01 Sep 2018 — Filed in:
Soundbites | Season 1Jon Kimmich worked as a "product planner" and "program manager" in Microsoft's games group in the late 1990s and then in Microsoft Game Studios until 2004. He's since continued to work in bizdev roles in the games industry and has lots of fascinating insights (I posted a different quote on Twitter during the week).
Here he tells us about knowing when a game has that "magic" that means it's going to be a hit, with Halo and Age of Empires as examples.
See full show notes and episode player…Tags: age of empires, halo, jon kimmich, microsoft, pc, xbox, business
01 Nov 2018 — Filed in:
Episodes | Season 1Before something like the Xbox could ever hope to exist, Microsoft first needed to learn how to be a successful games publisher on the PC. This is the story — or part of it — of how Microsoft got games, featuring input from four key Microsoft Game Studios people — Ed Fries, Stuart Moulder, Ed Ventura, Jon Kimmich — and Age of Empires co-creator Rick Goodman.
See full show notes and episode player…Tags: microsoft, pc, ed fries, jon kimmich, ed ventura, stuart moulder, age of empires, flight simulator, xbox, close combat, games publishing, rick goodman, business, marketing
16 May 2019 — Filed in:
Episodes | Season 2Before computers had proper multitasking support and quick shortcuts for changing apps, playing games when you're not supposed to be could be super risky. But if there's one thing that's been a constant in technology, it's that wherever there are computers, there are also games. And for a while, in the 1980s and 90s, many game developers actually put in a special key command that would bring up a fake productivity screen. This is the story of the rise and fall of the boss button.
See full show notes and episode player…Tags: boss button, boss key, roger wagner, brøderbund, hackers, spacewar, boss coming, games at work, bezare, maze, apple ii, plato, dave lebling, brand fortner, plato, windows 95, dos, mac, pc
03 Sep 2019 — Filed in:
Episodes | Season 2On the rise and fall of the Premier Manager series of soccer management games — a former PC gaming juggernaut that lost its way amidst a shuffle of developers and publishers — and the part it played in the broader consolidation and homogenisation of sports games (of all kinds) over the past 20 years or so.
See full show notes and episode player…Tags: game design, gremlin, infogrames, premier manager, british games, business, championship manager, football manager, sports interactive, soccer, sports games, amiga, pc
