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Nihilistic Software
www.nihilistic.com
User Name.........Anthony
Full Name.........Anthony Chiang
Description.......Artist / Integrator
12/07/99
In appreciation...
Today, Hasbro announced that they are shutting down their MicroProse studio
in Alameda, California. The Alameda Studio was at one time know as Spectrum
HoloByte and in the late 80's and early 90's, they were among the most
innovative software developers. In late 1986, they produced Falcon for the
Macintosh which was THE killer game app for the Mac. Engineers at Apple
rushed to contact Spectrum HoloByte and made changes to the OS to just get
Falcon to run on the entire Macintosh line.
In 1988, Spectrum HoloByte was the company that brought Tetris to America.
This classic was marketed as the first game from the Soviet Union to be
published in the US. A year later, Nintendo would follow Spectrum HoloByte's
lead and include Tetris with their new handheld game system called the
GameBoy.
Then in late 1991, Falcon 3 for the PC was released. This was the first
game to support multiplayer LAN play. I had the privilage of working on
Falcon 3 and all the following add-ons. It was the most difficult and the
most gratifying project I've been associated with.
After a change of ownership in 1992, Spectrum HoloByte was infused with
a large amount of venture capital. They used those assets to purchase
MicroProse, the company founded by Bill Stealey and Sid Meier. With the
rapid growth of the company came a loss of focus. The managers who were
brought in to run the company were far more interested in maximizing their
stock options than creating innovative products.
Quality CD-ROM titles like "Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity"
and "Top Gun: Fire At Will!" came out in 1995 and 1996 in spite of the inept
management. But poor management and company politics started to sap the
creative energy.
In 1998, Hasbro purchased all of MicroProse. While the Hunt Valley studio
remains operational, the doors in Alameda will be closed on January 17th,
2000. I would like to thank all the friends I've met at Spectrum HoloByte
whom I've worked with and let them know that together, we did some pretty
cool games in the past.
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