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VideoGameVet posted:One factor in my getting hired last August was the "personal project" I did in 2019, The Climate Trail. Yeah, it doesn't matter -- there's a lot of "old = unable to keep up" bias. I'm lucky because I switched to consulting in my late 20s, so now that I'm 40 ish I'm seen as an authority with experience instead of a dinosaur. That's reductive! I'm both! Hope you don't mind that I keep popping up with general software development industry takes as opposed to game dev takes. I've always been fascinated with game dev because it's such a high skill, low reward segment of the industry. New Yorp New Yorp fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Jun 6, 2021 |
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Jun 6, 2021 06:12
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New Yorp New Yorp posted:Yeah, it doesn't matter -- there's a lot of "old = unable to keep up" bias. I'm lucky because I switched to consulting in my late 20s, so now that I'm 40 ish I'm seen as an authority with experience instead of a dinosaur. That's reductive! I'm both! I did very VERY well from my 30's thru my 40's. Good income. The educational game thing was a well funded startup with the best working conditions I ever experienced and great people to work with. Best 5 years of my career. You know, the REALLY stupid thing in retrospect was not just staying an independent game designer/developer after the first 3 games I ever wrote got published and make decent $$$ (for the 1980's). I just felt like I needed a real job and that was dumb. Sure I got to the exec level but I really could have built some great games and probabily a greater company.
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Jun 6, 2021 07:08
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I read Sid Meier's memoir recently and I was wondering if you'd read it and what your thoughts about it were. Iirc, he mentioned the first few GDCs as well, so it seems likely you may have crossed paths professionally.
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Jun 11, 2021 14:58
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A Strange Aeon posted:I read Sid Meier's memoir recently and I was wondering if you'd read it and what your thoughts about it were. Iirc, he mentioned the first few GDCs as well, so it seems likely you may have crossed paths professionally. Yeah, I attended the 2nd GDC (the first one NOT in Chris Crawford’s home) and many afterwards. I’ve met Sid. I have had more interactions with Wild Bill Steely, the founder of Microprose. I also remember Sid’s first game, an Atari 800 flight combat thing. My best talk was in ‘94 “The Interface Is The Game.” I’m doing (virtually) a talk at this July’s GDC, an advocacy panel on The Climate Trail. I did spoil Steve Meretzky’s joke (during his talk) at one of the early ones ... the one where the Queen of England has to guess the ‘thing’. https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comm...utm_name=iossmf Except it was “Is It A Horse’s ...” I just couldn’t help myself.
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Jun 11, 2021 16:48
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This is a great thread thank you so much for starting us. I think my favorite Activision game of all time was the Battlezone remake to an FPS/strategy game but I think that was probably after your time? Always kind of surprised me that that game didn't get more love. I was a huge Amiga guy and still have nostalgic memories of that system. I seem to recall stories about the incompetence of by Commodore and the Amiga and also Atari with Tramiel. Can you share any insight from that time? Did you have to work much with those companies for publishing? Was one easier than the other to deal with? What was going on at the office when it looked like commodore was dying as the cd32 was basically an abortion.... Or was the amiga-based business quite small at that time and mostly msdos PC or Mac?
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Jun 14, 2021 21:44
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slidebite posted:I think my favorite Activision game of all time was the Battlezone remake to an FPS/strategy game but I think that was probably after your time? Always kind of surprised me that that game didn't get more love. The direct action + RTS has been toed around a couple times but never hit it big. Uprising. Stratosphere, sorta.
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Jun 14, 2021 22:22
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Oh totally. I think the fine line is making the strategy aspect "simple" enough to do.. I thought that first game hit the balance just right. I did get the 2nd one too but I still prefer the first by far. I'd kill for a modern remake but that's probably getting outside the scope of this thread  e: I did get the redux on steam too, but I mean a fully modern one. slidebite fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Jun 15, 2021 |
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Jun 14, 2021 23:26
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I'd love to hear a bit about what you think goes into a good educational game.
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Jun 15, 2021 16:00
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slidebite posted:This is a great thread thank you so much for starting us. 1. The Battlezone thing was past my time, but in the late '80's Infocom did a Battletech Strategy thing that seems to have been forgotten. 2. Commodore's marketing and strategy on Amiga was awful. For one the "Dead Baby" commercial just may be the WORST computer ad of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZbJL5Egyzs Aegis (I was a co-founder) would get Amigas on set on major TV shows etc. Here's two of our people on the set of Spielberg's Amazing Stories:  Commodore just didn't get it. When I got to Activision in '88 I talked to some Commodore execs and said that I thought the Amiga 500 could be the next C64. Everyone in the game business loved the Amiga. The execs told me that they were more interested in selling high end Amigas with Unix to the government. Also, before he came to Activision, Kotick proposed that he build a console game machine (carts) with the Amiga chipset and Commodore turned him down. 3. Tramiel was a cheapskate. We started Aegis in 1985 as a Mac game/software company. In Dec. 1984 Marc Canter did a demo of Videoworks at the LA MUG and told me about the Amiga. We also knew about the Atari ST. Atari wanted $5000 for a pre-release version. Amiga gave us pre-release Amiga 1000's. Note, the Graphicraft paint software, developed by Island Graphics, became Aegis Images. This was used at the launch of the Amiga (they did do that right):  4. When I was at Lightspan (the big educational software company I went to in 1994) I had to pick a system after the fancy settop box stuff wasn't happened. Considered the CD32, but I just didn't trust Commodore to do anything right. Picked the PlayStation instead. The CD32 was very competitive when it came out. And yes, by the 1990's the game industry was focused on the PC. MCGA (Mode 13h) graphics was good enough to do decent stuff and by 1993 you have FPS's that were quite good using that.
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Jun 15, 2021 16:55
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Discendo Vox posted:I'd love to hear a bit about what you think goes into a good educational game. Good timing. Look at this game: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/learn-math-facts/id1485006919 It's a simple math drill game, but the UI is just outstanding. You just draw the answers. I'd say a good educational game is a good game that imparts knowledge and skills. I'm a big fan of word games. At PlayScreen we had a "rolled out crossword" iOS game called Crickler that had subject based puzzles. The retention on that title was off the charts:  But the UI (keyboard) hurt it.  I'm considering using a better input interface and doing a better version of it.
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Jun 15, 2021 17:05
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I got interviewed by The Icon Garden: https://www.icongardenshow.com/home/2021/6/15/episode-61-william-volk-oral-history-interview-apple-amiga-and-pc-game-pioneer
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Jun 15, 2021 17:25
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people used to call apple users a "cult" in online arguments, but growing up in silicon valley in the 80's the amiga scene really did feel like a cult. sometimes you'd even see cars all plastered with amiga logo and red/white bouncing ball bumper stickers. i went to a couple conferences with my dad, and i was of course blown away by the gaming side of things, but my dad was doing a lot of cool poo poo with midi and my mom did a lot of work with video toaster which was way ahead of its time. its a shame that commodore didnt get it and the marketing was so terrible becuase it had enormous potential and if handled differently could potentially have beat out apple in areas like music and video production while also being a solid gaming platform
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Jun 15, 2021 18:56
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VideoGameVet posted:Commodore just didn't get it. What was their reasoning? That their failure with the C128 somehow proved nobody wanted a C64 like machine anymore? As a Commodore kid in the 80s, I agree that the Amiga 500 could have been the next C64. I don't exactly know how it would have changed the late 80s/early 90s (and beyond), but I likely wouldn't have gravitated toward DOS/Windows with a popular Amiga around.
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Jun 15, 2021 22:28
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Cheesus posted:Good lord. Commodore would have sold more of them, more games on them, tech would have advanced etc. The Amiga of 1987 was a way better gaming PC than the PC of that time.
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Jun 15, 2021 23:10
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Earwicker posted:its a shame that commodore didnt get it and the marketing was so terrible becuase it had enormous potential and if handled differently could potentially have beat out apple in areas like music and video production while also being a solid gaming platform That's basically what did happen in Europe, where home computers were more popular and consoles were a smaller proportion of the market. Commodore UK and Commodore Europe made good money selling the low-end Amigas (500/600/1200) as games machines, and they were very popular with buyers and with developers. But Commodore US decided it was better to piss away the company designing high-end models nobody wanted and trying to sell them to the business market that had already settled on the IBM PC. Sweevo fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Jun 16, 2021 |
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Jun 16, 2021 10:31
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Sweevo posted:That's basically what did happen in Europe, where home computers were more popular and consoles were a smaller proportion of the market. Commodore UK and Commodore Europe made good money selling the low-end Amigas (500/600/1200) as games machines, and they were very popular with buyers and with developers. Yep. The European operations were well run.
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Jun 16, 2021 16:27
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I do very clearly remember the "fear" that Commodore had of the Amiga becoming a "game machine" instead of a hardcore business computer from the press of the time. It was a god drat pity. It was fantastic and I kind of regret getting rid of my A500 to this day. It was amazing it did as well as it did with Commodores incompetence in North America. Atari-Tramiel is just weird. Everything I've read about him makes the entire family seem incredibly unlikable and not really sucessful. I remember when the Jaguar was out and Tramiel was going to sue Nintendo if they sold the N64 for less than the Jaguar.
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Jun 18, 2021 18:29
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jack tramiel had a very specific vision of what kind of business he wanted to run - serious products for serious people sold at cut-rate prices made possible by his personal skill in negotiating favorable contacts for parts. a very old-school titan of industry/used car salesman fusion better suited for selling TVs and radios than computers. then he hired a bunch of engineers with exactly the opposite vision and simply didn't support the products they designed appropriately Jazerus fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jun 18, 2021 |
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Jun 18, 2021 19:15
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VideoGameVet posted:Yep. The European operations were well run. Atari STs and Amigas were all over the place in the UK. I had an Atari ST because it was 100 quid cheaper than the Amiga at the time (dad was buying) but I sure was jealous of my friend who had one. Meanwhile PCs were expensive business machines well into the 90s. Dad didn't get one at home until the original Pentium in 1994 or so.
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Jun 18, 2021 21:01
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slidebite posted:I do very clearly remember the "fear" that Commodore had of the Amiga becoming a "game machine" instead of a hardcore business computer from the press of the time. The reason Apple didn't cater to the game industry after 1984 (until the iPhone came out) was similar. The (original) Mac was criticized as a 'toy.' So in '89 when I was at Activision and we had just released "The Manhole - CD ROM" (the Cyan game) we were invited to be part of a presentation on Apple's new CD-ROM drive. And then we were told that wasn't going to be the case. And when Apple dropped the screen resolution on the Mac LC's to 512 x 384 (from the Mac II's etc. 640 x 480), Ken Williams (Sierra) wrote a WTF letter to Apple and it didn't matter.
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Jun 19, 2021 00:53
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feedmegin posted:Atari STs and Amigas were all over the place in the UK. I had an Atari ST because it was 100 quid cheaper than the Amiga at the time (dad was buying) but I sure was jealous of my friend who had one. Meanwhile PCs were expensive business machines well into the 90s. Dad didn't get one at home until the original Pentium in 1994 or so. The ST's Midi port made it popular for musicians. The Amiga's graphics were a bit better. GEM was more reliable than Amiga Dos.
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Jun 19, 2021 00:54
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VideoGameVet posted:
That title is secure, don't worry. 
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Jun 19, 2021 01:36
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^classyJazerus posted:jack tramiel had a very specific vision of what kind of business he wanted to run - serious products for serious people sold at cut-rate prices made possible by his personal skill in negotiating favorable contacts for parts. a very old-school titan of industry/used car salesman fusion better suited for selling TVs and radios than computers. Basically he sounded like a real rear end in a top hat to do business with on both sides.
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Jun 19, 2021 21:00
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I have mixed feelings about Jack Tramiel. The PET, Vic20 and C64 were good systems. But he was very hard to deal with. His personal history is inspiring but in the end his style ruined Atari.
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Jun 19, 2021 23:16
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VideoGameVet posted:The ST's Midi port made it popular for musicians. The Amiga's graphics were a bit better. I mean no game ever gave a poo poo about GEM. My Modula 2 IDE (my first 'real' compiler, C ones cost twice as much at the time, remember when compilers cost money?) did, but STOS did not.
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Jun 19, 2021 23:40
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feedmegin posted:I mean no game ever gave a poo poo about GEM. My Modula 2 IDE (my first 'real' compiler, C ones cost twice as much at the time, remember when compilers cost money?) did, but STOS did not. I meant that the Atari's ST OS crashed less than the Amiga. Partly due to (this was told to me, can't verify) that a write to 0x0000 on ST didn't crash the system. Shouldn't have said 'Gem.'
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Jun 20, 2021 19:53
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VideoGameVet posted:I have mixed feelings about Jack Tramiel. Any speculation about the board meeting that led to his ouster? Just too difficult to work with ultimately? I somehow doubt his son’s story.
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Jun 28, 2021 03:09
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It’s technically about the Amiga but Ars Technica did a good series that delves into Commodore and Tramiel: https://arstechnica.com/series/history-of-the-amiga/
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Jun 28, 2021 03:23
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goatsestretchgoals posted:It’s technically about the Amiga but Ars Technica did a good series that delves into Commodore and Tramiel: https://arstechnica.com/series/history-of-the-amiga/ That's pretty accurate. Gould didn't get along with Jack and it wasn't just personality. Jack called Gould on his wastefulness. And the guy after Gould? Mehdi Ali was worse. That graph of Amiga sales is depressing, but I could see the writing on the wall in '88, which is why I pushed Aegis to jump on the color Mac's even back then. Tim Jenison's VideoToaster was like the Laserprinter for the Mac, it allowed the Amiga to have some life, more than I expected, before its eventual fall. But there was no Steve Jobs to triumphally return to Commodore and save the company. Jack was at Atari which was also kinda tragic (their handheld game system, the Lynx, should have won the day ... it was that good). 
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Jun 29, 2021 06:18
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In regards to the age bias in the video game business. Yeah, I did that.
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Jul 16, 2021 15:56
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VideoGameVet posted:In regards to the age bias in the video game business. You absolutely ride on my street. N Coast Ave in Encinitas, next time you cycle by Leucadia Donuts, wave. Wanted to chime in and say thanks for doing this. I've worked in the industry for the past decade, with Activision quite a bit (pre-merge) in fact. My questions would tip my hand as to who I am but more importantly who I work for.
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Aug 4, 2021 06:23
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96 spacejam posted:Wanted to chime in and say thanks for doing this. I've worked in the industry for the past decade, with Activision quite a bit (pre-merge) in fact. My questions would tip my hand as to who I am but more importantly who I work for. I guess it may be hard for you to say given that, but do the allegations in the recent lawsuit sound plausible, or the kind of thing you'd run into there?
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Aug 4, 2021 06:29
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Fuschia tude posted:I guess it may be hard for you to say given that, but do the allegations in the recent lawsuit sound plausible, or the kind of thing you'd run into there? This lawsuit has been rumbling for years, much more so after the RIOT situation if I'm remembering correctly. There was another situation recently that bubbled this back up earlier in the year. But yes, it's absolutely plausible. There is still the generation of employees in this industry that were chan posting nerds back in the early 2000s. They got the careers of their dreams in video games, and it seems to have slowed or stalled some of the social and emotional maturity required of corporate employees in 2021. I'm from that demo, I'm also not a complete moron. For context, my career is on the partner relations side of things, so my job is very social. I'll do my best to answer any questions, I just need to be careful, if Vet is okay with it of course.
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Aug 4, 2021 06:48
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96 spacejam posted:You absolutely ride on my street. N Coast Ave in Encinitas, next time you cycle by Leucadia Donuts, wave. You most likely have seen my bike:
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Aug 4, 2021 17:47
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It's a bit jarring to come home from a quick Target run, only to pull up SA and see a photo of the parking lot I just left 10 minutes ago. I'm on the "cool" side of the tracks, literally (Beacons). I'll be sure to swerve into the bike lane if I see that yellow budunkadunk. After your time at AV did you ever work within or adjacent to esports in any capacity?
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Aug 5, 2021 21:50
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VideoGameVet posted:You most likely have seen my bike: I do love this thread, I have more questions but I hate phone posting.
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Aug 6, 2021 04:55
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96 spacejam posted:It's a bit jarring to come home from a quick Target run, only to pull up SA and see a photo of the parking lot I just left 10 minutes ago. I'm on the "cool" side of the tracks, literally (Beacons). I'll be sure to swerve into the bike lane if I see that yellow budunkadunk. Only as a witness when I watched Starcraft competitions on network TV in Korea in 2003/4. Pretty much knew it was just a matter of time before that happened here. I did some work on Skill-Gaming. Games played for money between two or more players. Word Carnivale was originally designed to be a skill game. It’s complex and there are laws that prohibit it in some states. Oh and I was hired in August 2020 to launch a Rummy mobile game in India which would have featured match play and tournaments for real money. That’s nearly a $1B USD market. The company I was at just couldn’t get their act together and get it started, even though they spent $$$ on a code base. They laid off a bunch of us in February. Oh well.
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Aug 6, 2021 19:04
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96 spacejam posted:It's a bit jarring to come home from a quick Target run, only to pull up SA and see a photo of the parking lot I just left 10 minutes ago. I'm on the "cool" side of the tracks, literally (Beacons). I'll be sure to swerve into the bike lane if I see that yellow budunkadunk. That’s in Oceanside. I was only there because it was the start of the 200km San Diego Randos ride that day. That’s NOT me in the photo. Irony: I grew up in Oceanside, Oceanside New York. VideoGameVet fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Aug 6, 2021 |
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Aug 6, 2021 19:05
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On the new game, this week's drama was getting the team access to the Apple Connect stuff. Just loads of stupid work. Just to get the builds onto my phone/iPad took a day of updating: XCODE: I can't talk to your devices, their operating systems are too new. After a few hours downloading the new XCODE ... XCODE: I won't run on your Mac, update the OS. After several hours. XCODE: Your devices aren't setup. Update the Climate Trail (update RenPy). Try that. XCODE: Oh do you want me to authorize these devices? Finally apk onto the devices. Almost 3 days, not to mention the "the app is missing some certificate that we can't find, so forget about test flight-ing anything." Crap, why do they make this so f-ing complex?
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Aug 18, 2021 17:51
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Were you involved in Mechwarrior 2? I remember playing that game back in '95 and it absolutely blew my mind with how advanced it was over everything else around at the time. The soundtrack, the graphics, the sound, even the gameplay and plot. We got Ghost Bear's Legacy and then Mercs as a sequel, but then it kinda just....stopped. If you had anything to do with that, I just want to say job well done. I still consider it one of the best games of all time.
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