Directing from the sidelines

This is one of those ideas that’s hard to sell in a headline, but I think is fascinating. It’s a big look at developers who form small concept teams to generate designs and oversee projects, and then team up with other studios to see those through, rather than doing the heavy lifting internally. It’s basically an…

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Who made Metal Gear Survive

Konami’s PR campaign for Metal Gear Survive focused on the game rather than the people who made it. That silence made me curious, so after the game shipped I dug through its credits to try to find out more about the team. The story ended up with more caveats and speculation than I typically like to include,…

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Ninja Gaiden developer reunion

In the late 1980s, Hideo Yoshizawa, Masato Kato and Keiji Yamagishi worked with a small team to create action game Ninja Gaiden for the NES. As part of Polygon’s Life in Japan cover (which also features the debut of Yamagishi’s first single from his new album, and the reveal of a game he’s composing music for), when they…

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Mortal Kombat’s Johnny Cage, 20 years later

Lawsuits and a falling out with Midway: the story of what happens when a game becomes a phenomenon and not everyone gets paid. Huge thanks to Incredible Technologies VP of marketing Scott Morrison for digging up outtake photos from the 1994 “Daniel Pesina, who starred as Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat has switched to BloodStorm” print ad. Photo: Scott Morrison

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The man who created Street Fighter

Before Street Fighter 2 snowballed the arcade industry, Takashi Nishiyama and his team created a predecessor remembered more for awkward pressure sensitive controls than for the game itself. Nishiyama hadn’t done an interview in 12 years, so I took a shot and reached out. It ended up being extremely popular, covering Nishiyama’s career as he moved…

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The rise, fall, and return of NBA Jam

EA’s 2010 NBA Jam revival made for a good excuse to do a history feature on the franchise, so I talked to ex-Midway developers about the original game’s development, Acclaim’s former CEO about the license confusion, and people who worked on Acclaim’s less popular series titles. Then EA showed us a bunch of modern prototype stuff to…

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Tim Schafer profile

Prior to Brutal Legend‘s release and 2 Player Productions’ excellent Double Fine documentary, I did a story noting the parallels between Double Fine head Tim Schafer and Brutal Legend star Eddie Riggs, with a bit of a Rolling Stone influence to play up the game’s music roots. Thanks to a couple timely coincidences in the form…

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