28 Facts About MicroProse

MicroProse is an American video game publisher and developer founded by Bill Stealey and Sid Meier in 1982.

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 1998, following an unsuccessful buyout attempt by GT Interactive, the struggling MicroProse 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.

In 2001, MicroProse ceased to exist as an entity and Hasbro Interactive sold the MicroProse intellectual properties to Infogrames Entertainment, SA.

The MicroProse brand was licensed to the Legacy Engineering Group for consumer electronics.

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MicroProse became profitable in its second month and had $10 million in sales by 1986.

In 1983, MicroProse ported Floyd of the Jungle to the Commodore 64, their first product for that machine.

MicroProse released the air traffic control game Kennedy Approach, written by Andy Hollis, in 1985.

MicroProse started a branch in the United Kingdom to cross-publish titles in Europe, and to import some European titles to be published in the United States.

MicroProse attempted to diversify beyond its niche roots as a sim and strategy game company, looking for opportunities into the arcade game industry.

MicroProse designed further action-strategy titles such as Covert Action and Hyperspeed, and experimented with the role-playing genre by developing BloodNet and Darklands .

MicroProse invested a large sum of money to create its arcade game division as well as their own graphic adventure game engine.

MicroProse hoped to raise $18 million to help repay debts from its unsuccessful arcade games.

MicroProse UK was forced to close its two satellite studios of MicroProse in northern England and dispose of over 40 staff at its Chipping Sodbury head office .

Insufficient financial resources largely prevented MicroProse from developing games for other game platforms, therefore MicroProse concentrated on the PC game market.

MicroProse Software continued as separate subsidiary company under Spectrum HoloByte until 1996.

MicroProse's remaining co-founder Sid Meier, along with Jeff Briggs and Brian Reynolds, departed the company after the staff cut, forming a new company named Firaxis Games.

In November 1997, MicroProse was sued by both Avalon Hill and Activision for copyright infringement.

MicroProse responded by buying Hartland Trefoil, which was the original designer and manufacturer of the Civilization board game, and then sued Avalon Hill and Activision for trademark infringement and unfair business practices as a result of Activision's decision to develop and publish Civilization video games.

Under the terms of the settlement MicroProse became the sole owner of the rights of the name Civilization and Activision acquired a license to publish a Civilization video game which was later titled Civilization: Call to Power.

In preparation for its sale, MicroProse closed down its studio in Austin in June 1998; as a result of the closure, 35 employees lost their jobs.

Besides the development studio in Alameda, MicroProse had three other studios: Hunt Valley, Maryland ; Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and Chipping Sodbury, England.

The last MicroProse developed game under Hasbro, B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th, was published in 2000.

Infogrames began to slowly phase out the brand name, with many MicroProse branded titles that were previously released by Hasbro being reissued with Infogrames' logo on the packaging.

The final two games branded under the MicroProse name were Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror and Grand Prix 4.

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In 2019, the MicroProse brand was purchased and revived by David Lagettie, one of the makers of TitanIM open world military simulation software.

Lagettie had been a fan of the original MicroProse games growing up, and as he saw the games ownership transition made the company eventually disappear, he started investigating the fate of MicroProse around 2005.

Since 2018, the MicroProse brand has been owned by David Lagettie, working with Bill Stealey's own company iEntertainment Network on the WarBirds series of combat flight simulators.