under Paul Yan and Avery Lodato while working on the Call of Duty series. After Activision's parent company, Activision Blizzard, faced lawsuits over workplace harassment and discrimination, Microsoft announced a $68.7 billion deal to acquire the holding in 2022. History Partnership and Star Control success Toys for Bob began as a partnership between Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford. The two founders separately attended the University of California, Berkeley, around the same time, and both entered the video game industry in the early 1980s. Ford started his career creating games for Japanese personal computers before transitioning to more corporate work, but after a few years working at graphics companies in Silicon Valley, Ford realized he missed working in the game industry. Meanwhile, Reiche had started his career working for Dungeons & Dragons publisher TSR before developing PC games for Free Fall Associates. Reiche's producer at Free Fall took a new job at Accolade and helped Reiche secure a three-game agreement with the publisher. At this point, Reiche needed a programmer and Ford was seeking a designer/artist, so their mutual friends set up a board game night to introduce them. Those friends included fantasy artist Erol Otus, as well as game designer Greg Johnson, who hosted the meet-up. Soon after, Reiche and Ford formed their studio in 1989. Reiche and Ford's first collaboration was Star Control, released for MS-DOS in 1990. Originally called Starcon, the game began as an evolution of the concepts that Reiche first created in Archon: The Light and the Dark. Archons strategic elements were adapted for Star Control into a space setting, with one-on-one ship combat inspired by the classic 1962 game Spacewar!. During production, Reiche and Ford spent time working on their collaborative process, and this was partly why the game was limited in scope compared to its sequel. Upon its release, Star Control was voted the "Best Science Fiction Game" by Video Games and Computer Entertainment, and decades later, it is remembered as one of the greatest games of all time, with numerous game developers citing it as an influence on their work. The success of Star Control led to a more ambitious sequel, Star Control II. Reiche and Ford aimed to expand on the first game's combat system with deeper storytelling. Their goal of creating a dynamic space adventure was largely inspired by Starflight, designed by Greg Johnson in 1986. While developing Starflight, Johnson