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Bill Budge Invented The Remix

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Book excerpt talks about the rise of user-generated content by taking it back to the old-school.

GHOST BALLS!
GHOST BALLS!
Wanna know how to get me to read something? Start it out by talking about Bill Budge and his Pinball Construction Set. Gamasutra has a four-pager this morning that starts with PCS and runs through the rest of EA's "Construction Set" line, including another favorite of mine, Racing Destruction Set. It all gets tied together into today, with mentions of LittleBigPlanet and Visual Pinball, a modern-day equivalent to Budge's pinball builder. It's a solid look at the history of users making their own levels, tables, tracks, and courses. Actually... it skips Broderbund's Lode Runner entirely, but since the piece is really focused on what EA was doing back on the Apple II and Commodore 64, it's forgivable.

The piece is a web-only bonus chapter from a forthcoming book from Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton titled Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time. That title's a mouthful, but it sounds like an interesting read. Amazonclaims it'll be out near the end of March.
Jeff Gerstmann on Google+
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Pinball Construction Set
Bill Budge

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jeff

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Edited By jeff
GHOST BALLS!
GHOST BALLS!
Wanna know how to get me to read something? Start it out by talking about Bill Budge and his Pinball Construction Set. Gamasutra has a four-pager this morning that starts with PCS and runs through the rest of EA's "Construction Set" line, including another favorite of mine, Racing Destruction Set. It all gets tied together into today, with mentions of LittleBigPlanet and Visual Pinball, a modern-day equivalent to Budge's pinball builder. It's a solid look at the history of users making their own levels, tables, tracks, and courses. Actually... it skips Broderbund's Lode Runner entirely, but since the piece is really focused on what EA was doing back on the Apple II and Commodore 64, it's forgivable.

The piece is a web-only bonus chapter from a forthcoming book from Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton titled Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time. That title's a mouthful, but it sounds like an interesting read. Amazonclaims it'll be out near the end of March.
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WREIII

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Edited By WREIII

Wow! Old school gaming FTW. Love it Jeff! Us 30 somethings are out here remembering the good old days of  (Load "*",8,1)

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norton123

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Edited By norton123

The Vintage Games book seems pretty neat.

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watership

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Edited By watership

Now that's something I'm going to read:    

PS.  did you guys miss the Halo Wars demo?  I didn't see you mention it anywhere..

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Phetz

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Edited By Phetz

Oh my word.

My dad would mess around with that on his old C64!!!

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Media_Master

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Edited By Media_Master

I might look into it

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Kohe321

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Edited By Kohe321

Thanks for the heads up, I might check it out.

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MrKlorox

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Edited By MrKlorox

How to get gamers to read you book on games: Put Grand Theft Auto and Mario in the title.

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erinfizz

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Edited By erinfizz

Interesting read. Danke.

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strangeling

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Edited By strangeling

I'm so cool.


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5.25 floppy FTW!
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Edited By ZombiePie

Hmm, so some of these games provided obvious building blocks for future games.... I know that most games today are founded on pre-existing mechanics, but it's always nice to see how things evolve over time and get to point where they are today.

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StaticFalconar

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Edited By StaticFalconar

Funny, I thought Jenny Mccarthy did.....

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Stray

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Edited By Stray

Man, I had that way back when... I really liked the record size packaging for EA products back then.

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citizenkane

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Edited By citizenkane

That book seems like an interesting read.  I might check it out.