Microprose goes all in on the B-17 Flying Fortress - 4 games!

Weird, it’s like they’re monetising their tools. I could kind of understand it if it was actually Earth, although MSFS has that covered already. But it seems like it’s just an earth-like planet.

Which one will have a gremlin climbing around on the outside of the plane?

This sounds like DLC for the old Snoopy vs the Red Baron game.

This is indeed what they seem to be doing. And they’re reusing the B-17 assets for a VR version.

My understanding on Regiments is it was developed by 1 person, and Micropose helped by providing the 3-D assets and acting as the publisher. Nothing more.

Outerra has been around forever. For a while I think people thought it might be a good engine for flight sims, but then Microsoft came along and streamed the earth in MSFS.

Microprose are also publishing/supporting Ground Branch and Sea Power

My understanding on Regiments is it was developed by 1 person, and Micropose helped by providing the 3-D assets and acting as the publisher. Nothing more.

Erm Eliandi, regarding the “nothing more” part, I might be mistaken but what is to be expected besides these elements?
Art assets, financial support, production management, marketing, all at a fine cost, what would you have a publisher give you more? Truth be told, most don’t even give that.
Would you rather grow your game like people grow startups, be given a bag of money in exchange of having it taken off your hands? ;)

If Task Force Admiral turns out to be the face-melter it’s looking to be, I’ll lay off NuMicroprose. Until then, they’re just like Atari to me - a brand name passed around more than the stripper at a college frat party

Thank you for the kind words in regard of said face-melter. ;)

In regard of the rest though (Highfleet, Carrier Command 2, TCA, but also Regiments, and the games that were already released but taken in tow) one might need to set the record straight on some aspects, if I may, and from the perspective of one of these studios currently involved with Microprose. CC2 in particular was the CEO’s longtime pet project. That is totally his thing. That he decided to subcontract it to a team doesn’t make it less so - that’s what I did with TFA after all, I wanted my game and I went to find the best people for it. That the publisher itself works with several studios with different amounts of depth is not unlike other successful labels do - and it doesn’t prevent them from having their own in-house resources still, and make sure we do all benefit from these if need be.

Some things have changed since the 1990s - publishing labels don’t work the same way they used to (and doing so don’t go bankrupt for the same reasons) - some others haven’t. If you’re all true old-timers, you will probably realize that Geoff Crammond or the Gollop Brothers were no different back then from some of the indie devs we have mentioned above in their relationship with Microprose (that is, they had their own studio, be it a single-man affair or a few guys, and had a publishing deal with Microprose). Still ended up delivering the Grand Prix series or UFO/X-Com at the end of the day. That, say, nowadays “MPS Labs” don’t have the kind of muscle the old label had (as a in-house power house) is true, but things come slowly, one step at a time. And again, costly in-house developed projects is one of the reason Microprose/Spectrum Holobyte ended up on the wrong side of a balance sheet to begin with.

Publishers are of all kinds. Paradox was a dev studio that grew to publish itself and publish others. Playway makes corporate deals with the studios, becomes a shareholder of the new structure and goes public with it, and swaps studios around for a given project. Obviously even Slitherine has its own story - would you have bet a decade ago that it would be pumping out games named after high profile, tasty licenses like Battlestar Galactica, Starship Troopers, Stargate or Terminator to name a few - and even then few if any of these projects are “in-house”. MPS is a label restarted by somebody who was in love with it, and went out there looking for others for whom it also meant something.

The new label is arguably at the beginning of the journey still, but having picked & released Highfleet, Regiments & TCA on one hand, & having had Carrier Command 2 made on the other hand already puts it miles ahead of what it was when it was first announced. All the games which were picked ended up being successes in their own right, with a Steam critic score in the high 80s & good sales. CC2 might not be rated as high, but it is still seen as a good product and enjoys its own cult following. Yeah, in all cases, cult-following is probably the word. None of these games could be expected to be mainstream successes. Some such as Highfleet & Carrier Command were big gameplay bets. They still found their audience, which wasn’t a given at all.

These achievements alone would be satisfying for well-established labels - by the standards of something that did not exist 2 years ago, they’re great and shouldn’t be discounted. Otherwise there’s no point discussing it at all. These facts cannot be dismissed just because, IMHO. To go back to the original wording, the team over there has done more with the MPS label in 2 years than Atari has in two decades, and for that alone I am grateful (for the wishlists too but that’s another story, I am biased enough already as it is ^^). As such, I would consider comparisons saying otherwise to be a bit on the unfair side of things.

That’s just my 2 cts of course, take them as they are :)
Cheers ;)

Yeah there seems to be an ongoing confusion around here expecting Microprose to be more than a publisher, which I don’t get since they never stated they were anything more than a publisher, and are actually making it quite clear those are different indie studios they are producing.

Fair enough. But I am in the opinion that if one is going to snag a legendary brand name and wrap themselves in it, they better put up or shut up. And with Microprose, that’s a damn high bar that again, my opinion, hasn’t been approached by the current releases.

So hurry up and put out TFA already ;)

(Good post, BTW)

No mate, I was trying to defend Regiments and MP. I think its great. And I’m in no way associated with how games get made. Its a bit of magic to me. I’m in health care.

Looking forwards to TFA

Wonderful post. Love what Microprose is doing.

A proper M1 Tank Platoon follow up please. I don’t quite like GHPC.

GHPC isn’t all there yet, though. The dev is very aware much of his player base are M1TP2 vets. I’m crossing my fingers we see more of that go into the sim as development goes along.

I hope so very much! I bought the game but the lack of AI and top down strategic management has proven to be a fun-blocker for me.

Yeah it’s nowhere near finished dude.

hehe, sorry if I misunderstood ^^
Thank you for your kind support. And yeah, the dev of Regiments is very, very rad. I am happy to have been involved to some extent to his entry in the label - I was sooo impressed with the demo early on, and still am at the monster that one game has become.
Hope that magic will stick around for our game. Thanks for following us ;)

Cheers

I’ll be a good boy, if all goes well, you might have something in your (digital hands) next year. Fingers crossed ;)

Did you username use to be “Admiral_Crapaud”? Or has it always been “Amiral”?