

Ask HN: "Founders at Work" of Gaming Startups - buggy_code

I'm interested in reading interviews of founders of great computer games. Besides "Masters of Doom", are there any other books?<p>I'd love to read things on the founding of Wow / Lineage / Everquest; the start of Duke Nukem / Unreal / Halo / Mario; ... or anything else along those lines.<p>Book preferred, but list of interviews cool too.<p>Thanks!
======
listic
IMHO, gaming industry is not very lucrative as a whole. As a rule, releasing a
succesful project doesn't guarantee that you willl have funds for the next
one. Therefore, teams developing games can hardly be called startups.

Anyways, I think you are better off collecting and reading individual articles
in specialized press i.e. Gamasutra, Kotaku etc. If you want to read about the
making of past titles, seek postmortems.

As far as I can understand it, gaming industry and innovation went searate
ways. You are either (a) making multimillion-dollar blockbusters and bound by
capitalists and IP holders, or (b) try to do whatever you want with your
friends with nearly zero chance to be noticed by the industry or consumers.

There is a certain line of thought about computer games (here we're talking
variant b, or underground): Games are a new art form in its infancy. Really,
think about it: game can do (kind of) what music and cinema can, and more: it
is interactive! As other art forms, it is looked down at and tries to copy
other, more recognized art forms (as cinema was looked down upon compared to
theater and tried to imitate it). Therefore, adherents of this line of thought
say, we must experiment and we should find expressive means unique to such art
form as games. If you want to learn abouut this approach, I suggest you start
here: <http://tale-of-tales.com/> it's home of Tale of Tales, Belgian
developer of art games. The site is rich in content and contains many links to
other like-minded sites.

~~~
lacker
_You are either (a) making multimillion-dollar blockbusters and bound by
capitalists and IP holders, or (b) try to do whatever you want with your
friends with nearly zero chance to be noticed by the industry or consumers._

The gaming industry is changing though. A lot of iPhone games have been
successful on a smaller scale. There are also several promising social gaming
startups like Zynga and Playfish. And there have been a lot of game startups
out of China getting funding based on virtual-goods business models. All this
stuff is pretty interesting and offers the potential to make a hit game
without working for EA.

~~~
listic
Nice to know. Would you please name the startups from China or point me to
articles about them?

Also, electronic distribution (i.e. Steam) may free indie developers from the
shackles of publishers.

~~~
lacker
Here's a list of game & "virtual world" companies that got funded in 2008.

[http://venturebeat.com/2009/04/26/second-revision-game-
and-v...](http://venturebeat.com/2009/04/26/second-revision-game-and-virtual-
world-fundings-reach-935-million-in-2008/)

Notable in that list from China are 9you and G10. Also from China there is
tencent a.k.a. QQ (curious that their company names are all combinations of
numbers, letters, and english words) which is not a game per se but they are
making a lot of money selling virtual goods.

------
lacker
I've only read a bit of this book so far but it seems pretty neat -

Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super
Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time

<http://www.armchairarcade.com/neo/node/2214>

It's not exactly interviews of founders; they don't really focus on the people
who made the games per se. But it talks about how the various games were
created, and it's pretty interesting.

