LJN

LJN

Founded	1970
Closed	1995
Headquarters	Midtown Manhattan, New York City, USA
Other Names	LJN Toys, Ltd.

LJN was an American video game company and toy company. They are known for their several poor-quality video games. The company was founded by Jack Friedman, whose previous boss was named Norman J. Lewis. His initials backwards are the result of the company name.

The biggest misconception about LJN is that they developed the video games they published. In reality, LJN only published the games, and outsourced their development to companies such as Atlus, Bits Studios, Probe Software, Rare, Software Creations, Westone, and some other game developers. However, they were still responsible for the poor quality games made by the developers, as they gave the developers tight deadlines and made them rush games out the door. It seems LJN started to choose western developers over Japanese developers as time went on.

In their earlier games, LJN prohibited the use of credits in their games, likely due to the rushed nature of the games they published. However, Software Creations got around this rule by putting their names in the game's ROM image. Near the end of the NES era, it appears LJN dropped this rule or didn't care, as developers started putting full staff lists in their games.

LJN only made games for Nintendo platforms. However, these games would be ported to Sega platforms as well, usually under Acclaim's Flying Edge or Arena Entertainment brands. LJN was later bought and dissolved by Acclaim, and their last game was a Dreamcast game titled Spirit of Speed; interesting as Acclaim had long since stopped using the LJN name.

Jack Friedman went on to found THQ as well as Jakks Pacific.