MicroProse

MicroProse was founded in 1982 in Hunt Valley, Maryland, by Bill “Wild Bill” Stealey, Sid Meier and Andy Hollis. The meeting between Stealey, a former military pilot and marketing-driven entrepreneur, and Meier, a programmer able to understand the internal logic of games better than many designers of the period, gave the company a clear dual identity: a passion for simulation and a strong sense of product. Early titles such as Hellcat Ace, Spitfire Ace, Solo Flight and F-15 Strike Eagle brought military flight to home computers in a form that was accessible but credible, less intimidating than professional simulations and deeper than pure arcade action.

During the 1980s, MicroProse became almost synonymous with computer simulation. F-15 Strike Eagle, Gunship, Silent Service, Pirates!, F-19 Stealth Fighter, M1 Tank Platoon and Railroad Tycoon describe a company able to turn war, aviation, history and management into playable experiences built around thick manuals, careful interfaces and a strong imaginative component. Sid Meier was the most visible creative figure, but MicroProse also grew through the work of designers and programmers such as Andy Hollis, Jeff Briggs and many others. Its audience was different from the console market: PC and home computer players willing to read, learn commands, study maps and spend hours inside complex systems.

The turning point came in 1991 with Sid Meier’s Civilization. It was not a simulation in the classic military sense, but it brought the MicroProse philosophy to a historical scale: exploration, technology, diplomacy, war, economy and cultural growth inside a readable and extremely deep turn-based system. Civilization became one of the most influential PC games ever made, opening a line that would continue far beyond the original MicroProse. Soon after came Darklands, Master of Orion, Master of Magic, Colonization and UFO: Enemy Unknown, known in the United States as X-COM: UFO Defense. In just a few years, the company assembled several of the absolute reference points for strategy and management games on computers.

Success did not remove the company’s weaknesses. In 1993 MicroProse merged with Spectrum HoloByte, and in the following years its structure became more complex and less stable. Stealey left the company, while Sid Meier, Jeff Briggs and Brian Reynolds founded Firaxis Games in 1996, taking a significant part of MicroProse’s creative culture elsewhere. In 1998 the company became part of Hasbro Interactive, and its properties later passed to Infogrames. In 2001 MicroProse ceased to exist as an autonomous entity, and the historic Hunt Valley studio closed in 2003. The brand later reappeared in different forms, up to the modern revival connected to David Lagettie, but the historical core remains the 1980s and 1990s company.

MicroProse’s legacy is huge because it gave computer gaming an adult grammar of its own: manuals, keyboard, maps, simulation, history, strategy, patience and depth. It was not a perfect company and not all of its games were immediate, but few brands defined the relationship between PC and systemic thinking so well. For Retro-Gamers, MicroProse means F-15 Strike Eagle, Gunship, Pirates!, Railroad Tycoon, Civilization, Master of Orion, Master of Magic and X-COM: a catalogue that taught generations of players that a video game could also be study, planning and strategic imagination.