Parker Brothers, famous for their board and card games since 1883, entered the electronic age in 1977 with Code Name: Sector a tabletop submarine-hunt game. A series of successful handhelds followed, including the 6-games-in-1 hit Merlin.

In 1983 they announced they would enter the video game market with a full slate for the Atari consoles and computers, Intellivision and ColecoVision, the Commodore computers, the Texas Instruments TI99/4A and the IBM PC.

Despite owning some of the best known titles in the business, including Monopoly, Clue and Risk, Parker Brothers did not use any of their own properties as the basis for their video games, except for announced versions of Risk for Atari 5200 and Atari computers. Instead, they licensed hit arcade games - including Frogger and Q*bert - and top-grossing movies - including Star Wars and James Bond. They spent a fortune outbidding Atari, Mattel and Coleco for the properties they obtained.

While they did release a number of titles on several platforms, most of the games they announced went unfinished as the video game industry collapsed in late 1983.

Following the crash, General Mills (owner of Parker Brothers since 1968), dumped the company. It bounced through a couple of other owners before winding up as a part of Hasbro in 1991.

Under Hasbro, Parker Brothers finally capitalized on their own properties, releasing versions of their most famous board games for various video game and computer systems.