(In 1987 the company agreed to change its name to avoid confusion with MicroPro International, but MicroPro decided to rename itself after its WordStar word processor). They planned to name it Smugger's Software, but chose MicroProse.
Although Meier needed two months to produce Hellcat Ace, Stealey sold 50 copies in his first sales appointment and the game became the first product of their new company. Stealey promised to sell the game if Meier could develop it. After Meier surprised Stealey by repeatedly defeating him when playing Red Baron, he explained that he had analyzed the game's programming to predict future actions and claimed that he could design a better home computer game in one week. In summer 1982, mutual friends who knew of their shared interest in aviation arranged for retired military pilot Bill Stealey and computer programmer Sid Meier to meet in Las Vegas. Cybergun owned the MicroProse brand from 2010 to 2018, which was then acquired by David Lagettie working with Stealey. The MicroProse brand was licensed to the Legacy Engineering Group for consumer electronics.
The brand was revived in 2007 when Interactive Game Group acquired it from Atari Interactive, formerly Infogrames. MicroProse UK's former main office in Chipping Sodbury was closed in 2002, followed by the company's former headquarters in Hunt Valley, Maryland in 2003. In 2001, MicroProse ceased to exist as an entity and Hasbro Interactive sold the MicroProse intellectual properties to Infogrames Entertainment, SA. In 1998, following an unsuccessful buyout attempt by GT Interactive Software, the struggling MicroProse (Spectrum HoloByte) became a wholly owned subsidiary of Hasbro Interactive and its development studios in Alameda, California and Chapel Hill, North Carolina were closed the following year. Subsequent cuts and corporate policies led to Sid Meier, Jeff Briggs and Brian Reynolds leaving and forming Firaxis Games in 1996, as MicroProse closed its ex- Simtex development studio in Austin, Texas. In 1993, the company lost most of its UK-based personnel and became a subsidiary of Spectrum HoloByte. Most of their internally developed titles were vehicle simulation and strategy games.
It developed and published numerous games, including starting the Civilization and X-COM series. So if they put out an updated version of B17, I'd be all over that like a cheap suit.MicroProse is an American video game publisher and developer founded by Bill Stealey and Sid Meier in 1982. Some of those titles still stand up today as sims which are enjoyable to play with which is no doubt why you can still buy them on Steam. Notable high points in their output for me, being Midwinter, Gunship and B17. More often than not they actually managed to pull it off with some aplomb too, so it was pretty much a given that any new sim they banged out was an instant buy for those of us around at the time. Or perhaps we can also use the example of the more recent Star Wars movies, which, try as they might, cannot seem to recapture the (very much of its time) thrill of the original three movies.īack in the day - along with Janes - Microprose appeared to want to simulate every military vehicle known to man in their various offerings. Chock calling PC, engage cautious optimism mode!Ĭautious because I guess we should always remember what Paul McCartney allegedly once said when asked about the possibility of the Beatles reforming, (although apparently it was Linda who originally said it, when Wings were on tour): 'You cannot reheat a souffle'.