Hollywood agency CAA’s game industry history
I’d wanted to do a story on game industry agents for years, but had always been looking for the right way …
Tetris as a sport
At E3 this year, Ubisoft flew in Tetris license holders Alexey Pajitnov and Henk Rogers to promote the latest version of …
How to dig up a landfill: The search for E.T.
This is one of those ideas that came up a lot over the years: “Wouldn’t it be fun to dig up …
Shinji Mikami and the fountain of youth
I didn’t plan this, but over the past year I’ve basically done a series of ‘where are they now’ stories …
Street Fighter 2: An oral history
About two years ago, Vanity Fair ran an oral history of The Sopranos. That approach is nothing new and Vanity …
Making Tearaway: Start to finish
Awhile back, I saw a magazine story with Matt Stone and Trey Parker drawn as South Park characters. I think it …
The fall of Game Republic
When developer Game Republic shut down in 2011, rumors suggested it wasn’t under the best of circumstances. So two years later, …
The president and future of Platinum Games
As the head of Osaka’s critically acclaimed developer Platinum Games, Tatsuya Minami’s role is mostly business these days, but his …
How Milo met Kate: The story behind Lionhead’s virtual boy
I suppose you can consider this part two in a series on canceled projects designed to make players cry, following …
Data entry, risk management and tacos: Inside Halo 4’s playtest labs
In 2007, Wired published a cover story on Microsoft Labs’ high tech data crunching and analysis used to support the development …
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 …
Therapy, alcohol and chickens: The story behind PSN’s Papo & Yo
It’s a lot easier to write a story about someone who make games when he puts himself in the game. Weirdest …
The prototypes behind Journey
This is one of those stories I bothered Sony about for a year before it came together, and then once …
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 …
1UP Charity Sketch Auction
When I was working on 1UP’s short-lived magazine, I wanted to center an issue around a sketch theme, with pen …
How Japan’s earthquake changed its developers
At the 2011 Tokyo Game Show, Jeremy Parish, Thierry Nguyen, and I scheduled interviews with developers who had been affected …
1UP Presents #3: The Sketch Issue
I’ve always liked magazine theme issues — how Esquire does its Meaning of Life installments, or Vanity Fair’s and GQ’s …
Inside Starbreeze: The secret history of the Riddick team
With The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Starbreeze broke out as a developer, acclaimed for its tech abilities …
The story behind Steven Spielberg’s LMNO
LMNO was supposed to be the second game in a three-game deal between Steven Spielberg and Electronic Arts — an …
1UP’s Cross Country Game Tour
In 2010, Richard Li and I spent two weeks driving across the U.S., stopping at game developers, publishers, arcades, and whatever …
