the company's first breakthrough title, partially driven by the CPC's success in France. By way of a deal between Loriciel and Activision, the game was also released in the UK, it was also released in the US, and it was later ported to other systems, such as the Atari ST. The American market appeared especially viable for Microïds, who believed that game sales would vastly outnumber the domestic ones. For this reason, it partnered with the American publisher Broderbund in 1987, which released several Microïds games in the country, partially under altered names. In return, Microïds managed sales of Broderbund's games, notably Prince of Persia and Karateka in France. Throughout the 1990s, Microïds underwent expansion, increasing both staff count and development team sizes. Development operations were accelerated to output more games, leading to increased profits. Through the new-earned funds, the company commenced operations in both video game publishing and distribution in 1995, and between then and 1997 opened three international subsidiaries: Microïds Italia in Milan, Microïds UK in Milton Keynes, and Microïds Canada in Montreal. By 1997, Microïds had 20 employees and a turnover of 20 million French francs. Both increased tenfold by 2002, and the Canadian studio alone house 105 of Microïds' 200 employees by 2003. Later years (2003–present) In 2003, Microïds merged with MC2, a French software company, with the amalgam assuming the name MC2-Microïds. In September that year, it acquired Wanadoo Edition, the games division of Wanadoo, which itself had been created through a September 2000 merger between Index+ and France Telecom Multimedia in exchange, Wanadoo received a 12% stake in MC2-Microïds. In 2004, MC2-Microïds proceeded to close Microïds UK, while Microïds Italia spun off as Blue Label Entertainment. Microïds Canada was sold off to Ubisoft in March 2005, with the studio's 50 employees integrated into Ubisoft's own Ubisoft Montreal studio. Later that year, Grassiano left MC2-Microïds due to internal disagreements. He was succeeded by Index+ founder Emmanuel Olivier, who was named chief executive officer (CEO). With this management change, MC2-Microïds shortened its name to just "MC2". This decision was reversed in November 2007, when it returned to the original "Microïds" name. In 2008, Microïds further acquired the assets and intellectual property of bankrupt publisher Cryo Interactive. In 2009, the publisher Anuman Interactive, while in the process of being acquired by Média-Participations, began looking for possible acquisitions of its own. That November, the company announced its intent