Brian Baglow, One of the original designers of the first Grand Theft Auto, has donated his notebooks to the National Museum of Scotland. From the Daily Record:
Almost 20 years after the game’s launch his ideas for the game are to go on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh as part of their Games’ Masters exhibition. While the exhibition follows the evolution of gaming internationally from a niche interest to a global phenomenon, it also explores the success of Scotland’s games’ design industry. Signed original artwork for Grand Theft Auto and early sketches from Lemmings – both created by Dundee-based DMA Design – are among items set to go on public display for the first time.
Disclaimer: I'm one of the ex-DMA people myself and know Brian from that time. It's not the first time that Lemmings has been on display, as there has been an exhibit about DMA at Dundee's McManus Galleries for several years now. My own claim to fame is that I am mentioned in the first paragraph of the original GTA design document.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday December 01 2014, @03:52PM
"wow that carmageddon game kicks ass, should be doing something like it."
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday December 01 2014, @08:02PM
I'd love a new Carmageddon game, it's time to revive that franchise.
It's been what, 10 or 15 years since the last one? Just imagine how much better the game could be now.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by bugamn on Monday December 01 2014, @09:07PM
Why only imagine? [steampowered.com]
I haven't played it, however, so it could be horrible as far as I know. Let's hope it's not.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday December 01 2014, @11:28PM
2 words: suh weet!
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by present_arms on Tuesday December 02 2014, @12:10AM
for want of mod points
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday December 01 2014, @04:51PM
I have been a devoted fan of GTA for, oh, 20 years now. It's the best cross-genre game I've ever seen. Already at San Andreas I marveled at the ability of the main character to walk into a bar in the virtual neighborhood and play arcade games that I wasted months on as a child. With the most recent addition, I paid homage to the change of the desert in Sandy Shores during a rain storm. It is incredible.
I do wonder, though, having now seen MBAs and other execrable classes of people profit from my flights of fancy, if we can't find a better way to reward those of us who actually make the breakthroughs, instead of having them co-opted by parasites. This story makes me wonder if we can't, as techs, come together to make the world a better place in such a way that cuts the usual parasites out of the loop.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by ticho on Monday December 01 2014, @06:15PM
Well, indie games are kinda succesful in that... Publishing your own digital creations has never been easier than today.
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Monday December 01 2014, @08:50PM
There is a fundamental hole in your reasoning.
You see, you're a "tech", maybe an engeneer, maybe a maker, maybe a lot of other things too. You know how to make stuff, how to make stuff work, how to make it fun, maybe, and use your knowledge and expertise for those goals. You have dedicated yourself, lots of your time, for this. Lots of people around here have. Yet the world is still an unwelcoming place, and I'm not talking marely about video-games.
The poeple you are talking about, they have dedicated themselves to studying the system. They use their knowledge and expertise to "work" the system, to "game" it. They've spent time studying ever nook of it to know how to make profit of it. And they are successful at it, as you can see yourself.
So what can we do? Get to know the inner workings of this system, to be better able to spot bullshit and have a better role in making it work right.
With regard to games, lots have been done by the indies and crowdfunding. But it's still niche, so to speak. Lots of work to be done still.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 02 2014, @10:02PM
As long as greed, self-interest, and money exist in this world, this problem is NOT going away. The only stopgap solution I can think of is self-employment--but this requires a network of paying clients cultivated by (non-)monetary means and/or successfully spent advertising money in order to be a success in this manner.
Sadly, this world runs on money. The ones with lots and lots of money were either born into it, inherited it from someone else who bequeathed it to them after they died, or made 'wise investments' of various degrees of legality.
Profit fundamentally is buying low and selling high. Expenses are dominated by labor costs. The simple way to minimize that is to DELIBERATELY underpay the workers and replace as many of them as possible with as many robots and computer systems as possible as electricity and occasional maintenance by a small/tiny group of human workers is MUCH cheaper than wages and benefits paid to a huge/large group of human beings for the work they do for a company as employees.
It all boils down to this:
The people with the money usually only have the talent to get more money by any means necessary if need be.
The people with other kinds of talent mostly DO NOT have this 'moneyspinner talent'.
So both parties co-operate: the moneyspinners increase their wealth while most others just survive day by day being (grossly) underpaid. A tiny handful in this group grow rich because they were the cornerstones of success of the companies they worked for.
A classic example....
Steve Wozniak wanted to change the world with personal computers he designed and prototyped but had no inroads into the marketplace at the time. His friend Steve Jobs did. Both men founded Apple Computers [wikipedia.org] in 1976 along with Ronald Wayne (who sold his share for $800 in 1976 and lost over $35 Billion by August, 2011) [wikipedia.org] and over time became VERY wealthy--Jobs moreso.
Steve Jobs [wikipedia.org] (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) is now dead.
Steve Wozniak [wikipedia.org] (born August 11, 1950) is still alive.
Ronald Wayne (born May 17, 1934) is still alive. I had absolutely no idea he was involved with Apple until I wrote this post. This is proof of how the world at large works: You are remembered by the world at large if you are
rich (and famous because of it)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Slim [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett [wikipedia.org]
famous (and rich because of it)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lucas [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Spielberg [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey [wikipedia.org]
or infamous (and 'poor')
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_David_Chapman [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hinckley,_Jr [wikipedia.org]
Individuals like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White [wikipedia.org]
Kayla Rolland [wikipedia.org]
Christina-Taylor Green [wikipedia.org]
are all but forgotten.
Success is a combination of talent, money, and opportunities taken or passed over but money ULTIMATELY creates winners and losers and is RESPONSIBLE for the EXTREME socioeconomic stratification in existence on Planet Earth today and is the fundamental cause [biblehub.com] of ALL its problems. This has lead to worldwide socioeconomic unrest and activism as seen in Occupy Wall Street [wikipedia.org] and the Occupy movement [wikipedia.org] at large.
Howard Carter [wikipedia.org] PROVED 'you can't take it with you' when, in November of 1922, he found Tutankhamun's [wikipedia.org] tomb deemed 'the best preserved and most intact pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings [wikipedia.org]'--so why try?.... [biblehub.com]
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Tuesday December 02 2014, @01:36AM
Somewhere around here I know I've got a copy of Christmas Lemmings. Must find it!
Still one game that totally sucked me in.
OK, Now I'm excited! [dosgamesarchive.com]
(Score: 1) by yarp on Tuesday December 02 2014, @09:24AM
Back at the turn of the century the University of Abertay was on my shortlist to attend due to its links with DMA Design. I was a massive fan of Lemmings and later GTA and for the life of me I can't remember why I didn't choose to study there in the end. Who knows, I could have been working on the current gen of GTA by now!