| Type | Subsidiary of 2K Games |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video game industry Interactive entertainment |
| Founded | Hunt Valley, Maryland, United States (1996) |
| Headquarters | Sparks, Maryland, United States |
| Key people | Sid Meier, Co-founder and Director of Creative Development Jeff Briggs, Co-founder and former CEO |
| Products | Sid Meier's Civilization IV Sid Meier's Gettysburg! Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Sid Meier's SimGolf Sid Meier's Pirates! (See complete products listing) |
| Owner(s) | Take-Two Interactive |
| Employees | Around 120 |
| Parent | 2K Games |
| Website | http://www.firaxis.com/ |
Firaxis Games is a computer game developer. It was founded in 1996 by Sid Meier, Jeff Briggs, and Brian Reynolds upon leaving MicroProse. The company focuses on strategy games and is based in Sparks, Maryland in the United States.
Firaxis has produced several games, including Gettysburg and Antietam, based on their namesake famous American Civil War battles, and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, a space colonization game taking place in the Alpha Centauri star system.
In early 2000, co-founder Brian Reynolds parted with Firaxis to form his new studio, Big Huge Games. Firaxis Games then went on to release Sid Meier's SimGolf, a golf course building/management game. Perhaps their most popular releases have been Civilization III, and later Civilization IV, sequels to Meier's original Civilization game.
In November 2004, Firaxis released Sid Meier's Pirates!, an update of Meier's classic 1987 computer game of the same name. An Xbox version of the game was released in July, 2005, and a PSP version (developed by Full Fat) was released in January 2007.
Civilization IV started production in late 2003 and was released on October 24, 2005 in North America, and was released on November 4, 2005 in Europe.
Civilization Revolution, a console-only version of their popular Civilization series, was released in July 2008.
On November 7, 2005, Take-Two Interactive announced that it was acquiring Firaxis.[1] The terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but according to the SEC filing it amounted for US$26.7 million in cash, stock, and development advances, with almost US$11.3 million of that figure coming in the form of possible considerations based on future product sales. The company was consolidated with PopTop Software in March 2006, the resultant combined studio to be headed up by Sid Meier. Jeff Briggs assumed the role of Chairman in April 2006 and left the company completely in November.
In April 2007 it was announced that Soren Johnson had left the company and joined Electronic Arts to work on Spore with Lead Designer Will Wright. Johnson was formerly a key person for Firaxis, acting as Co-Designer for Civilization III, and later Lead Designer on Civilization IV.[2]
In September 2009 the studio moved from Hunt Valley to Sparks, Maryland.
Firaxis' titles are prefixed with Sid Meier's name, due to his design and programming contributions and original game ideas. His name also contributes to their game's marketability due to his high industry profile and track record.
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