBM's newest computer was coming out known as the PCjr, Ntéiv Gounts became fascinated with the games and software that was being released for it, and decided he wanted to be apart of it more than being a simple researcher at IBM, so with his degree he quit IBM to found **Eagle Software** in June 1984. Despite always remaining loyal to the IBM brand, the founder and CEO desired to create software for IBM computers, and to maybe one day work closely with them. This would never come to be due to the group of people he hired only having experience in the Commodore 64. He would have replaced them with people who could code for PC-DOS, but because of how they needed to create software soon he kept the team and developed with Commodore's computers for the time being.

The most successful program they created before the internet was more common place was a messaging service that worked like BBS servers with chat features, but instead of using a BBS used there own connection type. This program would be known as Eagle Mailing Client (formerly Godspeed Connection Client).

### Relationship With FunTime

While the company's founder Ntéiv Gounts was thinking of ways to help the company not go bankrupt due to lack of decent software, one of the people in the meeting suggested that they collab with this somewhat new company known as FunTime Ltd. Ntéiv Gounts asked why he would suggest help from such a new company and was close minded about the situation until the co-worker convinced him to see what there capable of, to which he reluctantly agreed. They went to FunTime's offices to see what they were capable of. They showcased many things that there team were capable of, and "While there games felt kind of the same as the competition, there interesting enough to be hired".

With this, FunTime officially started collaborating with Eagle Software to help each other. Eagle Software at this period often gave code for software FunTime wasn't familiar with, and even gave them the torch to continue development on some software with Eagle mailing Client being the first, acquired by FunTime in 1996 when the internet was becoming a bit more accessible (the program was changed to FunTime Mail Client upon it's first known public beta testing phase). In return FunTime gave them various source code for some games they had developed that were long discontinued so they could port it to newer consoles if they wanted. With this they had ported a few games from FunTime to some home computers such as a Pac Man clone on the Commodore Amiga as a part of a diskette that was included in issue 126 of Amiga Magazine Europe that was the most popular Amiga magazine at the time in Europe, and helped boost FunTime, and Eagle Software's awareness in Europe and even overseas when the game was distributed across various shareware disks and sites of the mid 90s.

### The Company's Downfall

This would be the start of there slow downfall due to there biggest success being programs that had online communication features. This lawsuit also caused them to cancel support on this service along with the program itself, and also caused the next major version of the program (Version 2.4) to be unreleased and later lost in a budget cut made in 2000 due to partially indirect issues caused by the dot-com bubble. This version would have added many quality of improvement features, such as more options for messaging, sub-folders for emails, and more.  The company at this point was in bad financial shape, and in 1999 decided to sign a deal with FunTime that would mean that they would take ownership of the company, and keep them around while still letting them make projects on there own.

### FunTime's Slow Disassociation

Despite this, FunTime on occasion had to make Eagle Software cease production on a software or game for a little while due to troubles within the company. A few years later in 2005 the company yet again was threatened to go bankrupt, and FunTime despite there steady success keeping them in a well situation, **Eagle Software** were heavily struggling, and they had to freeze there production until they can help they get back to a better state. The company's founder himself was starting to have health issues that would cause him to be unable to stay within the company at this state, causing Ntéiv Gounts to shortly after this decision leave the company for retirement. He died in 2008 of heart failure at the age of 66, and the next game FunTime released around that time was dedicated to him, even adding a special thanks to **Eagle Software** for the help over the years as that game was based around the evolution of the video games industry, and was based on a few ideas thrown around in the offices of **Eagle Software** when they were last active in video game development.

In 2011 they had discovered a new small game development company known as The Krusty Krab be founded. They decided to go and ask the founder of that company to help with there ventures in game development after noticing the company's insane lack of workers (3 in total, with only 2 being permanent). He agreed and decided to start to work together, with FunTime often times helping develop many games with his small team, slowly getting staff who worked both at FunTime and The Krusty Krab as part time members. Due to this new business collaborations, they slowly ended up forgetting about **Eagle Software**. Many people at the company noticed that they wasn't able to get work done, and noticed that things were getting worse at many veteran staff members started to leave the company to be full time employees at FunTime and The Krusty Krab. This move caused the company to drop from an estimated 68 people that was the same number since around 2002, to about 33 people.

### The Mental Health of the workers

In December of 2011 FunTime had announced to the company that due to poor funding that they would only exist in name by March 2012. This infuriated many of the workers, causing around half of them, mostly newer members from after 1997 leaving, while those from 1984 to 1995 stayed and started a protest by staying in the building long after all the bills were not paid. By this point they were very used to having FunTime pay for the company, but thanks to the company about to only exist in name, the building's electricity bill went out while they were making a cryptic puzzle game about solving a mystery of a murder which was the founder of a games company. One suggested this to be changed into a non game development studio due to there inappropriate references to the late founder of the company, and the company in the game being a lot like **Eagle Software**.

This caused one of them to snap, from the crunch of creating this game, and all the issues on the company he grabbed a knife from the breakroom and stabbed the guy who suggested the idea in the neck. Everyone was traumatized by the whole event, and this caused many that were a part of the protest to leave. The murderer dragged the body into a hole that was created thanks to a leak they couldn't fix, and dropped the corpse in the hole to the room below which was used as a pit to throw waste and used food into. before doing this however he looked at the body and attempted to eat it. He successfully ate parts of his fingers, and a little bit of his stomach flesh before puking. This caused him to toss the body to the hole. At this point many had to live at the building because of lack of money, and loss of homes. Early on they took many items from local stores, but those who stole the things were put into jail, causing the rest to not want to steal despite needing to at this point. A month later after the murder, the killer ran off from the building and was never seen again. Some rumors said that he lives in the forest that grew around the building  long after 2012 and that he lives in the trees to get more human victims to eat. This is unconfirmed, with some proof that this could be true appearing on rare occasion such as a piece of shirt found on the ground in the forest one day. This shirt had the fingerprints of one of the people convicted for being in the building at the time of the murder.

### Post Merge Completion

The building stayed the same state, some tried fleeing around August 2012, with those people never making it due to shock in there body. Years later in 2017 on the 2nd episode of an online documentary series about interesting places around the world that is dangerous, hosted by the founder of The Krusty Krab, **Eagle Software's** building was the focus of the company, what happened after the company went defunct, and how the people lived now was talked about on this episode. The episode caused public interest to go higher than known before, and in 2018 the building's residents were taken out for rehab. Only 5 people were taken out with the rest later being found dead with the bodies being dead from 2012 from that pit of waste, to as recent as 2016 when the last known person died by falling in the pit while looking for something (based on word of mouth from the court case of the murders of the company). It's estimated that 15 people died in the building, with around 3-6 fleeing the building before being found dead.

The building's remaining things like floppies containing data for games, software, and other documents were given to FunTime, with the same going for other salvaged items such as a framed image of the founder that was the only item that wasn't touched at all (not even removed from it's wall). FunTime while questioned about why they didn't do anything about the building when the company was absorbed into FunTime, they claimed that after the company's workers and the building was considered not there's anymore in late 2011, they said the building and everything inside that was still not in there name was Eagle Software. Despite the suspicious claim the company made, they let it slide continuing with the building's demolishing which was finished in October of 2018.

## List of Games

Keep in mind due to the majority of data being lost from workers dis guarding the disks to save on costs, a lot of games are currently lost with no proof even existing of them. Some only exists in rough designs of the game, while others only faint descriptions from word on interviews.

 Micro Tim | 1986, 1991

## Trivia

* There site now redirects to FunTime's site since 2006
* The founder's name Ntéiv Gounts translates to "Dave Woods" in English from Greek as the founder was from Greek heritage.
* Eagle Software's history shares a lot in common with Ocean Software. From Ocean Software being founded a year before Eagle Software, to both companies' fates being observed into there parent companies, to even the systems they released software and games for.

1. ↑ Ntéiv Gounts' quote from an interview of the history of the company, and it's downfall on the 2nd episode of a online documentary series about interesting places around the world that is dangerous, hosted by the founder of The Krusty Krab, Shaun Mckenna.
2. ↑ Ocean Software's article on Wikipedia