Time For the talk!!

Strong day 2! My presentation cometh.

I'll be giving one of the final talks at Save the Games this coming Thursday! Gonna be an exciting time and can't wait to meet so many peers and interesting people there!

Rounding up everything I need to do on the book before heading to Save the Games - it's an exciting but difficult time! I'm hoping to come back and return to regular routine with articles, videos, streams, and interviews - then building up to the book's release towards year's end.

A preview of my upcoming Save the Games presentation.

One week until the Save the Games conference is on! Big moment in my year. www.museumofplay.org/save-the-gam... I'll be presenting as well as watching colleagues like @philsalv.bsky.social @sega-16.bsky.social @nathaniellockhart.bsky.social and @crespiguillermo.bsky.social !

The only Odyssey I'm interested in. (Okay that's a lie I just like a good joke)

What does this count as

I'm nearing the final edits of my Golden Age Arcade book and I've found I've come to use the en dash more and more. I hope no one accuses me of AI - I worked too hard and long on this book for that!

Bill Arkush is among the most fascinating technology people in early video games. He was one of Atari's key engineers in its first few years, became the defacto man for fixing arcade games through Kurz-Kasch and Kush 'n Stuff, and helped legitimize video games in coin-op.

Noel Penney Elliott, 18 years old from Kellogg, Idaho, created a tic-tac-toe computer for his school's science fair. The invention got him a ticket to show it off in D.C. for which he received $100 in a scholarship and ten minutes of national fame.

In my diving into newspapers, I often like to search for early instances of "electronic game". I found what was likely the first ever instance of the term widely publicized across the US in 1950. The game was electro-mechanical, but it's still a milestone for games created by high schoolers.

Thankfully, this one's quite easy to answer. tweakbod (coming to the rescue again) found that Nintendo first showed off Donkey Kong - and Sky Skipper - at a product showcase in Osaka at the Ark Hotel. However, the article explicitly says Donkey Kong was released MID-July.

We have yet another ill-defined game anniversary today: Donkey Kong! According to official sources, Donkey Kong was "released" on July 9, 1981. But as usual we need to interrogate what "release" means.

Join us for the continued readthrough of The Ultimate History of Video Games Vol. 2 and its many, many errors! www.twitch.tv/play_history The arcade is dead! Nintendo is bad! Sony is ignorant! All the hot takes that make up TRUE history.

Tonight we are returning to the Kent mines with our readthrough and breakdown of Ultimate History of Video Games Vol. 2 at 7PM CST! www.twitch.tv/play_history We'll be talking arcades, handhelds, and the bizarre inference that nothing happened in the PS2 generation.

Once more into the Wasteland! Today we attempt to finish the seminal Interplay RPG or die trying. www.twitch.tv/play_history We're gonna die trying, aren't we?

A fascinating anomaly inside a circa 1981 Chuck E Cheese. An electro-mechanical horse ride with a gun hooked up to an Atari VCS playing the game Outlaw. Apparently you could aim your gun and shoot at the target - not sure how! A fascinating, weird kit bash.

We are resuming a playthrough of Wasteland on this Holiday weekend - nothing more American. www.twitch.tv/play_history Watch the Gaming Alexandria crew survive the apocalypse with the power of friendship!

I've never liked people comparing the modern day upsets to the 1982 crash, but we would gain a lot from looking at the late 90s, early 2000s collapse of publishers like Broderbund, Infogrames/Atari, and Midway. Those examples are far more instructive to our current situation.

Moving to digital has done both good and bad for the game industry. You couldn't have publishers like Annapurna Interactive in the old system. At the same time, we have things like DLC replacing robust expansions for games.

This is not to say I'm supporting the move to digital-only or calling it inevitable. All I mean to say is that for companies, they have multiple incentives to control their own destiny beyond simply the consumer rights issues.

Retail sales have always been a controlling factor in the video game industry. From Atari to Acclaim to Interplay to THQ, the requirements of being part of the retail ecosystem has always been a Sword of Damocles hanging over the landscape.

An impromptu stream for researching my next book! We're going to be playing Wasteland, the 1988 stone cold classic. Join us for my horrific deaths and other commentary. www.twitch.tv/play_history

Nintendo's slow rollout of Game & Watch in the US opened the door for similar games to gain hold, such as the Masudaya Thumb Games of a similar form factor.

Ten years ago, I did my first deep dive on video game history: The Making of the Nintendo 64. I was able to talk with three team members from SGI including chief architect Tim Van Hook. www.gamingalexandria.com/wp/2021/06/t... I'd love to expand it, but I think it's still a ripping tale!

Pioneering game designer Howell Ivy (Death Race, Circus, Venture) and later Sega executive passed away last month. I had the pleasure of speaking with him about his very early work on microprocessors. Incredibly forthcoming and kind. He will be missed.

Atari's computer version of Donkey Kong ultimately netted Universal more royalty money than Tiger's multiple game license - though admittedly some of this can be chalked up to the revised Tiger deal. Coleco earned them over $4 million. archive.org/details/1982...

Imagic actually inquired about creating a King Kong game in early 1982, and seems to have seriously considered making them their video game partner before the Coleco situation. archive.org/details/supp...

Among the more interesting, obscure info are a set of inquires that RKO received from video game companies. Atari wanted to call one of their console "King Pong" and the company Fun Games was told in no certain terms that their game King was an infringement. archive.org/details/1983...