Pac-Man Creator on Weighs in on What Game Design is all About

Pac-Man Creator on Weighs in on What Game Design is all About

In a 1986 interview with for the book, "Programmers at Work," author Susan Lammers asked Toru Iwatani, creator of Pac-Man, if he had studied game design prior to developing the game. Iwatani-san's reply proves that creativity and intuition cannot be taught: “I had no special training at all;...
Eugene Jarvis and Developer Freedom

Eugene Jarvis and Developer Freedom

In an interview With Joystik in September of 1982, famed game developer Eugene Jarvis spoke about the creative freedom game designers were given at that time, which is a stark contrast of what the industry is like today. Since many ideas at the beginning of the industry were...
Robert Stein Loses out on Tetris

Robert Stein Loses out on Tetris

During the negotiations for the rights to Tetris, the man who first purchased the rights to the game from Russia made a critical mistake. Because Robert Stein failed to pay the Russian Government what he had owed for pc rights to the game, The Soviet Ministry of Software...
Nolan Bushnell Mandates Success at Atari

Nolan Bushnell Mandates Success at Atari

On August 3, 1973, Nolan Bushnell issued a memo to the engineering department of Atari with an eight-point action plan. These points included a specific quantity of Gotcha arcade machines, sufficient staff to be available when "emergency projects" arose, and plans for a color version of Pong. Nolan...