In Depth: Four legends who changed gaming

Demi-god and one of the founders of id software, John Carmack defined the way that shooters could take on a first person perspective in games like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom.

The latter was an impressive technical feat that offered up full texture mapping, superb use of light and shading, terrifying implementation of darkness and, of course, 3D graphics.

John Carmack is one of the most influential people in his field and has been inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame, and is the only game designer to be honoured twice by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Tamsin Oxford: How does it feel to be considered a gaming legend?

John Carmack: Gravitas definitely has some perks, but for the most part gaming legend related activities, like awards ceremonies, speaking panels, and (ahem) interviews are distractions from the work that I would rather be doing. (laughs) I do enjoy mingling with the crowd at Quakecon, where everyone is having a great time celebrating the work we have done over the years, and I can't help but feel a bit moved when I get deeply sincere emails from people thanking me for being a positive influence or inspiration to them over the years.

On a couple of rare occasions I have pulled the gaming legend card when I just don't have the time to slowly convince someone on a contentious development issue, and it just comes down to: "No. That is not The Right Thing To Do", but I feel a bit dirty afterwards. It isn't a proper way to resolve a point, and I'm not thrilled when I see people using me in an Appeal to Authority argument either.

TO: Did you ever expect Doom would become the huge success it is today?

JC: We knew it was going to be a huge deal while we were making it, but I can't say that I was thinking about how it would be looked at by people a decade after its release.

TO: While developing Doom did you have a "Eureka!" moment when suddenly everything fell into place?

JC: The original Doom's development actually went fairly smoothly, and I don't recall any significant periods of doubt about it. Certainly games like Quake, Doom 3, and Rage have been much more challenging development processes.

TO: Can you tell me one thing that nobody else knows about the days of Doom that captures the mood and the memories for you?

JC: To help me focus on a tough issue, I was taking my work away from the noisy office, back to my apartment. I was pulling a sleek, black magnesium NeXT workstation out of the Ferrari 328 I had just bought (yes, I was living in an apartment complex with a Ferrari) and I had to pause to appreciate the moment.

Awesome computer. Awesome car. An uninterrupted evening to work on a challenging problem. Life is good. I still remember that I was working with a dataset that eventually became E1M4 in Doom 1.

TO: What do you see as the next step for game development, what new wonders are left to be uncovered?

JC: Graphics will continue to get better and the next generation of hardware and software will be able to make current games look fairly primitive, but we are past the knee of the curve in effort / benefit there. Games already look really great today, and there are few creative visions that can't be pulled off at least fairly well. Major changes in IO devices will bring the biggest wonders.

The impact that the Wii has made with a really poor motion sensor is worth noting, and there are much better technologies available now. Displays are already about as good as we could want for games in terms of resolution and update rate, but very high dynamic range display technologies will offer significant perceived improvements.

Eventually, we will get to whole body sensing and some display technology that covers more of the user's field of view and we will be heading for Holodeck 0.1. A lot of important innovation will be in the unglamorous fields of just removing friction in the game development process – instead of optimising for frames per second, more effort will be expended on optimising for output per designer or development team. There are probably some very positive non-linearities when friction gets low enough.

TO: Can you play another game without analysing how it works and what can be improved or can you let yourself go and get lost in the game?

JC: I usually focus on the positive aspects of things, but there is always some part of my brain that is noticing software flaws and contemplating solutions to them.

TO: What game are you playing right now? Is it any good?

JC: Almost all of my videogame playing time is with my five-year-old son, so it involves a lot of Mario, Zelda, and Lego games on the Wii and DS. I was just starting to enjoy playing a daily game of Quake Live at work when things got crushingly busy again.

TO: Considering how few games are being made specifically, or exclusively, for the PC and how consoles are galloping up the lines, do you believe that this is the end of the PC for gamers?

JC: For the traditional 'buy it and play through it' sort of action game, the consoles are, and probably will remain, a more appealing platform for most games developers. That said, almost any developer would have loved to have made games like World of Warcraft or The Sims on the PC. I'm quite sure there are still awesomely cool and important interactive entertainment projects yet to appear on the PC, but you probably won't buy them in a box at the store.

The creator of Tetris, Alexey Pajitnov came up with the first version on an Electronica 60 in 1984, while working for the Computer Centre of the Moscow Academy of Sciences. The game went on to be translated into over 50 languages, played on over 30 platforms and is still accessed over one million times a day via Tetris Friends Online Games.

Intertwined with the history of the Cold War, it's an impressive legacy that looks to keep on going for as long as we have access to devices that can play it. Not a bad thing, since Pajitnov didn't start profiting from his creation until 1996 when he moved to the States.

Tamsin Oxford: How does it feel to be considered a gaming legend?

Alexey Pajitnov: I was pleased for the first ten years, now I don't feel so strongly about it (laughs).

TO: How do you feel about the phenomenal success that is Tetris?

AP: Well, when I played my game for the first time I realised that it was a very good and very addictive game, but I had no idea it would be that big.

TO: Tetris is exceptional for many reasons, what inspired you to create this game?

AP: I was addicted to puzzles, riddles and board games all of my life. The idea of Tetris came to me when I worked on the computer version of the traditional puzzle called Pentomino.

TO: Can you tell me one thing about those first days of Tetris that's like a snapshot of the time for you?

AP: I do remember the great happiness of the "Aha!" moment when I got the idea to take the full lines of blocks out of the playing field…

TO: What made you choose that particular song for Tetris?

AP: It's a good song, it's an old Russian folk song that was very popular in Russia before Tetris.

TO: Do you think that the next Tetris might be around the corner?

AP: I think there were many really good Tetris games already during the past 25 years; at least I enjoyed many of them.

TO: What do you see as the future of gaming?

AP: I hope the next decade will be the time of the special hardware for games as well as intensive use of Artificial Intelligence.

Civilization creator, Sid Meier has a place in not one, but two Halls of Fame. He was the second person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame and also has a place in the Computer Museum of America's Hall of Fame. Along with Bill Stealey, he developed MicroProse Software in 1982 and went on to create gaming delights such as Spitfire Ace (1984), Pirates! (1987) and, of course, Civilization (1991).

The champion of tight gameplay and addictive entertainment, he's inspired other legends, smashed genre expectations and is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

Tamsin Oxford: How does it feel to be considered a gaming legend?

Sid Meier: I'm humbled by the compliment and I'm fortunate that even after nearly 30 years, I still love coming into the office every day and making games. I plan to design and program for a long time to come – it's the greatest job in the world.

TO: Pirates! and Civilizations have been touted as some of the greatest games of all time and have influenced a generation of gamers. Did you ever expect this to happen and how does that make you feel?

SM: When we were making those games our focus was on creating a fun experience for the player. With Pirates! we knew the design was unique because we were combining a number of established genres into one game. The end result was a fun, open-ended game that appealed to a wide variety of players.

We knew Civilization was a big undertaking in that making a fun game about all of human history was a challenge. Our goal in designing the original Civ was to make the player the central figure and present them with lots of interesting choices and challenging decisions to make that would determine their success in the game. We hoped the games would deliver many hours of fun to players, but never expected they'd receive such high praise. I'm really happy people feel that way.

TO: What was the inspiration for creating Pirates!?

SM: Many of the games I've made are based on topics that I was interested in as a kid. I played pirate games, read pirate books and watched old Errol Flynn pirate movies when I was young and I thought it would be great to create a computer game based on this fascinating cast of characters.

It's a topic that seems to appeal to people of all ages, so we were confident that the audience was there for the game. We wanted to give players a chance to enter the world of pirates in an open-ended environment that allowed them to create their own story and have a new experience every time they played. That seems to be what made the game so popular.

TO: Can you tell me one thing about those early, early days at the offices of MicroProse that nobody else knows?

SM: In the very early days of MicroProse it was just me and Bill Stealey in the company. I would create the games, copy them onto floppy disks, place them in zip-lock bags and Bill would load them in his car and drive up and down the east coast selling them to retailers. He'd stop at a pay phone every so often to give me an update on how sales were going. And that was the start of the business.

TO: With games becoming shorter and more about instant gratification, do you think that the younger market appreciates games with the depth and scope of Civilization?

SM: We hope so! From what we know about Civ players it seems that they come from all different age groups and from all over the world. The great thing about today's gaming is that people have a lot of choices when it comes to the types of games they want to play and what platform they want to use to play them. I think people can enjoy short game experiences on an iPhone, for instance, and still go home to their PC and play a longer game like Civ. There's plenty of room for all kinds of videogames.

TO: Would you ever consider returning to the fold of the flight sim and what exciting new ideas are you formulating at the moment?

SM: I'm lucky to have the creative freedom to explore lots of game ideas, so I wouldn't rule out any topic for future games. Right now I'm working on Civilization Network - a Civ game for Facebook. I'm leading the design and programming and have a great team at Firaxis working with me.

Civ Network will offer the fun, addictive gameplay that defines Civ, in a fully persistent environment and it'll be free to play. We'll announce a closed beta soon and the full game will be available in 2010 (sorry for the shameless plug!). (That's not a problem, we can't wait to play it in the PCF offices).

TO: You're famous for the design approach of rapid prototyping and constant iteration. Is this still a process you use and would you recommend it to younger developers?

SM: It's a process that has worked well for us for many years and I do recommend it to young developers. If you can create a basic prototype that's fun to play (even without exciting graphics and fully implemented features), then you have a great foundation for a fun game.

The iterative process – play, improve, play improve – ensures that you remain focused on the gameplay experience every step of the way as you keep what works and get rid of what doesn't.

TO: What do you see as the future of gaming, what wonders are left to be uncovered?

SM: The recent popularity of iPhone and social network games creates interesting opportunities for game developers. There are more people playing games, and the idea that games can be played any time and any place means people are playing games more often and always looking for new experiences. That creates a perfect world for game makers.

TO: What game are you playing right now?

SM: Right now I'm playing Batman: Arkham Asylum on my Xbox 360 and I'm really enjoying it. It's got great atmosphere and Rocksteady Studios did a good job staying true to the spirit of Batman.

Atari's success as an entertainment platform, along with Al Alcorn and Ted Dabney, and Pong shot Nolan Bushnell into the history books. He's been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame, the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame, awarded a BAFTA Games Award Fellowship and was named one of Newsweek's 50 Men That Changed America.

Tamsin Oxford: How does it feel to be considered a gaming legend?

Nolan Bushnell: I'm the kind of guy who always focuses on what he's working on currently so, yeah, I'm proud of the fact that I'm thought of in that way but, at the same time, it felt like a natural thing for me to do at the time.

TO: It was playing Spacewar! on the DEC PDP-1 that made you realise that there was a potential business in gaming, but was there also a passion for the games themselves?

NB: Absolutely! In fact, I played Spacewar! incessantly and almost failed one quarter (at university) because of it (laughs, a lot).

TO: Were any of your initial days in gaming development ever defined by a 'Eureka!' moment, when you suddenly sat up and said, "That's it!"?

NB: There was a magic point when I got the first rocket ship to display on the screen while I was developing Computer Space. It was such an epiphany for me. I knew I could do it but there's a difference between knowing you can do something and actually doing it. I can close my eyes and see that old TV tilted on its side and the little rocket ship defined out of diodes. That was really the turning point for Computer Space.

TO: Can you name one of the worst and one of the best things about being among the first people in the world to create games?

NB: Well, we could churn out a pretty complex game in a couple of months, and that's going right to the circuit board and getting it ready for production. I can remember when we created Pong. Al Alcorn did Pong on the hardware level. I was teaching him and this was a training project for him.

I can remember the time we put in the algorithm that caused the ball to angle based on where you hit it on the paddle. Before that it wasn't a game, after that it was a very good game.

I like to say that Pong had a square ball not because we thought a ball should be square, but because that was all we were able to do at the time with the technology. In those days, in some ways, the games were simpler and the process was simpler. Pong, from concept to playability, took less than a week, so in terms of return on time spent it was pretty exciting.

Today, of course, the large amounts of graphics have changed that. When we used to do graphics we would invent the characters on graph paper and mark them out on an 8 x 8 grid of dots. To get the dot into exactly the right place you'd mark the dot and then go across the room and say 'Does that look right?' and then you'd move the dot up or down or erase it and go 'Yeah, that looks a little better!' (laughs). You know, I remember stuff that nobody does anymore!

TO: Can you tell me one tale about your days of Atari that nobody else knows about?

NB: This is kind of amusing. A guy stole a design out of our labs and started a company. They were going to compete with Atari using a game called Viper Plane. Of course, we got a restraining order so they couldn't show this game at the upcoming trade show, but then we heard that they were at the show anyway and pulling our distributors up into a hotel room. In the same hotel we were staying at!

So one night we were maybe drinking a little too much and decided that we were going to take the law into our own hands and break into the guys room and beat the sh*t out of him. And so with all pompous self righteousness about how they were thwarting the law with this product, we pounded on his door, really put our elbows into it, but nobody was answering the door. And we couldn't really break it down.

So with sore shoulders we went back down to the bar muttering about the injustices of life. I've often looked back and said, 'Thank God we didn't carry that out.' It was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time but really wasn't.

TO: In terms of PC gaming, who would you define as your fellow legends and why?

NB: Oh, I definitely think my head of engineering, Al Alcorn. I've always joked with him and said that I've got a lot of credit for the stuff that he did. Al was a guy who could create a lot of very, very interesting technology that allowed me to put games out as a result. Of course, Carmack and Romero from id games. The early Doom was, I think, a technological tour de force. That they were able to do what they did, they just have to be legends.

Alexey Pajitnov created a great series of casual games. The Civilization series from Sid Meier is something I've always had admiration for. It's a thing where some people's work just stands out, is revolutionary and just good stuff. I can't forget Steve Russell from MIT who programmed Spacewar!, I've always said he's the guy on whose shoulders I stood.

TO: What games are you playing now? Are you enjoying them?

NB: I play Warcraft with my son, not WoW, the old Warcraft and I also play a lot of casual games. My kids always beat me at first person shooters so I try and play games I can win.