Like Phoenix from Ashes – The Story of MicroProse
Discussing nostalgia in video games usually revolves around titles or series that we have the fondest memories for. The reawakening of MicroProse is something else, though. A dormant legend stands on the threshold of an incredible rebirth.
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Sid Meier's... board game
Silent Service, a game conceived by Sid Meier, sold particularly well, but the engineer wanted to go beyond military themes. After a romantic trip to the Caribbean, he came back with an idea for a new game. The game was called Sid Meier's Pirates! It was, in fact, Meier's first personal game, tailored according to his own taste and ideas. It was followed by Railroad Tycoon – a game about railroad management. It was a great game, but it also was a copy of the board game called Avalon Hill. Stealey managed to settle a dispute with the owners, but Sid Meier's Civilization soon followed.…
“Sid, what are you doing? This is a board game, and it's owned by Avalon Hill.”
“I know, but I was going to make it better.”
Meier's passion was simply creating video games. Money or copyright issues didn’t really bother his mind. The only thing that mattered was how good a game he could make, how far he could push the next time. Stealey at the time was convinced that Civilization would sell far worse than the table-top. He negotiated a simple deal with Avalon Hill's boss – a $5 discount coupon for the board game would be added to the game from MicroProse. And Eric Dott of Avalon agreed! If he had only settled for royalties! Many years later, a similar mistake was made by Steven Spielberg, when he was selling the rights to the Medal of Honor franchise to Electronic Arts, prior to the release of the legendary Allied Assault. The famous director allegedly regrets it to this day.
MicroProse and Robin Williams
What does the comedian of Jumanji, Mrs. Doubtfire and Good Morning Vietnam fame have in common with a company developing military games? According to Stealey, Sid and Bill sat at one table with Williams during one of the conferences of software publishers. The conversation turned to famous baseball and basketball players, and Robin asked if there were any celebrities in the world of programmers. Stealey said that there weren't any yet, but that Sid could be famous. This is why MicroProse games started to be published with his name as part of the title. Sid Meier’s The Pirates! was the first proposition, and Robin suggested to drop the definite article from the title.
Bigger money, more trouble
Along with Civilization's greater success, came bigger revenues, but also bigger problems. Some bad decisions were made, such as investing in arcade machines instead of partnering with Nintendo, hiring incompetent managers, and, to some extent, preparing the company to go public. Sid Meier, co-owner of the company, became a subcontractor at his own request. After the emitting stocks, MicroProse consisted of two branches in Europe and the US, both rather poorly managed by their directors. The company had access to incredible resources, hired hundreds of people. An era came when games became more expensive; hundreds of thousands of dollars became millions. Big teams and big projects often result in delays and chaos.
MicroProse also began to diversify and try their hand at different genres, where other publishers such as Sierra, Origin and Electronic Arts had already felt comfortable. They released the adventure game Return of the Phantom, a sports game, MicroProse Golf, and a role-playing game, Darklands. All of these were usually good games, even great, like the Grand Prix, focused on F1 races, but they failed to deliver the financial performance expected from the military simulators and games with Sid Meier's signature that MicroProse was famous for. Stealey was still able to produce F-15 III Strike Eagle and Falcon 3.0, but the company was running out of breath. Too many resources were drowned in projects without conclusion.
In 1993, the troubles were so great that MicroProse was sold to Spectrum Holobyte, a subsidiary of Kleiner Perkins, the actual owner. The same year, Stealey parted ways with MicroProse. Sid Meier managed to hold the helm for another three years. In 1996, he left MPS for good along with several other employees, and created his own studio, Firaxis Games.
