Ex-MicroProse Vets Form Thriller Publishing

Several former employees of MicroProse have announced the formation of Thriller Publishing, a company with a focus on military and espionage-themed games.

Thriller Publishing's senior management is led by industry veterans J.W. Stealey, Fred Schmidt and Jim Bull, all of whom served together at MicroProse. The new company will set up shop in Austin, Texas.

"We have over 100 years of game publishing expertise among our senior management alone, always working with first-rate development talent. At Thriller, these studios and their products will be handled directly by us, top management," said Thriller CEO Fred Schmidt. "They get the full benefit of all that experience to maximize the likelihood for mutual success.”

MicroProse was a legendary PC development house founded by Sid Meier and perhaps best known for spawning the Civilization and X-COM series of games. It spanned 19 years of operation before it was acquired and later dismantled by publisher Infogrames.

The release states that Thriller has contracted several New York Times best-selling authors to create and develop new properties with the potential for sequels and sustainable series, but no specific authors were named.