The past, present and future of gaming on The It’s Nice That Podcast

Date
28 February 2017

In the fourth episode of The It’s Nice That podcast Alex and Will turn their headsets towards the world of gaming.

Alex and Will share their own experiences with gaming assessing that the best games are those which feature progression, allowing the user to gain a sense of achievement. On learning that the highest grossing video game is Tetris, one of “complete simplicity”, the pair hear from Allan Acorn, the creator of similarly straightforward game, Pong. Allan believes the success of Pong is a result of its simplicity, and the fact that “anybody could play it”. It also requires two people, adding a social aspect. Upon testing Pong Allan put the game out on location with no rules or guidelines, and it was still a triumph. “A perfectly conceived and executed game doesn’t need any instructions”.

Next Alex and Will hear from Darren Wall, a graphic designer who now concentrates upon writing and publishing books on gaming. Within his books The Amiga Power Reunion and The Bitmap Brothers: Universe, Darren discusses gamings trends and their context. He chats to Alex and Will about how gaming has migrated from something in public, to home computers which allowed teenagers to start designing games.

Their final guest is Russ Earwaker, a games designer at Climax Studio, who explains his role creating games, particularly those which include virtual reality. However the future of gaming Russ is excited about is the development of augmented reality, which he handily explains to Alex and Will.

The episode can be listened to here.

Share Article

About the Author

Lucy Bourton

Lucy (she/her) is the senior editor at Insights, a research-driven department with It's Nice That. Get in contact with her for potential Insights collaborations or to discuss Insights' fortnightly column, POV. Lucy has been a part of the team at It's Nice That since 2016, first joining as a staff writer after graduating from Chelsea College of Art with a degree in Graphic Design Communication.

lb@itsnicethat.com

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.