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21-399: Air Warrior may refer to: Air Warrior (video game) , a 1987 online combat flight simulation game Air Warrior (U.S. Army) , an aircrew ensemble Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Air Warrior . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

42-676: A Red Baron arcade cabinet. Stealey was shocked that Meier beat his score, considering he had actual pilot experience, but Meier's knowledge of video games was more important for the contest. The two founded MicroProse Software, which published its first title Hellcat Ace later that year. At that time Stealey and Meier were the only employees, with Meier developing the titles and Stealey testing them and offering advice on military accuracy. The group were simply packaging floppy disks and printing labels in Stealey's basement, but found economic success quickly. Meier and Stealey would later purchase

63-402: A competition called I Cheated Death with Major Bill which selected three fans to fly with him on a "stunt-filled flight lesson". That year he was also responsible for setting up the collaboration with Tom Clancy for the military simulator Red Storm Rising . Stealey purchased Meier's half of the company in 1991, amid a disagreement over their direction. Stealey had believed in a resurgence of

84-495: A fighter pilot and eventually a general. He attended Pennsylvania Military College in the 1960s; he wore glasses but "fought his way into the program" regardless, and was granted a waiver. This allowed him to attend the United States Air Force Academy in 1966, but unfortunately a "minor slip-up in his final days dropped him to sixth in his class and out of the running for the fighter assignments." He

105-580: A pirate game made by the company. In response to Meier's insistence, Stealey declared that the game should be titled "Sid Meier’s pirate-whatever", which led to the continued use of a "Sid Meier's..." prefix on video games from the designer. This was carried on into the Civilization franchise and beyond Meier's work at MicroProse. In 1988, the group purchased a North American T-28 Trojan , which Stealey named "Miss MicroProse". He would fly games journalists in an effort to promote their games. He also ran

126-726: The GEnie online service provider . Players could choose one of a number of World War II aircraft to fly, along with ground vehicles, and play in a multiplayer "arena" with hundreds of other players. The game focused mostly on dogfighting , with a secondary strategic role of capturing forward airbases near the center of the map. Several updated versions were released, and additional service providers were added over time. The original version of Air Warrior ran on Apple Macintosh , Commodore Amiga , and Atari ST computers, had simple black and white wireframe graphics, and cost over $ 10 per hour to play. Over time, Kesmai produced improved versions of

147-649: The Pennsylvania Air National Guard over the following decade. Initially considering a law school, he realised that he would be better served with an MBA and so attended Wharton School of Business . He became a consultant with Cresap, McCormick & Paget, and later McKinsey & Company . He has stated that he was not very good at consultancy, as he would want to solve problems for the clients immediately and not sit and wait for them to "talk for years". He took job with General Instrument in corporate strategy. He built some novel software for

168-493: The arcade market, which ultimately failed and resulted in his sale of the company to Spectrum HoloByte in 1993. He resigned from the company following the merger and announced his retirement, with the intention to "play golf for a living". He retired from the military with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Stealey had been a fan of the Baltimore Blast soccer team since the 1980s, having previously sponsored trips for

189-569: The business for financial planning, and while purchasing computer hardware for the company he encountered early video games on the Atari and met Sid Meier , then also employed by General Instrument. At a company function in Las Vegas in 1982, he was seated next to Meier, and discussed setting up a games business. The two spent time together in Vegas and competed against one another for high scores on

210-404: The exact Red Baron cabinet they had competed on as a memento. The group primarily produced flight simulators through the 1980s, such as F-15 Strike Eagle (1984). Stealey's air force experience was used in their marketing for these titles, with Stealey appearing in military uniform at events. From the late 1980s Meier began to lose interest in flight simulators, and pushed to have his idea for

231-603: The game, starting with SVGA Air Warrior in 1993, and continuing with Air Warrior for Windows in 1996, Air Warrior II in early 1997, Air Warrior III later in 1997, and finally Air Warrior III Millennium Version in 2000. Development of Air Warrior II was directly overseen by Bill Stealey , founder of the game's publisher, Interactive Magic . Kesmai also did business deals to provide access to Air Warrior through additional on-line services, including Delphi, CRIS, CompuServe , America Online , Earthlink , Gamestorm and CompuLink . A version of Air Warrior for Windows

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252-658: The group. In 1988 he had also included the Blast's goalkeeper Keith Van Eron in MicroProse Soccer . When the MISL collapsed in the summer of 1992, Stealey stepped in and bought the team which was renamed to Baltimore Spirit and shifted to the NPSL . It retained many of the same players, along with the original coach Kenny Cooper. Cooper and Stealey had a "falling out" in 1994; Cooper resigned after Stealey declined to sell, and

273-485: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Air_Warrior&oldid=1174286944 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Air Warrior (video game) Air Warrior was a multiplayer online combat flight simulation game launched by Kesmai in 1987. It

294-401: The magazine gave the title four stars out of five, noting its high cost but reporting that it was "continually being revised and updated". In 1997 Next Generation named Air Warrior as number six on their "Top 10 Online Game Picks". They noted that Air Warrior provided a multiplayer flight sim online with a persistent environment. Bill Stealey Stealey had the goal of becoming

315-418: The magazine of strategy and war games gave it three and a half stars out of five. The magazine in 1993 praised the flight models' accuracy, stating that it forced pilots to choose correctly when selecting aircraft to fly against other humans. The magazine suggested that if Kesmai were to add some upgrades to the offline single-player mode it would "blow away any of the competition". In a 1994 survey of wargames

336-414: The studio announced its first new titles in 2020. Stealey is considered the co-founder but has no specific role at the new MicroProse, providing consultancy and mentorship only due to his age. In the 1980s and 1990s Bill Stealey flew planes recreationally on a regular basis. In 1987, an engine failure occurred aboard his plane which forced an emergency landing in poor visibility conditions, but he survived

357-494: Was hosted on GEnie and used that service as a server for client software running on a variety of personal computers . It underwent continual improvement through its decade-long lifetime with Kesmai, appearing on new platforms and host services. Electronic Arts purchased Air Warrior in 1999, and became provider of the game, but it was discontinued in 2001. Sequels Air Warrior II and Air Warrior III were both released in 1997 and published by Interactive Magic . Air Warrior

378-461: Was however asked to work as a flight instructor after his graduation in 1970, flying the T-37 . Stealey has stated that he was advocating for computer based flight simulators in military training as early as 1971, but faced opposition due to fears of new pilots losing flight hours. He attained the rank of Captain before leaving active service and going back into education, while continuing to serve with

399-487: Was one of the first massive online games, hosting hundreds of users during busy periods. It inspired WarBirds , which in turn inspired Aces High , while other members of the Warbirds team went on to produce World War II Online . Today there are a number of similar games, like WarThunder , most of them based on a freemium model. Introduced in 1988 by Kesmai , Air Warrior was played over modems and hosted on

420-536: Was ported back to the Macintosh in 1997 in an Internet open beta, and then later moved to America Online. In 1999, Electronic Arts purchased Air Warrior , and became provider of the latest version of the game, only to discontinue it in 2001. Computer Gaming World in 1990 called Air Warrior "the most exciting [wargame] I've played", warning players to "be resigned to spending some money on it, though, because time flies while you do". 1991 and 1993 surveys in

441-683: Was replaced by Dave MacWilliams. The team's record over the following years was consistently poor, and Stealey lost $ 3 million in the venture before he sold it to Ed Hale in 1998. Stealey started the game software company Interactive Magic in 1995. Next Generation listed him in their "75 Most Important People in the Games Industry of 1995" for his roles as former head of MicroProse and then-current head of Interactive Magic. Stealey sold it in 1999, but re-purchased it in 2002 and renamed it to iEntertainment Network . In 2018, Stealey worked together with David Lagettie to re-acquire MicroProse;

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