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eBook - ePub
Game of X v.1
Xbox
Rusel DeMaria
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- 246 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Game of X v.1
Xbox
Rusel DeMaria
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About This Book
Based on 48 interviews and years of research, Game of X v.1: Xbox tells the many stories of Microsoft's unlikely entry into the game console business. In addition to the personal insights of the key players in the story, Game of X includes many previously unreleased documents that show what was going on behind the scenes. This is the story of Xbox and Xbox Live.
Key Features
- Based on 48 interviews and years of research, Game of X v.1: Xbox tells the many stories of Microsoft's unlikely entry into the game console business.
- In addition to the personal insights of the key players in the story, Game of X includes many previously unreleased documents that show what was going on behind the scenes.
- This is the story of Xbox and Xbox Live.
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Information
PART I:
BETTING BILLIONS
~1~
Back to âNormalâ
In terms of games and graphic standards, Microsoft had recently gone through some heated and often acrimonious battles. The Developer Relations Group, particularly the trio of Alex St. John, Eric Engstrom, and Craig Eisler, had used every tactic available to them to push through the game enabling technology, DirectX. They had also fought battles over browser technology and competing graphics standards, which once again would be critical to games. They did this, in large part, to counter Appleâs dominance in multimedia, and to prevent Microsoftâs competitors from ultimately dominating living rooms all around the country. It was in some sense coincidental that games became their focus, but the work they did to support game development on Windows, especially after the launch of Windows 95, would have profound impact on the future of the PC game industry. and it would have a profound impact on the subject of this volumeâXbox.
In the aftermath of the Talisman/OpenGL vs. DirectX battles, and with Alex St. Johnâs departure (all of which, and more, are chronicled in the companion volume to this book, Game of X v.2) life and work at Microsoft largely returned to normal. âNormalâ meant that the biggest perceived threat to Windows was Sun Microsystems and Java, and, although DirectX had prevailed and the games division was growing, video games and the rising success of PlayStation were mere blips appearing far in the periphery of Microsoftâs strategic radar.
âNormal,â however, was not for everyone. There were people who sought something that would kindle their passion, and some of those people found their passion and purpose in the area of games. And, as it had been with DirectX, the path forward involved competing visions and a good bit of trench warfare. How it all came about depends on who you talk to. âSuccess has many fathersâŠâ and over the years some books and a multitude of articles have been written, often claiming to identify one person or a very small group as the âcreators of the Xbox,â but in reality, there were many creators who often get overlooked, and others who had ideas for consoles, but never acted upon them.
My purpose in writing this book was always to tell the story from as many perspectives as I can, and the following narrative will sometimes present alternative points of view, based on how the people directly involved remember certain events that culminated in Microsoftâs multi-billion dollar bet.
Moving Forward with Games
![Image](https://book-extracts.perlego.com/1596650/images/pg4-plgo-compressed.webp)
Ed Fries
Ed Fries made his first forays into the game development in 1982 as a senior in high school. âI started working in BASIC but moved to assembly language when BASIC was too slow. I wrote a clone of the arcade game Space Wars and then a copy of Frogger that I called âFroggieââ. Froggie made its way through the bulletin boards and was noticed by a game company called ROMOX, who somehow tracked him down and made him a development deal. His first commercial game, Princess and Frog, came out just as he started college and was credited to âEddy Fries.â Fries went on to create a Dig-Dug inspired game called Ant-Eater and another called Sea Chase, both of which came out on Atari 800 cartridges. His fourth game, Nitro, was never released because ROMOX (and a lot of other companies) went out of business in 1984.
Fries soon found gainful, non-game-related employment at Microsoft, and started a career that had nothing at all to do with games for the most part (see Bogus Software (Game of X v.2, pg 20). Ten years later, a chance encounter with a colleague at the airport changed all that and had a huge effect on Friesâ future, and arguably on the future of his employerâMicrosoft. Thatâs when he learned about an open managerial position in the games division. The game side of Microsoft had never been a high priority for Microsoft, but when Ed Fries was offered a chance to head a division of his own after 10 years working in the Office software division, it was that open position in games that he requested, firing off a letter to Patty Stoneseifer, the head of the Consumer division, to express his interest in the open position. âMy decision upset some of the executives, who had different plans for me. I got hauled into the offices of a couple of vice-presidents, and they told me I was committing career suicide. They said, âWhy would you want to leave Office, one the most important parts of the company, to go work on something nobody cares about?ââ
Fries had his reasons. He still retained his interest in games and the memories of being a game developer himself. That was one reason. But he also knew that in the game division he would be able to work without the intense scrutiny he would have to endure as the head of just about any other division. The thought of independence and creative freedom figured strongly into his decision, counterintuitive as it might have seemed to his superiors.
Ironically, it was increased attention that Tony Garcia (see also Game of X v.2 Chapter 9) credits with his decision to move on, essentially creating the opening for Fries to take over. âWe were able to be nimble, we moved quickly, we grew fast, and I think itâs harder to do that kind of thing when you are also part of bigger initiatives that may not have the same agility. You know, itâs much more fun to work with the people that youâve assembledâthat whole team feelingâthat part is the best part. Especially when you see people succeed and go on to do their own thing. Thatâs all very rewarding. Beyond that, itâs all politics that Iâm just not interested.â
Garcia had gotten the ball rolling, and he had put together a great team, including Laura Fryer, Shane Kim, Bonnie Ross, Ed Ventura, John Kimmich, Shannon Loftis, and Jon Grande, all of whom continued to have long, successful careers at Microsoft and beyond. He had also tried to get some better titles done, working with proven developers like Larry Holland, who had designed games like Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe for LucasArts, and with Jez Sanâs Argonaut Games, but their games didnât pan out. Then Ed Ventura discovered Ensemble Studios and their game, Age of Empires, and brought them to the table with Microsoft. Before he left, Garcia worked out a deal, including ownership of the IP for Age of Empires, the game that finally put Microsoft on the map as a PC game company.
In March 1996, Fries took over the Entertainment Business Unit (EBU), which later became Microsoft Game Studios. At the time there were about 75 employees and an equal number of contractors, and Garcia had already left. Fries never even met his predecessor. He moved into an empty office with no remaining sense of its history. âTony was like a ghost I never met.â Fries completed the contract with Ensemble and eventually negotiated the acquisition of the company, but he says, âI often get too much credit for Age of Empires. That was Tony and Stuart Moulder who put the deal together, even though I did complete the contract.â
Fries came into his new position with a genuine interest in games, what some people called a Jedi talent for listening and asking the right questions, and, honestly, he was a fan. When he spoke with game developers, they knew his interest was real. Moreover, Fries was a genuinely likeable guy, so no matter how much you wanted to hate Microsoft, you couldnât feel that way about Ed. One of the first things Fries did was hit the road. âYou know, I did what probably any gamer would do, which is, I went all over the world and met with all my heroes⊠game designers that I had the most respect for. I tried to put deals together with them, get them to work with us.â
The ultimate acquisition of Ensemble Studios and the successful launch of Age of Empires gave Microsoft a clear PC gaming success. Fries also helped with the transition of Flight Simulator developers, the Bruce Artwick Organization (BAO), onto the Microsoft campus and acquired FASA, along with Jordan Weisman and FASAâs Mech Warrior, Shadowrun, and Crimson Skies franchises. In addition, Fries helped both Chris Roberts and Chris Taylor start up their new companies, Digital Anvil (1996) and Gas Powered Games (1998) respectively.
Absorbing FASA
Microsoftâs acquisition of FASA, and Jordan Weisman along with it, was announced on January 7, 1999.
Weisman grew up in Chicago, and was severely dyslexic. He credits a second grade teacher for recognizing the problem at a time when it was not well understood, but even more, he credits Dungeons & Dragons directly, and also tangentially for inspiring him (or almost requiring him) to read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. âI had been given the tools to read because of the luck of having a good teacher, but it was almost physically painful. Not actually physically painful, but it sort of felt like it was physically painful, so you avoid it. Just naturally, you avoid it. And now all of a sudden there was something that I wanted, and there was no way around it except to read.â
![Image](https://book-extracts.perlego.com/1596650/images/pg7-plgo-compressed.webp)
Jordan Weisman
At college, Weisman was able to âtourâ a $50 million ridge simulator that sparked his imagination. So he dropped out of school and began experimenting. âI was positive that I could reproduce that $50 million mainframe simulator by networking together Apple II computers.â There werenât any networks to work with in 1979, so he began trying to connect Apple II computers together serially from their motherboards, âwhich was a really good way to fry motherboards.â
Fortunately, before too many motherboards had been crisped, he realized that he was on the wrong track with the Apple IIs, but that there was still a way to accomplish his goal of networked gaming. He refined his concept and approached investors, whose response he sums up as, âLet me get this straight. Youâre a college dropout, never done anything, and youâre talking about network computers to create a virtual environment that people are going to buy tickets to⊠like they buy tickets to a movie to come play. So we think youâre just high.â So Weisman switched gears once again. âI thought if I started a pen and paper roleplaying company and Iâd be rich overnight, and then use the funds from there to build the electronic thing I wanted to build.â
That was the beginning of FASA in 1980, where Weisman designed long-running franchises like Battletech, Shadowrun and a pen and paper Star Trek game. Fast forward to 1987: Now Weisman and his team believed it was time to revisit the original concept of networked games, so they started ESP⊠Environmental Simulations Project. They sank a lot of money into the project, which ultimately cost four times more than anticipated. They had to create their own network and graphics cards. âOnly really naĂŻve people would have tried it,â says Weisman. However, by the end of 1988 they had created one of the first networked multiplayer immersive environments based on BattleTech, and in 1989 opened the first public BattleTech center (in Chicago) with two more in Japan in 1990 and 1991. Then, in 1992, the Disney family, led by Tim Disney, bought the majority interest in the company âand then together we built a chain of those around the world.â
In 1996, Weisman and L. Ross Babcock founded FASA Interactive and Virtual World Entertainment as subsidiaries under the corporate entity Virtual World Entertainment Group. FASA Interactive published the PC game MechWarrior in 1998, and was subsequently purchased by Microsoft. Weisman and his whole team, at that point a part of Microsoft, moved from Chicago to Bellevue, Washington following the acquisition. Ed Fries is quoted in the press release: ââThe acquisition of FASA Interactive reflects our commitment to growing our business with a smaller portfolio of top-quality games,â said Ed Fries, general manager of Microsoftâs games group. âThe MechWarrior franchise is one of the best-selling series of PC games in history and is synonymous with groundbreaking technology and compelling gameplay. Weâre excited to continue the growth of the BattleTech property as part of our portfolio.ââ
http://news.microsoft.com/1999/01/07/microsoft-acquires-fasa-interactive/
No Mario for Bill
According to Weisman, his move to Microsoft might have been very brief. âI think Iâd been at Microsoft less than three months or so, and we were having our first Bill review up at Division. You sweat bullets about those. And so every team was working to present their product. So he walked down the line and he saw each of the games that were in development, and then we sat down and it was just Bill, Robbie Bach and Ed Fries and myself, and a couple questions. And then he asked, âWell, why donât we have a Mario? Whereâs our iconic character? Like a Mario Bros.â And he looked at Robbie, and Robbie looked at Ed, and Ed looked at me. Okay! And I turned to Bill and I said, âYou canât have one.â I thought that would be an engaging way to tell Bill that he couldnât have something but it turned out to be way pretentious. And he said, âWhat do you mean I canât have one?â I said, âBecause weâre a PC game company, right?â And I explained the difference, at the time, between PC games and console games. Over the years this has totally changed, but at the time PC games were always world centric versus console games that were character centric. And so I just did a couple of minutes explaining that, and he thought about it, and then said, âOh okay, that makes sense.â I figured it could have been a very short career at Microsoft to start with the sentence âYou canât have that.ââ
FASAâs Rough Assimilation
Weisman became the creative director for the games studio, and so was not specifically leading the FASA team during the transition. However, he was involved and acutely aware of the challenges they faced. The main issue was the wide disparity between the game studio culture and the traditional development culture at Microsoft. At the time, he says, âMicrosoft Games had kind of been the place that you put old developers out to pasture. It was a reward for good years of service in other divisions that you got to go play with games. And it was primarily people who liked to play games rather than people who knew how or were dedicated to making games.â Ed Fries was changing this situation, but Weisman further observes, âlike an...
Table of contents
Citation styles for Game of X v.1
APA 6 Citation
DeMaria, R. (2018). Game of X v.1 (1st ed.). CRC Press. Retrieved from https://www.perlego.com/book/1596650/game-of-x-v1-xbox-pdf (Original work published 2018)
Chicago Citation
DeMaria, Rusel. (2018) 2018. Game of X v.1. 1st ed. CRC Press. https://www.perlego.com/book/1596650/game-of-x-v1-xbox-pdf.
Harvard Citation
DeMaria, R. (2018) Game of X v.1. 1st edn. CRC Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1596650/game-of-x-v1-xbox-pdf (Accessed: 14 October 2022).
MLA 7 Citation
DeMaria, Rusel. Game of X v.1. 1st ed. CRC Press, 2018. Web. 14 Oct. 2022.