Jordan Mechner, my friend and collaborator on several projects, has a terrific post-mortem on his original Prince of Persia videogame over at the GDC Vault. If you’re interested in game design, it’s definitely worth checking out.
The videogame world is still so young that the study and analysis of its history is largely in the hands of its creators. I wonder how long that will last.
Here’s the test, I guess: Who will be the first person to make a living as a full-time videogame theorist? Not a reviewer or industry pundit, but the guy who creates context in articles entitled, “The Side-Scroller and the Dissolution of Self.”
Videogames are certainly a legitimate field of critical study. But I wouldn’t want to lose the primacy of hearing pioneers talking about what they did and why.