PopTop Software Inc. was an American video game developer based in Fenton, Missouri. Phil Steinmeyer started the company in 1993, creating Iron Cross and co-developing two Heroes of Might and Magic games with New World Computing. In 1998, the studio co-founded the publisher Gathering of Developers, which released its Railroad Tycoon II, Tropico, and Railroad Tycoon 3. PopTop Software and Gathering of Developers were bought by Take-Two Interactive in 2000, and the studio was organized under 2K Games in 2005. In 2006, it was merged into Firaxis Games, another 2K Games studio.
History
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).