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Twenty-five Years at the Heart of Gaming
Andrew Leonard writes "Salon has a loooong interview with Eugene Jarvis, the creator of legendary arcade video games Defender and Robotron, up today. Jarvis talks about why he is pro-emulators, anti-Grand Theft Auto, still focused on arcade games, and deeply worried about terrorism. It's a good read, even if you have to watch a ten second ad to get access."
The 1982 arcade game "Robotron" offered a hyperactive, paranoid vision of a future gone awry. With two joysticks and a steady supply of quarters, you could save the world, but only for so long. Today Eugene Jarvis, designer of "Robotron," is still worried about a future gone mad. But it's no longer machines that are the enemies, but terrorists.
Sure to be among the first class of inductees at the Pong-shaped Video Game Hall of Fame when and if it is built, Eugene Jarvis is a legend in gaming circles -- not for making cute or simple games, but for games that are unbelievably, knuckle-bashingly difficult. Jarvis' C.V. reads like a litany of squandered allowances and sleepless nights for anyone who has stepped into an arcade in the last 25 years: "Defender," "Robotron," "Stargate," "Blaster," "NARC" and "Smash T.V."
Arcade games have become something of an afterthought in the era of the PC game and the home console, but Jarvis hasn't given up on the genre. He's founded a new company, Raw Thrills, and is planning to reinvigorate the industry. Raw Thrills' first volley is the upcoming counterterrorism two-player shooter "Target: Terror." "Target: Terror" asks players to save the Golden Gate Bridge, defend the Los Alamos Laboratory, and, somewhat controversially, prevent a hijacked airliner from crashing into the White House.
Jarvis spoke with Salon by phone from his Chicago office. He talked about the history and evolution of the video-gaming industry, the challenges of portraying terrorists, why he is a fan of video-game emulation but a critic of "Grand Theft Auto," and the pros and cons of green blood.
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Next year will be the 25th anniversary of "Defender." Did you think you would still be making games 25 years after that game?
You know, I didn't know if I would be making games six months later.
Are you still as enthusiastic about it as you were then?
I guess at the time it was just kind of a brand new thing. We went from a blank screen to something, so it was extremely exciting, kind of like being the guys who showed up at Sutter's Mill in 1849 and started picking gold up off the ground, you know? It was just the start of everything and very exciting and new. There were no rules. It's like that was the Summer of Love of video games and now it's largely a huge corporate business based on branded titles, pre-sold movies, and, you know, "Madden 4008."
So, in some ways, I guess, to a purist -- to a gamer -- it's a little disillusioning in that it turned into just another corporation trying to sell another box of crap to the hapless consumer. There's that famous quote -- I guess some marketing guy was bragging and said, "Our marketing is so good, that we could put shit in a box and sell it." And the gamer's response was: "Well, you do."
There is a certain disillusionment whenever anything becomes a real business -- then all the rules, marketing, and stratagems that make up real businesses come into play and it's real money now. It's not like a couple of guys in a garage doing a game, you've got to actually have a plan about what you're doing; you have to not just shoot from the hip. We were jazz musicians in those days, just riffing on whatever cool new beat came along, and now it's carefully crafted, orchestrated; you play your cymbal -- your full-time job is to play your cymbal on the 3,084th beat of this measure and you better be damn happy doing it. If not, there's four guys waiting to take your place [laughs]. You're animating the shoelaces on the Q.B. [quarterback] and that's your job. You're a shoelace specialist. You're not really saving the world anymore, you know? Just making a better shoelace shader.
Have games been eclipsed by all the effects?
Yeah, sometimes I come to work and I feel like I'm an interior decorator, you know? It's like: "Man, that green looks like shit!" "Don't you know this year it's purple, man! Green is out!" You're worried about all these shadows and reflections and eye candy and
If youve got the money, a slikstik cannot be beaten. Im saving up for one right now.
www.slikstik.com
Be financially prepared. Their best stick is $700, but it doesnt get any better then this for MAME.
Unless you want to build it yourelf.
no
A quick search on the "internet" provides several options.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Here you go, no ads:
March 2, 2004 | Guided by their infallible logic, the Robotrons conclude: The human race is inefficient, and must therefore be eliminated.
The 1982 arcade game "Robotron" offered a hyperactive, paranoid vision of a future gone awry. With two joysticks and a steady supply of quarters, you could save the world, but only for so long. Today Eugene Jarvis, designer of "Robotron," is still worried about a future gone mad. But it's no longer machines that are the enemies, but terrorists.
Sure to be among the first class of inductees at the Pong-shaped Video Game Hall of Fame when and if it is built, Eugene Jarvis is a legend in gaming circles -- not for making cute or simple games, but for games that are unbelievably, knuckle-bashingly difficult. Jarvis' C.V. reads like a litany of squandered allowances and sleepless nights for anyone who has stepped into an arcade in the last 25 years: "Defender," "Robotron," "Stargate," "Blaster," "NARC" and "Smash T.V."
Arcade games have become something of an afterthought in the era of the PC game and the home console, but Jarvis hasn't given up on the genre. He's founded a new company, Raw Thrills, and is planning to reinvigorate the industry. Raw Thrills' first volley is the upcoming counterterrorism two-player shooter "Target: Terror." "Target: Terror" asks players to save the Golden Gate Bridge, defend the Los Alamos Laboratory, and, somewhat controversially, prevent a hijacked airliner from crashing into the White House.
Jarvis spoke with Salon by phone from his Chicago office. He talked about the history and evolution of the video-gaming industry, the challenges of portraying terrorists, why he is a fan of video-game emulation but a critic of "Grand Theft Auto," and the pros and cons of green blood.
Next year will be the 25th anniversary of "Defender." Did you think you would still be making games 25 years after that game?
You know, I didn't know if I would be making games six months later.
Are you still as enthusiastic about it as you were then?
I guess at the time it was just kind of a brand new thing. We went from a blank screen to something, so it was extremely exciting, kind of like being the guys who showed up at Sutter's Mill in 1849 and started picking gold up off the ground, you know? It was just the start of everything and very exciting and new. There were no rules. It's like that was the Summer of Love of video games and now it's largely a huge corporate business based on branded titles, pre-sold movies, and, you know, "Madden 4008."
So, in some ways, I guess, to a purist -- to a gamer -- it's a little disillusioning in that it turned into just another corporation trying to sell another box of crap to the hapless consumer. There's that famous quote -- I guess some marketing guy was bragging and said, "Our marketing is so good, that we could put shit in a box and sell it." And the gamer's response was: "Well, you do."
There is a certain disillusionment whenever anything becomes a real business -- then all the rules, marketing, and stratagems that make up real businesses come into play and it's real money now. It's not like a couple of guys in a garage doing a game, you've got to actually have a plan about what you're doing; you have to not just shoot from the hip. We were jazz musicians in those days, just riffing on whatever cool new beat came along, and now it's carefully crafted, orchestrated; you play your cymbal -- your full-time job is to play your cymbal on the 3,084th beat of this measure and you better be damn happy doing it. If not, there's four guys waiting to take your place [laughs]. You're animating the shoelaces on the Q.B. [quarterback] and that's your job. You're a shoelace specialist. You're not really saving the world anymore, you know? Just making a better shoelace shader.
Have games been eclipsed by all the effects?
Yeah, sometimes I come to work and I feel like I'm an interior decorator, you know? It's like: "Man, that green loo
I just got my freemame discs in the mail the other day and I'm having a blast. No need to download 8+ gigs of roms when you can get them on 2 dvds.
Next step is to undertake building a cabinet. If you're interested in emulators defintely check out freemame. I got mine for 9 bucks.
check out a list of the people who do it
what?
Ok it's a but off topic, but still related. This reminded me of a site that has some old school games you can play on the web. Enjoy some classic '80s games.
-Valiss
Yeah! I loved playing as the aliens!* (*for those who don't know: when you start you you don't shoot aliens and you only shoot cops. After a little while you stop taking damage. When you shoot all the cops in the first segment you get to play as a Kronn Hunter (complete with psychedelic visuals).
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Huh? The link in the submission IS index.html, and when I try to change the index_rp.html it just reverts back to index.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086066/
The Outsiders (1983) is a film we had to watch in one of my University classes to illustrate the frustration and fears of the "older" generation feeling that the "younger" generation was too out of control, wreckless, irresponsible, and criminally dangerous due to the social influences of rock and roll. "Too much sass boy!"
I think that while there is a genuine concern for maintaining the social mores of our country we also have to acknowledge that younger generations will always need to "out-do" the older generations.
As for me, I believe that so much energy and criticism is focused on entertainment (movies,tv, music, games) because it is the easist to target and to regulate. Clearly one can assume a correlation between violence in popular entertainment and criminal behavior, but the facts and studies dictate otherwise. We can regulate our cultural entertainment through public policy, but it is much more difficult to acknowledge and repair the social conditions that are proven to lead to future criminal behaviors and are the true causes of criminality.
Here is one copy (redirects to the asimov archive, which has virtually everything for the Apple ][). There are others (and I haven't tested this one - still got my original ;).
I wonder what happened to Mark Allen? Did he get something for the iPod port? Which I find unplayable using the touch wheel, unfortunately - the difficulty of having to fire using the centre button. It might work if I could put my other thumb on the rewind button or something (on a regular iPod). It's the controls, yeah...I could play the original indefinitely, and I can't suck that much more in my declining years. ;)
Odyssey (the compleat apventure) should be there too if you look around. Or perhaps you meant Robot Odyssey (which I think may have been made freeware, unless I'm thinking of something else).
You misspelled "copyright infringement". Can't blame you really, it's a hard phrase to spell. Still, accuracy is a useful skill in this particular controversial topic.
Fortunatelly, Tradewars is still alive and kicking: http://www.eisonline.com
I looked it up.. probably others would, too (Ninth Key and other patterns).
(posted with no bonus on purpose -- not whoring)
S
Well, the FAQ for the free pass has this foreboding entry:
Check if your browser accepts animation. In IE go to Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Multimedia > check box "Play animations in web pages."
Even worse, the URL for the first ad includes the chilling string "RealMedia". However, the images you are required to click through for this particular day pass (or at least the ones I got, for powells.com) are simply animated gifs with image map links, so Lynx should display them just fine.
However again, I can't seem to get from the Salon article page and the 'get a free day pass' link to the actual ads, as you say, and despie accepting all cookies offered. I did get to the ads by copying the URL for the first ad page from a Safari window and pasting it into Lynx.
This is no good if you just want to use Lynx, but here's something that did work:
You'll know you made it if you don't see the 'free day pass' link at the top of the page. I had to go through the process twice to get there, and had to retry a couple of 'server not found links', but it did work. And not having to wait for the animated gifs to reveal their hotspots is a genuine timesaver - the glitchy Lynx process didn't take any longer than the full-on process with the animated gif wait.
Hope that's useful, and good luck. Lynx on!
I've been using Dosbox for quite a while now in Linux. While there's still a lot of games it won't play, amazingly, it actually handles every dos game I own. Which, while not a huge amount, has been enough to really impress me. Especially nice is the anti-aliasing, which does a nice job of depixilating a lot of them to some extent. None of the dos games I own have any networking aspects, but I can at least say the sound seems perfect in them to me.
Everything will be taken away from you.
You havn't actually watched any Michael Moore movies have you. One of his arguments is that America is considerable SAFER than NRAA gun freaks want you to believe. He also argues that NRAA gun freaks themselves are not part of the problem but that FEAR is. Americans are steeped in FEAR which is why we all think we need guns etc.. While I don't disagree with your points it's still sad to see you name dropping like an ignoramous.
I think you have large misconception about Moore. In Bowling For Columbine he looks at the issues of youth/school violence and gun violence in general. He doesn't come to a conclusion about the cause of this, but he does conclude that:
a) It isn't caused by the prevalence of guns; and
b) It isn't caused by violent movies, games, or "evil" music.
However, he does suggest that if anything, the over-reporting and sensationalism of violence by the media in the U.S. (which is the very thing you accused Moore of doing), actually contributes to such violence by causing people to be overly fearful.
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
DOSBox is even able to run Zone66, which is pretty finicky about DPMI and EMS and XMS.