![]() ![]() Last month, Hasbro scooped up MicroProse and its 86-person Hunt Valley development team for $70 million. Meanwhile, some of the country's top game publishers, such as Electronic Arts and Hasbro Interactive, are moving in. The Computer Game Development Conference, the premier event for game makers, will hold a conference in Baltimore for the first time in December. "We all go back to the same roots," says Microprose alum Bill Becker, whose 2-year-old Aeon Electronic Entertainment is developing a submarine strategy game called Silent Hunter II. There's not a company out now that doesn't have MicroProse people in key positions." "It was kind of like the scattering of the seeds. "The impact on the game industry was tremendous," said TalonSoft's Jim Rose. Other MicroProse employees bailed out on their own - but stayed around Baltimore and started their own companies. In 1993, MicroProse company merged with California game maker Spectrum HoloByte, which adopted the MicroProse name but laid off half the firm's Hunt Valley programmers and artists. Stealey, who owned the Baltimore Spirit soccer team until last year, departed for North Carolina, where he runs a game company called Interactive Magic. At its peak, MicroProse had sales of $46 million a year and 400 employees, including talented programmers drawn from all over the country.īut after an ruinous foray into the video arcade game business, MicroProse went through tough times, missing deadlines and losing money. They called their company MicroProse, and it put Baltimore on the entertainment map with titles like Hellcat Ace, F-15 Strike Eagle, Pirates, Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon and the best-selling Civilization. #Sid meiers railroads make industry profitable how toMeier knew how to write game programs and Stealey began peddling them from the trunk of his car. Like many early players, Muse went bust a few years after it opened - about the time that Meier and "Wild Bill" Stealey, an Air Force Reserve jet jockey, discovered each other at General Instruments in Cockeysville. Although the game is crude by today's standards, it still has a cult following on the Internet after almost two decades. One of the city's first publishers was Muse Software, which opened on North Charles Street in 1980 with a shoot-'em-up for Atari and Apple computers called Castle Wolfenstein. The history of gaming in Baltimore is almost as old as the personal computer. "If the companies here do well, we could wind up being the East Coast Mecca of game design," says Ed Fletcher of Meyer-Glass Interactive LLC, which is adapting classic Milton-Bradley board games Axis and Allies and Battleship for the PC. tests games and provides technical support for other publishers. Hunt Valley-based InterAct Accessories, for example, makes joysticks and other hardware, while neighboring Absolute Quality Inc. ![]() But they have produced some mr titles, including Magic: The Gathering, Civilization II and East Front.Ī few firms have found other gaming niches. Most have only a handful of employees - which is the norm for the development business. "And if you find that kind of job, you don't work a day in your life."īaltimore game companies produce everything from football and racing titles to shoot-'em-ups and complex strategic simulations. "I'm one of the few fortunate one percent of the country who gets to work doing exactly what they love more than anything else," said Jim Rose, president of war-gamer TalonSoft Inc. But game developers wouldn't think of doing anything else. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |