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Martin Alper (1942 – June 7, 2015) was a video game designer and the former President of Virgin Interactive, once one of the largest companies in the field.[1] Alper was a co-founder of Mastertronic,[2] which went on to become Virgin Interactive following its acquisition by Richard Branson.[3] He was involved with the development of Command & Conquer at Westwood Studios and Shiny Entertainment who developed The Matrix and Earthworm Jim.[1]

Alper was the person who approached Westwood Studios co-founder Brett Sperry about creating Dune II while Cryo Interactive was still developing the first Dune game.[4]

In an interview, he explained how he fired Rob Landeros and Graeme Devine so they could set-up their own company Trilobyte during the development of The 7th Guest.[5] During an interview on Soren Johnson‘s podcast, Charles Cecil discussed meeting with Alper when Virgin Interactive was publishing Cecil’s games and said that Alper boasted about the success of The 7th Guest and proudly told Cecil, “The reason I make such good decisions about what we [at Virgin Interactive] commission, is because I’ve never played a video game in my life.”[6]

Alper also provided the voice acting for EVA in the original Command & Conquer: Red Alert.[7][8]

References

  1. ^ a b Takahashi, Dean (8 June 2015). “Former Virgin Interactive Entertainment video game pioneer Martin Alper dies at 72”. VentureBeat. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  2. ^ IGN – Mastertronic
  3. ^ “Martin Alper”. Laguna Beach Local News. 26 June 2015. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  4. ^ Maher, Jimmy (7 December 2018). “Controlling the Spice, Part 3: Westwood’s Dune”. The Digital Antiquarian. Retrieved 2026-05-27. As far as Alper or anyone else outside Virgin’s French subsidiary knew at this point, the Cryo Dune game was dead. But Alper hadn’t gone to all the trouble of securing the license not to use it. In April of 1991 — just one month before the departure of Jean-Martial Lefranc from Virgin Loisirs, combined with a routine audit, would bring the French Dune conspiracy to light — Alper signed Westwood to make a Dune game of their own.
  5. ^ Mamen, Erik-André Vik; Froholt, Joachim (November 27, 2013). “Interview with Martin Alper of Virgin Interactive”. Spillhistorie.no.
  6. ^ Soren Johnson (4 May 2026). “Designer Notes 94: Charles Cecil – Part 2”. Designer Notes (Podcast). Idle Thumbs. Event occurs at 49:50. Retrieved 2026-05-27. I went over to America and I met the head of the whole group, a guy called Martin Alper, who lectured me. He commissioned a game called 7th Guest, which had been very successful from a guy called Matt Costello. And he said, the reason that I make such great decisions on what we commission is because I’ve never played a video game in my life. Right, and to him, this was a real badge of honor. At that time, the publishers generally—Oh, sorry. The heads of publishers were people that had no interest in actually playing video games. All they were really interested in was the money that they could make, and Martin Alper was one of those people.
  7. ^ Red Alert Field Manual(Page 99)
  8. ^ “Command & Conquer Remastered brings back original EVA voice actor”. PC Invasion. 10 December 2019. Retrieved 25 March 2021.