With no programmers to develop any games in-house, Michael Katz needed to hire programmers to ensure a steady supply of games. Several venture capital owners involved in Epyx also had ownership of a company called Starpath. While Starpath had several young programmers and hardware engineers, they were facing financial difficulties as well. Around this time, an independent submission to publish a game called "Jumpman" came through and was a big hit for Epyx. The success of Jumpman made Epyx a lot of money, so Michael Katz had the capital to create a merger between Epyx and Starpath, bringing Starpath's programmers and hardware engineers under the same company. Michael Katz left Epyx in 1984 after being hired away by Atari Corporation as their President of Entertainment Electronics Division (and later, became the President of Sega of America), and was replaced by Gilbert Freeman (no relation to Jon Freeman).