History
George Carter III claimed to have had the idea for Photon while watching Star Wars when it premiered in 1977. In 1982, research and development started in earnest, and the first Photon center in Dallas, Texas opened in March 1984. The first franchisee opened in Toronto in June 1985. The architect for Photon was J.C Collins.
The home units were introduced in 1986, as were the Lazer Tag brand units of competitor Worlds of Wonder. Both companies were very successful in the Christmas shopping season of 1986.
By 1987, 70 franchise licenses had been sold and 45 arenas were operating.
In 1989, lack of financing and loss of franchise revenue forced the corporation to sell off its assets and cease operations.
In 2007, a new Photon center was constructed in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. It opened on July 1, 2008 but on September 9, 2008, after less than 9 weeks, lack of business revenue forced the center to cease operations.
Read more about this topic: Photon: The Ultimate Game On Planet Earth
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)