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Panel
on Chicago
Gaming Veterans
March, 2005
The March
meeting of the IGDA Chicago chapter was held at the Museum of Science
and Industry which was showcasing it’s Game On exhibit.
The panel
of Chicago
veterans included:
Eugene
Jarvis - Raw Thrills
Mark Turmell - Midway Games
Joel Seider - Midway Games
Ed Boon - Midway
Games
Larry Hodgson
- Incredible
Technologies
Richard Ditton - Incredible Technologies
Denny Thorley - Day One Studios - moderator.
The combined
panelists have a whopping 145 plus years of
experience in the gaming industry, and have worked on and created games
such as Mortal Kombat, Golden Tee, Defender, NBA Ballers and
MechAssault. Full bios are included below on
each of the panelists and
our moderator.
The panel
discussion was moderated by Denny Thorley, President of Day One Studios. The group
discussed how games have changed while they’ve been in the industry. A journey
for many that began in garages and basements. Other discussions included how
games could appeal more too female gamers, what the panelists saw for the
future of video games, and were given a few minutes to come up with a game
concept to sell to the audience. The panel then took questions from the
audience.
About Game On:
Game On is
currently being held at the Museum of Science and Industry
through September 5. The exhibit is titled Game On: The
History, Culture, and Future of Video Games. It was organized by London's Barbican
Art Gallery,
in collaboration with the National Museums of Scotland. The show gives visitors
the chance to play 100 different games, from past to present-day offerings.
Photos:
Bios:
ED BOON, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, Midway
Amusement Games, LLC.
Ed has been with Midway Games for 18 years. He began with Williams
Electronics in 1986 and continued with Midway when they split from WMS. He
started in the Pinball division and programmed a number of pinball machines
including Space Station, Taxi and Black Knight 2000.
He moved to Video in 1989, designing and programming High Impact Football
(1990) and (the sequel) Super High Impact Football (1991). He was the
Project lead and sole programmer on the Mortal Kombat
Arcade game (1992). The arcade version earned over 1 billion dollars in
quarters, the home version sold over 6 million cartridges, and it spawned two
"Mortal Kombat" movies. The first
movie had a 23 million dollar opening weekend which is the 2nd biggest August
opening in history.
In 1994 he was Project Lead and sole Programmer on Mortal Kombat
Arcade 2 (1994). The home version of this game sold over 5 million
cartridges. He was also the Project lead and sole Programmer on Mortal Kombat Arcade 3 (1995) with home version sales over 4
million units. Ed Boon was also the Project lead on Mortal Kombat Arcade 4 (1997) and Project lead on Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance (2002), the first MK fighting game
direct to consoles (PS2, Xbox, Gamecube) which sold
over 3.3 million units.
Most recently he was the Project lead on Mortal Kombat
Deception (2004), which has won numerous "Best Fighting Game of
2004" awards and shipped 1 million units in 1 week. The Mortal Kombat series has sold over 23 million games worldwide.
RICHARD DITTON, EXECUTIVE VICE
PRESIDENT, INCREDIBLE TECHNOLOGIES
Richard Ditton co-founded Incredible Technologies
in 1985. He brings an extensive technical development background and many
years of business experience to lead internal project teams and vendor
relationships. He has been the key developer of hardware and software
tools, including a proprietary operating system used in a wide range of
products. Ditton has designed and programmed
a number of successful coin-op and consumer games and was the initial
designer of the ITS, the first commercially successful online tournament
system. He earned a B.S. in mathematics and a M.S. in computer science from Purdue University. Early in his career he
worked for IBM as a designer of launch software for the Space Shuttle.
LARRY HODGSON, Vice President of
Product Development for Incredible Technologies, Inc.
Larry has been designing video games for more than twenty years and has been
with Incredible Technologies since 1987. In the early years of his
career he was heavily involved in programming and designing games for the
Commodore 64. In 1989, Larry co-designed and programmed Golden Tee
Golf, his very first coin-op, on-premises entertainment product. Over
the years Larry has designed, programmed, and / or managed over 20 projects
including work on the Battle Tech simulator for FASA, Rim Rockin'
Basketball, Arlington Horseracing, Hot Shots Tennis, and the entire Golden
Tee Golf series of game. Golden Tee Golf has been in the public eye for
more than 15 years including not only the 1989 version but also Golden Tee 3D
Golf, Golden Tee FORE! and his most recent game
Golden Tee LIVE. Golden Tee Golf being one of the most successful on-premise
video game franchises in history, Larry is proud of the following that his
work has and the pop-culture status that Golden Tee has achieved.
EUGENE JARVIS, FOUNDER OF RAW
THRILLS
Jarvis got his first big break from Nolan Bushnell at Atari in 1977, signing
on as a pinball game programmer. His debut video game was the smash
hit Defender (1980). Defender's pioneering scrolling playfields,
multi-planar graphics, particle effects, artificially intelligent enemies,
and mind-numbing action helped seduce an entire generation to video games.
Defender sold over 60,000 arcade games and 7,000,000 Atari 2600
cartridges.
Robotron: 2084 (1982) featured a revolutionary dual
joystick control, and remains a classic action title. Robotron's record for adrenalin pumping action and enemy
body count has yet to be matched.
NARC (1988) debuted hi resolution graphics and digitized live-action actors,
backgrounds, and flying body parts. In 1990's, Jarvis jump started the
adventure driving genre with Cruis'n USA (1994), Cruis'n World (1996), and Cruis'n
Exotica (2000) featuring photo-realistic 3-D texture mapping and modeling,
and real world locations. The Cruis'n series
is the all time highest grossing arcade driving series with over 65,000
arcade games sold worldwide. Cruis'n USA
was a launch title for the Nintendo 64, and the series sold over 3,000,000
console games.
In 2001, Jarvis founded the boutique design studio, Raw Thrills, dedicated to
arcade game design. In 2004 Raw Thrills released its first two titles,
the action shooter thriller "Target: Terror", and "The Fast
and the Furious", a street racing title inspired by the Universal
Studios hit movie. Both games debuted at the top of the arcade charts
and are currently in worldwide release. Currently in development are Target: Terror 2, and a full motion motorcycle racer.
Jarvis and his games have been featured in Time, Newsweek, New York
Times, Chicago Sun Times, USA Today, Playboy, EGM, EGM2, Next Generation, and
numerous interactive media publications. He was Featured Panelist and
Speaker at Siggraph '84 and '95, Develop '97, and
the Game Developers Conference (GDC 1999) and has also appeared on
Entertainment Tonight and NBC's Newsradio sitcom.
"Defender" was featured on the TV shows "CHIPS" and
"Newsradio". "NARC" was
featured in the movie "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and spawned
the late '80's animated cartoon series "Power Team". "Cruis'n Exotica" appeared on the reality TV series
"The Osbournes".
Eugene was
recently awarded with the International Game Developer Association's Lifetime
Achievement Award for his accomplishments.
JOEL SEIDER, STUDIO DEVELOPMENT
DIRECTOR, Midway Amusement Games, LLC.
Joel Seider is an 18-year veteran of the game
industry who has worked on just about every platform including Apple II,
Commodore 64, Atari Lynx, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, PlayStation, PC,
Coin-op arcades and PS2.
He started his career as both a programmer and artist, moved on to Lead
Programmer, then Project Lead, then Technical Director, now Studio
Development Director. His career history includes freelance work for
EA, Konami, Mindscape and Accolade, two years at Atari, and five years at
Studio E, a small game developer he co-founded. For the past seven
years Joel has been with Midway Games.
Joel Seider has worked as a programmer on the
following titles: Skate or Die! (Apple IIe),
Pac-Land (Lynx), Pinball Jam (Lynx), Bubsy (Super
Nintendo), Total Carnage (Super Nintendo), Shadow Hawk (Super Nintendo), VMX
Racing (PlayStation), Beasts of Bedlam (PC), Cart Fury (arcade & PS2) and
NFL Blitz 2002 (PS2)
As a Manager at Midway he has been involved with numerous console titles such
as MK: Deadly Alliance, MK: Deception, Psi-Ops,
Slugfest, NBA Ballers, and all current titles being
developed out of Midway Chicago.
MARK TURMELL, Creative Director
Midway Sports, Midway Amusement Games, LLC.
Mark Turmell is a 20+ year veteran of game industry
with 18 published titles. He programmed and published his first game
for the Apple II computer in 1980. His Apple II games included Sneakers
and Beer Run. He designed fast & furious Atari VCS game cartridges
including VCS games Fast Eddie and Turmoil. Mark worked for Activision
during the heyday and decline of the business in the early 1980's, and with
Hasbro in the late 1980's on an interactive videotape based system, trying
not to create interactive movies.
He began designing and programming coin-operated video games for Midway
(Williams Electronics) in 1989. Mark's approach was to design high
adrenalin, fast paced, break all the rules type sports games. Mark worked as
Project Lead on Smash TV, NBA JAM, WWF Wrestlemania,
NFL Blitz and NBA Showtime - The NBA on NBC. NBA JAM earned over 1
billion dollars in the first 12 months, 1 quarter at a time, and sold over 5
million consumer cartridges. NFL Blitz sold over 2 million units sold
within 3 months of its launch, creating a new sales category for sports
product, while not impacting existing brands.
Other Midway Games on which Mark was Creative Lead include MLB Slugfest, the
#1 Selling PS2 Baseball game in 2002 and NBA Ballers,
a million selling console title, bringing a fresh look to NBA basketball.
Mark is currently deeply involved with NBA Ballers
2.
MODERATOR BIO:
DENNY THORLEY, PRESIDENT, DAY 1
STUDIOS
Denny Thorley has enjoyed over 17 years in the game
industry and currently is the President of independent game developer, Day 1
Studios. Thorley is credited with securing a first
party development relationship with Microsoft and recruiting experienced
industry veterans to fill management and development positions to
successfully enhance Day 1's staff.
MechAssault, Day 1's first title, shipped for the
Xbox in Q4, 2002. The fast action 'Mech' game
quickly became the darling of Xbox "Live" and helped Microsoft
launch their strategic, on-line initiative for the Xbox. MechAssault's
numerous awards for best action game and best on-line game for the Xbox also
generated notoriety for Day 1 when the studio was nominated as Rookie Studio
of the Year at the 2003 Game Developers Conference.
Prior to Day 1 Studios, Thorley was the CEO and
Co-Founder of FASA Interactive where he executive produced MechCommander for the PC and assisted in the development
of Alien Invasion; a location based, multi-person,
game experience for Walt Disney's Disney Quest facility. FASA Interactive
joined Microsoft Game Studios' as a result of 1999 acquisition.
During his tenure in the industry Thorley has also
held executive level sales, marketing and product development positions with
software publishers such as Data East and Extreme Entertainment.
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