Comments on: A brief note on hip hop and videogames and the cost of assets

By: Darius Kazemi

Darius Kazemi — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 12:48:00 +0000

Heh. I mean, I certainly thought about Elite when writing this (which was exactly in your 84-85 ‘sweet spot’!). I mentioned “technological capability” in my first sentence because I think that’s what differentiates early playground world games like Elite from more modern ones. Don’t get me wrong, Elite is beautiful and abstract and evocative — but part of what makes the late 90s a sweet spot for me is that the technology allows for less abstract representation: voice acting, lots more content (including story-text), and of course more simulation power.

By: Chris Bateman

Chris Bateman — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 08:10:25 +0000

Late 90′s were the sweet spot for game development? By 1999 (when “Discworld Noir” was released) the sweet spot was already passed and the insane push for 3D was well under way. Personally, the sweet spot for me was 1984-1985 when all the early playground worlds were created. There was more inventiveness in these two years than ever since! If you never saw it, here’s my post on the topic from 2006:
http://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2006/06/early_playgroun.html
*waves from afar*

By: Cameron Kunzelman

Cameron Kunzelman — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 20:00:16 +0000

What’s interesting to me is the next step–hip hop responded, albeit 15 years later, with the creation of the internet mixtape where you sample whatever the hell you want and release it for free.