As Access Software (1982–1999) In 1982,
Bruce Carver, an engineer for
Salt Lake City-based company Redd Engineering, created a
sprite-editing program called Spritemaster. He presented the product to Steve Witzel, who operated Computers Plus, a retail computer store in Salt Lake City's
Midvale suburb; Witzel provided Carver with several improvement suggestions for the program. After Carver had implemented these changes, he began selling them under the name "Access Software" through Computers Plus. The name was chosen Carver and some of his friends had searched through a dictionary, considering "Action Software" and "Center Soft" before sticking with "Access Software". In its early days, Access Software operated out of Carver's basement. Access divested itself of the TruGolf division and made the company its own entity with Microsoft's purchase. In 2003, Microsoft rebranded Salt Lake Games Studio as Indie Games. Take-Two had been keen on challenging the dominance of EA Sports, and its acquisition of Indie Built was among it had spent through 2005 acquiring developers. In early 2005, Take-Two Interactive established the publishing label
2K, which would henceforth manage its development studios for sports games, including Indie Built. While part of Take-Two, Indie Built created sequels for
Amped and
Top Spin, but these titles were not strong successes. Take-Two's 2006 fiscal year was poor as the company was dealing with both
Security and Exchange Commission investigations related to its past reporting, and harsh criticism for the
Hot Coffee mod as part of
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Indie Built was closed in May 2006 by Take-Two as part of a re-alignment of its business strategy to overcome the weak fiscal year. Following Indie Built's closure, most of the employees transitioned to TruGolf, helping to improve the golf simulations. Additionally, Jones and Conners established
Big Finish Games in 2007, where they planned to continue more narrative games, including expanding the
Tex Murphy series. == Games developed ==