Book picks similar to
Break Out: How the Apple II Launched the PC Gaming Revolution by David L. Craddock
history
technology
games
non-fiction
The Game Console: A Photographic History from Atari to Xbox
Evan Amos - 2018
You'll start your journey with legendary consoles like the Magnavox Odyssey, Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Commodore 64. The visual nostalgia trip continues with systems from the 1990s and 2000s, and ends on modern consoles like the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U.Throughout the book, you'll also discover many consoles you never knew existed, and even find a rare peek at the hardware inside several of history's most iconic video game systems.
Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games
Tracy Fullerton - 2008
This design workshop begins with an examination of the fundamental elements of game design; then puts you to work in prototyping, playtesting and redesigning your own games with exercises that teach essential design skills. Workshop exercises require no background in programming or artwork, releasing you from the intricacies of electronic game production, so you can develop a working understanding of the essentials of game design.Features:* A design methodology used in the USC Interactive Media program, a cutting edge program funded in part of Electronic Arts. * Hands-on exercises demonstrate key concepts, and the design methodology* Insights from top industry game designers, including Noah Falstein, American McGee, Peter Molyneux
The Sims 3: Prima Official Game Guide
Catherine Browne - 2009
Design: Our new design section will supply tips and tricks from the pro's to build the most elaborate homes and yards.Customization: Learn how to update your décor with tutorials to help you customize your own chairs, walls, and floors. Wishes: Detailed walkthroughs and tutorials will help you learn how to achieve your short term and long term wishes.
Steve Jobs the Journey is the Reward: The Journey is the Reward
Jeffrey S. Young - 1987
An unvarnished view of an extraordinary man and the multimillion dollar business he built--and lost.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: The Complete Official Guide
Piggyback - 2017
100% Complete Strategy to master The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the WildAT-A-GLANCE WALKTHROUGHS: Annotated maps and screenshots show you the way through every quest and all Shrines of Trials.TOTALLY COMPREHENSIVE: All side quests, all Shrines of Trials and all information about collectable items – each mapped out and ready for you to discover and complete! Also includes optional challenges, mini-games, unlockables, Easter eggs, and more.PUZZLE MASTER: Every single puzzle and riddle unraveled with clear, visual solutions.EXPERT COMBAT STRATEGY: Practical, reproducible tactics to crush your enemies, even the toughest bosses.COMPREHENSIVE REFERENCE: Exhaustive appraisals of all items and monsters – including key parameters that are hidden in the game.FREE MAP POSTER: covering the entire game world.QUALITY CONTROL: carefully designed to avoid unnecessary story spoilers.
Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life
Chris Kohler - 2004
Just some of the features readers will find in this book include:Profiles of some of the most fascinating Japanese video game designers in the industry, along with a critical look at Japanese video games from their earliest beginnings to new, exciting trends that ride the bleeding edge of popular culture.Explanations on why Japanese video games are unique and why they resonate so well with young American players.Fresh insight into classic Japanese video games and the elements that made them so different from American games, the origin of Nintendo, Japan's oldest and largest video game producer, Japanese Role-Playing Games, and much more!In addition, the future of the Japanese gaming industry is also explored.This product is available for sale worldwide.
The Race For A New Game Machine: Creating the Chips Inside the XBox and the Playstation 3
David Shippy - 2009
This is the inside story of the race to create a revolutionary chip to power the next generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony.
Olive Oatman: Explore The Mysterious Story of Captivity and Tragedy from Beginning to End
Brent Schulte - 2019
She is the girl with the blue tattoo.The story behind the distinctive tattoo is the stuff of legends. Some believed it was placed on her face during her captivity, following the brutal murders of her family members and the kidnapping of her and her sister. Others believe it was placed on her after her return.Rumors swelled. Her tattoo became a symbol of Native barbarianism and the triumph of American goodness, but like many stories of that era, the truth is far more complicated.This short book details the murders, her captivity, the aftermath, and her baffling return to her captors. Unravel the mystery of the woman who would become famous for all the wrong reasons and discover what her life story says about cultural identity, the power of resiliency, and what happens when fact and fiction bend and twist to muddy the waters.Read on to find out the truth!
The Decline and Fall of IBM: End of an American Icon?
Robert Cringely - 2014
Big Blue, as the company is known, tends to rely for its success on magical thinking but that magic ran out a long time ago. The company got in trouble back in the 1990s and had to hire for the first time an outside CEO, Lou Gerstner, to save the day. Gerstner pushed IBM into services with spectacular results but this hurt the company, too. As services have became commoditized IBM could only compete by offshoring the work and quality suffered. The other negative impact of Gerstner was his compensation which was for the first time in IBM history very high. Only the Watson family had become rich running IBM with later CEOs like John Opel and John Akers living comfortable lives with lots of perks, but they never got BIG RICH. That changed with Gerstner. Sam Palmisano an IBM lifer followed Gerstner as CEO and followed, too, the Gerstner playbook. Palmisano retired three years ago with a retirement package worth $241 million, replaced by IBM's first woman CEO, Ginni Rometty, who certainly expects a comparable golden parachute. In order to achieve these numbers, though, IBM has essentially sacrificed both its customers and employees. In order to have ever growing earnings per share the company has cut labor to the bone, off-shored everything it can, dropped quality, deliberately underbid contracts to win them then not performed. IBM's acquisition policy is one of buying companies to get their sales then cutting costs to the bone and under-delivering. This and share buybacks have kept earnings growing until this house of cards recently began to fall. Ginni Rometty, who will end up taking the fall for Palmisano's flawed strategy, has stated a very specific earnings goal for 2015 that she will destroy the company to achieve if she must. This book how IBM fell from grace, where it is headed, and what specifically can be done to save the company before it is too late.
Not Much of an Engineer
Stanley Hooker - 1984
So successful was he that in 1966 Rolls-Royce decided the best thing to do was to spend 63.6 million pounds and buy its rival. By this time there was scarcely a single modern British aero-engine for which Hooker had not been responsible.
Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do
Lawrence Kutner - 2008
Half of twelve-year-olds regularly play violent, Mature-rated games. And parents are worried...
"I don't know if it's an addiction, but my son is just glued to it. It's the same with my daughter with her computer... and I can't be watching both of them all the time, to see if they're talking to strangers or if someone is getting killed in the other room on the PlayStation. It's just nerve-racking!"
"I'm concerned that this game playing is just the kid and the TV screen... how is this going to affect his social skills?""I'm not concerned about the violence; I'm concerned about the way they portray the violence. It's not accidental; it's intentional. They're just out to kill people in some of these games." What should we as parents, teachers and public policy makers be concerned about? The real risks are subtle and aren't just about gore or sex. Video games don't affect all children in the same way; some children are at significantly greater risk. (You may be surprised to learn which ones!) Grand Theft Childhood gives parents practical, research-based advice on ways to limit many of those risks. It also shows how video games -- even violent games -- can benefit children and families in unexpected ways.In this groundbreaking and timely book, Drs. Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson cut through the myths and hysteria, and reveal the surprising truth about kids and violent games.
Good Luck Have Fun: The Rise of eSports
Roland Li - 2016
A confluence of technology, culture, and determination has made this possible. Players around the world compete for millions of dollars in prize money, and companies like Amazon, Coca Cola, and Intel have invested billions. Esports events have sold out Los Angeles’s Staples Center, Seoul’s World Cup Stadium, and Seattle’s KeyArena. Hundreds of people have dedicated their lives to gaming, sacrificing their education, relationships, and even their bodies to compete, committing themselves with the same fervor of any professional athlete. In Good Luck Have Fun, author Roland Li talks to some of the biggest names in the business and explores the players, companies, and games that have made it to the new major leagues.Follow Alexander Garfield as he builds Evil Geniuses, a modest gaming group, in his college dorm into a global, multimillion-dollar eSports empire. Learn how Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill made League of Legends the world’s most successful eSports league and most popular PC game, on track to make over $1 billion a year. See how Twitch pivoted from a video streaming novelty into a $1 billion startup on the back of professional gamers. And dive into eSports’ dark side: drug abuse, labor troubles, and for each success story, hundreds of people who failed to make it big. These are the stories of the rise of an industry and culture that challenge what we know about sports, games, and competition.
Arbiter of Worlds: A Primer for Gamemasters
Alexander Macris - 2019
This primer will teach you how to build living, breathing worlds for your players to explore; how to host game and manage game sessions; and how to create powerful experiences of adventure that your players will talk about for years to come. Learn the secret to becoming a judge, an adversary, a worldbuilder, and a storyteller and become an arbiter of worlds! “Every Macris campaign starts with a rich, open world; the edge of a massive map; and the ability to find adventure in any direction. After playing in a dozen of his campaigns, I can assure you that Macris is the best prepared, most thorough GM on the prime material plane. He balances “deadly adversary” and “the party’s greatest supporter” perfectly. I’ve been lucky to contribute to some renowned video game worlds, and to discus world design with some of the most accomplished writers alive. And I’m honestly not sure there’s been someone more thorough at and passionate for world building than Macris since ... maybe Tolkien? (Okay, maybe G.R.R. Martin, but he’s not as organized or efficient.) It takes organization, creativity, and careful technique to build a massive world efficiently and deliver it effectively, and Macris can show you how he does it.” - Dr. Michael Capps, award-winning videogame executive, writer, designer (*Gears of War*, *Fortnite*, *Unreal Tournament, Unreal Championship*) “Armed with decades of experience as both a player and a designer, Macris cuts to the marrow with razor sharp insights in an unapologetic and often painfully insightful analysis of every imaginable facet of being a Game Master. From implication of play inherent in a game’s design, to world building, to the often delicate nature of unspoken social contracts inherent in the hobby, the guidance found in Arbiter of Worlds is a much-needed breath of fresh air to veterans of the hobby and a forged-in-the-fire bootcamp for those taking their first steps behind the screen.” - James M. Spahn, Ennie and Origins Award Winning RPG designer “A superb read. He makes his points the way you would expect a Harvard-trained lawyer to do. If you read this book, you are going to come out knowing real things you did not know before that will help you run games at the table…” - Courtney Campbell, Hack & Slash
Colonel Sanders and the American Dream
Josh Ozersky - 2012
But only one of them was ever a real person—Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken/KFC. From a 1930s roadside café in Corbin, Kentucky, Harland Sanders launched a fried chicken business that now circles the globe, serving “finger lickin’ good” chicken to more than twelve million people every day. But to get there, he had to give up control of his company and even his own image, becoming a mere symbol to people today who don’t know that Colonel Sanders was a very real human being. This book tells his story—the story of a dirt-poor striver with unlimited ambition who personified the American Dream.Acclaimed cultural historian Josh Ozersky defines the American Dream as being able to transcend your roots and create yourself as you see fit. Harland Sanders did exactly that. Forced at age ten to go to work to help support his widowed mother and sisters, he failed at job after job until he went into business for himself as a gas station/café/motel owner and finally achieved a comfortable, middle-class life. But then the interstate bypassed his business and, at sixty-five, Sanders went broke again. Packing his car with a pressure cooker and his secret blend of eleven herbs and spices, he began peddling the recipe for “Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken” to small-town diners in exchange for a nickel for each chicken they sold. Ozersky traces the rise of Kentucky Fried Chicken from this unlikely beginning, telling the dramatic story of Sanders’ self-transformation into “The Colonel,” his truculent relationship with KFC management as their often-disregarded goodwill ambassador, and his equally turbulent afterlife as the world’s most recognizable commercial icon.
The Art of Video Games: From Pac-Man to Mass Effect
Chris Melissinos - 2012
Fueled by unprecedented advances in technology, boundless imaginations, and an insatiable addiction to fantastic new worlds of play, the video game has gone supernova, rocketing two generations of fans into an ever-expanding universe where art, culture, reality, and emotion collide. As a testament to the cultural impact of the game industry’s mega morph, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, with curator and author Chris Melissinos, conceived the forthcoming exhibition, The Art of Video Games, which will run from March 16 to September 30, 2012.* Welcome Books will release the companion book this March. Melissinos presents video games as not just mere play, but richly textured emotional and social experiences that have crossed the boundary into culture and art.Along with a team of game developers, designers, and journalists, Melissinos chose a pool of 240 games across five different eras to represent the diversity of the game world. Criteria included visual effects, creative use of technologies, and how world events and popular culture manifested in the games. The museum then invited the public to go online to help choose the games. More than 3.7 million votes (from 175 countries) later, the eighty winners featured in The Art of Video Games exhibition and book were selected.From the Space Invaders of the seventies to sophisticated contemporary epics BioShock and Uncharted 2, Melissinos examines each of the winning games, providing a behind-the-scenes look at their development and innovation, and commentary on the relevance of each in the history of video games. Over 100 composite images, created by Patrick O’Rourke, and drawn directly from the games themselves, illustrate the evolution of video games as an artistic medium, both technologically and creatively. Additionally, The Art of Video Games includes fascinating interviews with influential artists and designers–from pioneers such as Nolan Bushnell to contemporary innovators including Warren Spector, Tim Schafer and Robin Hunicke. The foreword was written by Elizabeth Broun, director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Mike Mika, noted game preservationist and prolific developer, contributed the introduction the introduction. *After Washington D.C., the exhibition travels to several cities across the United States, including Boca Raton (Museum of Art), Seattle (EMP Museum), Yonkers, NY (Hudson River Museum) and Flint, MI (Flint Institute of Arts). For the latest confirmed dates and venues, please visit the The Art of Video Games exhibition page at http://americanart.si.edu/taovg