The story
In 1993, Phil Steinmeyer was a programmer of business software, something he considered boring, when he began working in the video game industry. He made Iron Cross mostly by himself and finished it with New World Computing. The game was released in 1994 as one of the first real-time strategy games. Steinmeyer continued working with New World Computing, co-developing Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest (1995) and Heroes of Might and Magic II (1996). In 1996, he adopted the name PopTop Software for his company and began hiring artists and designers for a fully independent project. Wishing to work on a sequel to Railroad Tycoon, he called MicroProse and, to his surprise, quickly came to an agreement. At the same time, The 3DO Company bought New World Computing and ended its third-party publishing business, leaving PopTop Software without a publisher. In January 1998, PopTop Software was one of the founding members of Gathering of Developers, a developer-centric publisher run by six studios. Railroad Tycoon II, the first release for Gathering of Developers, was released in November 1998, followed the expansion pack The Second Century in April 1999.
The video game publisher Take-Two Interactive acquired Gathering of Developers in May 2000. On July 24, it announced the acquisition of PopTop Software. The deal saw a transaction of 559,100 shares in Take-Two Interactive, valued at an estimated US$5.8 million. Steinmayer remained as the studio president. The studio continued working with Gathering of Developers on Tropico and Railroad Tycoon 3. Steinmeyer left the studio in late 2004, founded New Crayon Games in May 2005, and developed Bonnie's Bookstore. On January 25, 2005, Take-Two Interactive announced the opening of the publishing label 2K Games, which would henceforth manage most of its studios, including PopTop Software. It released PopTop Software's Shattered Union in 2005. On March 8, 2006, Take-Two Interactive announced that PopTop Software had been merged into Firaxis Games, another 2K Games studio.
From Wikipedia’s article on PopTop Software, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4