CRT Emulation for the Atari VCS
One of the main themes of Racing the Beam is the strong affinity between the Atari VCS and the CRT television. The system was designed around the TV and it interfaces with that display in an unusual and specific way. In today’s world of huge, sharp LCD monitors, it’s hard to remember what a videogame image looked like on an… read more
Production Hacks in Racing the Beam
I like that someone noticed this: (I also enjoyed that the book [Racing the Beam] itself is a nice recursive hack. Its (fairly cheap) printing process didn’t allow reproducing the detailed color photos of the games needed for reference. So they printed them on the inside of the dust jacket instead.) Indeed, it was essential that color images of the… read more
Jesper, the Videogame Chair
There I was, browsing through the Ikea catalog, when I came upon this remarkable chair. On first blush it looks like those ill-fated ergonomic chairs of the 1980s, but it’s really just a bench at two heights. The user is meant to straddle the lower height and use the upper to rest his arms while holding a videogame controller, avoiding… read more
On "Bushnell's Law" and why it is misunderstood. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra
Here’s a game design aphorism you’ve surely heard before: a game, so it goes, ought to be “easy to learn and hard to master.” This axiom is so frequently repeated because it purports to hold the key to a powerful outcome: an addicting game, one people want to play over and over again once they’ve started, and in which starting… read more
Where to find me this week
It’s time again for the Game Developers Conference. Here’s my speaking schedule for those of you who might be interested. Serious Games Summit. Monday-Tuesday, all day, Room 3007, Moscone West. I co-organized the summit with Ben Sawyer, which means you can blame us if the content isn’t to your liking. Where Were the Election Games?, Monday, 2:10p-3:10p, Room 3007, Moscone… read more
Wired's Chris Kohler on Racing the Beam
Chris Kohler, author of Power Up and games writer at Wired penned a nice piece on Racing the Beam for Wired’s Game|Life blog. One of the ideas we discuss in the book that Kohler picks up on is the fact that the Atari was manufactured and supported until 1992, albeit in increasingly smaller numbers. Today it’s almost impossible to imagine… read more
You'd be completely shocked at the things we can convince people do with a vacuum cleaner.
Game trade news site Gamasutra ran a contest late last month to predict the future of games. Dubbed “Games of 2020,” the contest asked entrants to “imagine what video games might be like in the year 2020.” Winners would receive an all-access pass to the forthcoming Game Developers Conference. The results are in, among them a massively multiplayer origami game and… read more
The nice folks over at Hatchet Job had me on their podcast this week. You can listen to it on their website, or subscribe via iTunes. Topics covered include the Atari, games and activism, Karl Marx, ice cream, and. It’ll be up to you to judge how my reputation emerged, but there’s no denying those cats did a hatchet job… read more
On mass-market sentimentalism in videogames. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra.
Thomas Kinkade paints cottages, gardens, chapels, lighthouses, and small town street scenes. He paints such subjects by the dozens each year, but he sells thousands of them for at least a thousand dollars each. All are “originals” manufactured using a complex print process that involves both machine automation and assembly line-like human craftsmanship. The result has made Kinkade the most… read more
(or, Buy My New Book)
Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System has been published and is now shipping from Amazon.com or your favorite bookseller. The book, which I wrote in collaboration with Nick Montfort, is about the relationship between the hardware design of the Atari VCS, some of the games that were created for it, and those games’ influence on later titles and… read more