MicroProse

MicroProse is an American video game publisher and developer founded by Bill Stealey and Sid Meier in 1982. It developed and published numerous games, including starting the Civilization and X-COM series. Most of their internally developed titles were vehicle simulation and strategy games. In 1993, the company lost most of its UK-based personnel and became a subsidiary of Spectrum HoloByte. 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 (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. In 2001, MicroProse ceased to exist as an entity and Hasbro Interactive sold the MicroProse intellectual properties to Infogrames Entertainment, SA. MicroProse UK's main office in Chipping Sodbury was closed in 2002, followed by the company's headquarters in Hunt Valley, Maryland, in 2003. The brand was revived in 2007 when Interactive Game Group acquired it from Atari Interactive, formerly Infogrames. The MicroProse brand was licensed to the Legacy Engineering Group for consumer electronics. Cybergun owned the MicroProse brand from 2010 to 2018, which was then acquired by David Lagettie working with Stealey.