Archive for the ‘People’ Category

When videogame producer Brad Smith was a kid, he noticed something about his parents’ old vinyl copy of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon: The pulsing, looping, synthesized sounds of tunes like “On the Run” sounded like they’d come straight out of the videogames he was obsessed with.

“It surprised me to hear something that sounded close to my games coming from my parents’ stereo,” he told Wired.com in an e-mail interview.

Now Smith, 27, has put the finishing touches on MOON8, a cover version of the entire album created with instruments that mimic the sound hardware of the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. Smith re-created each of the 10 tracks on Dark Side of the Moon and uploaded them to YouTube in a series of six videos (embedded above). While the clips contain just a static, pixelated image of the album cover to go with the tracks, they’ve racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

Smith’s version of the landmark 1973 concept album is more than just nostalgic silliness. Like Switched-On Bach, Walter Carlos’ 1968 album of classical music recorded on Moog synthesizers, Smith’s recording uses the lens of technology to re-examine a work of art that has become larger than life. MOON8 pulls Dark Side of the Moon out of orbit and makes it something that can be held in your hands again, like the gray, plastic rectangle of a Nintendo controller.

Continue Reading “Chiptune Album Sheds New Light on Dark Side of the Moon” »

Ralph Baer, known as the father of videogames, was inducted into the the National Inventors Hall of Fame during a ceremony held at the United States Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday.

In 1966, Baer began work on the prototype for the first home videogame machine, which is currently housed in the Smithsonian Institution. He sold his invention to Magnavox, and it was released as the Odyssey in 1972. Baer’s other contributions to gaming include the light gun and the call-and-response electronic game Simon.

The National Inventors Hall of Fame was founded in 1973. In order to be recognized for this annual honor, the inventor’s work must be protected by U.S. Patent and have had “a major impact on society, the public welfare, and the progress of science and the useful arts.”

Other honorees this year include Jacques Cousteau, for the invention of S.C.U.B.A. gear, and rocket scientist Yvonne Brill.

Photo: Veronica Sutter via vonguard/Flickr

See Also:

• Gamasutra Interviews Ralph Baer
• Pong, 'Odyssey' Creators Team Up For GDC Session
• Console Portraits: A 40-Year Pictorial History of Gaming

SAN FRANCISCO — Sid Meier, creator of Civilization, says gamers are a bunch of head cases.

“Player psychology has nothing to do with rational thought,” said the acclaimed game designer during his keynote address at the Game Developers Conference on Friday. Titled “The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong),” the speech talked about what’s going on in a player’s brain as he plays a game, and how designers should anticipate and react to their irrational expectations.

As an example, Meier cited players’ perception of randomness. Most players, he said, don’t fully grasp that randomness is truly random — especially when a roll of the dice produces a negative, unlikely result twice in a row. That’s why he argues for sweeting the odds in the player’s favor after a setback.

In fact, Meier said, most lessons learned from the player can seem counter-intuitive to the left-brained game designer. But creators can find great success when they “go with the flow” — following where players lead, even if the path seems illogical.

Continue Reading “GDC: Civ Designer Says Gameplay Is All In Your Head” »

Steve Wiebe (pictured) will shoot for the Donkey Kong high score next week at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco.

Gamasutra reports that Wiebe will appear at the booth for Atlassian, a maker of bug-tracking software, where he will sign autographs and do his darndest to beat rival Billy Mitchell’s Donkey Kong high score.

Steve Wiebe is best known for his appearance in the documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. The documentary followed Wiebe, the underdog in a competition to nail the high score in notoriously difficult arcade game Donkey Kong. In the film Wiebe bested the charismatic Mitchell, but in 2007 Mitchell beat the record.

Just this month, Wiebe re-gained the title of best Donkey Kong Jr. player by posting a score of 1,190,400 points.

Wiebe made a similar attempt to recapture the Donkey Kong high score at E3 last year. Depsite reaching the game’s kill screen, Wiebe wasn’t able to beat Mitchell’s score.

Top: Still from King of Kong courtesy Picturehouse

See Also:

• Donkey Kong Challenge: This Is What $10001 in Quarters Looks Like …
• Review: King of Kong Film Gives No Quarter
• King of Kong's 'Good Guy' Falls Short of Success
• July 3, 1999: Gobbling Up a 'Pac-Man' Record

Literacy expert James Gee says that teachers and schools could learn a thing or two from videogames.

Gee spoke Friday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, using his time to forward the notion that teachers should take a hard look at the way games teach. “We tend to teach science,” he said, “by telling you a lot of stuff and then letting you do science. Games teach the other way. They have you do stuff, and then as you need to know information, they tell it to you.”

Gee is the author of multiple books on the subject, including What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy and Women and Gaming: The Sims and 21st Century Learning, which comes out in May. He first floated the notion that games make good teachers in Wired magazine back in 2003.

Continue Reading “What Videogames Can Teach Teachers” »

John Carmack, co-founder of id Software, will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards. Carmack will recieve the award at the Game Developers Conference on March 11 in San Francisco.

Carmack, who co-founded id in 1991, was a pioneer of 3-D graphics and first-person shooters, instrumental in the creation of beloved gaming franchises Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein. He was selected for the award by a panel of game industry veterans.

Previous recipients of the award include Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto and Will Wright. Wright will be on hand at GDC to present the award to Carmack.

Photo: Hachimaki/Flickr

See Also:

• Wired 4.08: The Egos at Id
• Wired 11.05: Prepare to Meet Thy Doom
• John Carmack Promises 'Graphical Tour de Force' on iPhone
• Doom Rocket Man Preps for Liftoff
• Orcs & Elves Contest: Win A Nintendo DS Signed By John Carmack

Mike Newell, the man behind the camera for the forthcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time movie, isn’t terribly good at playing the videogame he was hired to adapt for the big screen.

“I was completely hopeless at it,” Newell admitted in an interview with /Film Tuesday. “I just about managed to get him to run along a wall before he fell off into some appalling scything machine and was chopped to bits.”

Luckily, being a good gamer isn’t the first priority when shooting a movie, even if the film is based on a videogame. Newell’s filmography includes more than a few competent films — like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Pushing Tin.

Besides, Newell told /Film that he buddied up with Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner (who contributed the screenplay’s first draft). “Jordy and I really hit it off and I adored him,” Newell said. “Because he was, like me, a kind of research freak and he knew stuff about sixth-century Persia that I found completely fascinating.”

Read the entire interview to learn more encouraging tidbits about Newell’s body of work, his appreciation of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time lead Jake Gyllenhaal and his movie’s approach to action set pieces.

Exclusive /Film Interview: Director Mike Newell, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time [/Film]

Image courtesy Buena Vista

See Also:

• High-Flying Prince of Persia Movie Trailer Feels Like Live-Action Game
• Video: Behind the Scenes of Prince of Persia Movie
• Video: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Super Bowl Ad
• Prince of Persia: The Game of the Movie of the Game

Blizzard Entertainment, the makers of World of Warcraft, donated $1.1 million to The Make-A-Wish Foundation on Tuesday.

In a press release Wednesday, the charity dedicated to bringing joy to the lives of children with life-threatening medical conditions applauded the gamemaker for its large contribution.

The dough didn’t come straight out of Blizzard’s pocket. Players of the popular MMO pitched in by buying the Pandaren Monk in-game pet (pictured above left). Blizzard promised to donate $5 every time a player made a $10 microtransaction to gain the pet during the months of November and December.

“This donation also reflects the spirit and generosity of our players,” said Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. “Their enthusiasm for World of Warcraft and for supporting a good cause made this possible.”

Sales of a second pet that popped up at the same time, the evil Lil’ K.T. (pictured above right), did not benefit charity. To stick to the theme, we suggest that Blizzard uses half the funds from the naughty vanity pet to install additional traffic-enforcement cameras on Orange County roadways.

Image courtesy Blizzard Entertainment.

See Also:

• Art of Blizzard Show To Aid Child's Play Charity Drive
• Uh-Oh: World of Warcraft Introduces Microtransactions
• 'Call of Duty Endowment' Aids Unemployed Vets
• Chime Sales 'Tremendous,' More Charity Games Coming
• Penny Arcade Recognized for Charity Work

For the second year in a row, employees from Electronic Arts’ Tiburon studio in Orlando stopped by the Florida Hospital for Children to deliver games and swag to sick kids.

The Orlando Sentinel reported Monday that EA art director Tony Stanley, among others, donated thirty games including Madden NFL 10 and Boom Blox.

“I’ve never met anyone who made the games,” said patient Raymond Ortiz, a 14-year-old with juvenile diabetes. Ortiz and friends had the chance to chat up game designers and learn a bit more about how games are made. And, of course, the kids got to play plenty of games.

For more warm fuzzies, read the entire account. A reminder that videogames have the power to make kids happy is fine way to come back from a three-day weekend.

Image courtesy Electronic Arts

EA Sports brings fun, games to Florida Hospital for Children [Orlando Sentinel]

See Also:

• Save Money on Black Friday? Donate It to Child's Play
• Child's Play Raises More Than $1 Million for Sick Kids
• Penny Arcade Recognized for Charity Work
• Charity Puzzle Game Chime Rings a Familiar Bell

In the days when games were created by just one man, David Crane was a superstar.

The market for home videogame machines was just beginning to flourish in the late ’70s, when Crane was singlehandedly cranking out groundbreaking games for the Atari 2600 console, which was practically the only game in town.

“Unlike today, games for the Atari game system were developed by a single person,” said Crane in an e-mail to Wired.com. “Each of us did all of the design, graphics, music, sound effects and even the play-testing for our own games.”

Kids across the nation waited patiently for new game cartridges to show up in stores. All the games came directly from Atari, as the idea of independent gamemakers hadn’t yet crossed anyone’s mind. Crane, who created games like Pitfall! and Freeway, was the wunderkind of the Atari era, pulling off amazing technical tricks on primitive hardware and creating some of the period’s best-selling and most influential titles.

Perhaps equally important, Crane (pictured, in the Atari era and now) was an entrepreneur. He helped change the face of the videogame business forever when he split from Atari to co-found Activision, the first third-party game publisher.

It’s fitting, then, that the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, the industry group which puts on the prestigious DICE Summit each year, would choose Crane as the recipient of its first Pioneer Award, which recognizes videogaming visionaries who took the first steps in the early days of the industry. The academy will present Crane with the award at its 13th annual Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony Feb. 18 in Las Vegas, the academy revealed exclusively to Wired.com.

Continue Reading “Pitfall! Creator David Crane Is Named Videogame Pioneer” »