Online Game Pioneers at Work

If you are interested in online game history, you probably want to check out Online Game Pioneers at Work. Morgan Ramsay managed to corner a whole bunch of people who were key figures in online game development over the last several decades, and interviewed all of us at great length. It’s a follow-up to his earlier book Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play.

Among the people in the book:

• Emily Greer telling the story of Kongregate
• Victor Kislyi explaining how World of Tanks came to be
• The entire incredible story of Richard Garriott
• John Romero and the birth of the online FPS
• Jason Kapalka explaining how PopCap was built
• Ian Bogost being, well, Ian

And way more… Funcom, Supercell, CCP, King, ng:moco… with a foreword by Dr Richard Bartle.

My own chapter starts clear back with MUDs, and goes up through departing Disney, including the business saga of Metaplace. The book has an emphasis on the business side of things, more so than the design side, so it often gets into telling the nitty-gritty stories of how companies get built and manage to stay alive.

Here’s the book blurb and contents:

In this groundbreaking collection of 15 interviews, successful founders of entertainment software companies reflect on their challenges and how they survived. You will learn of the strategies, the sacrifices, the long hours, the commitment, and the dedication to quality that led to their successes but also of the toll that this incredibly competitive market has on even its most brilliant minds. For the hundreds of thousands of game developers out there, this is a must read survival guide. For those who simply enjoy games and know of some of these founders, this will be a most interesting read.

• Foreword by Richard Bartle, co-author of MUD;

• David Perry, cofounder of Shiny Entertainment and Gaikai;

• Emily Greer, cofounder of Kongregate;

• Doug Whatley, cofounder of BreakAway Games;

• Ian Bogost, cofounder of Persuasive Games;

• Victor Kislyi, founder of Wargaming;

• Richard Garriott, cofounder of Origin Systems, Destination Games, and Portalarium;

• Gaute Godager, cofounder of Funcom;

• Ilkka Paananen, cofounder of Sumea and Supercell;

• Jason Kapalka, cofounder of PopCap Games;

• John Romero, cofounder of id Software, Ion Storm, and Gazillion Entertainment;

• Ray Muzyka & Greg Zeschuk, cofounders of BioWare;

• Raph Koster, cofounder of Metaplace;

• Reynir Harðarson, cofounder of CCP Games;

• Riccardo Zacconi, cofounder of King; and

• Neil Young, cofounder of Ngmoco.