docjohnny

Michael, I didn't put it together. I was just a listener like you. I shared about the MicroPlay label (MicroProse's "second label") because I remembered when it happened. All credit to Dave and the podcast team for putting together a very nice program.

Loved the episode. As for MicroPlay, there were different reasons for that label. Originally, it was intended to be an affiliated label program like EA Distribution (originally Affiliated Labels) and Activision's Affiliated Publisher program. These were to have been games developed out-of-house and the idea was not to risk the MicroProse brand identity. Secondly, this was about the time that schedules were starting to slip drastically. So, having 3rd party properties that could be swiftly put into distribution as "revenue fillers" for a given quarter was a necessity. A lot of the MicroPlay products were developed by Paragon Software, the guys from Carnegie-Mellon in Jean, PA who did Megatraveller and Space: 1889, and later some of the early Take-2 products (maybe even Black Dahlia?). MicroPlay was also a place to put developers as an audition. And, wholeheartedly agree with Dave that Bill Stealey is a nice guy and was always sincerely, super-enthusiastically involved with his products. All of the above information is from my memories as Editor-in-Chief of Computer Gaming World.