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Comment by notkaiho | Hacker News Reader

We need, in fact the industry simply REQUIRES, in-depth oral history journalism and retrospectives like this. The "gaming industry" is 40+ years old now, and there have been absolutely pivotal works in that time. They deserve to be interrogated and documented dispassionately and with rigor.

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https://www.filfre.net/ is a great example of such an examination - starting with the classic text-adventure games, and gradually getting more and more current.

The table of contents is impressive, the writing is wonderful, and you can download a series of ebook collections containing the individual blog posts.

The most recent articles on DOOM are especially relevant here, because some of the names involved in Ion Storm (though not as directly involved in Deus Ex) show up in the various tales about DOOM and the early Shareware era.

(Jimmy Maher also is pretty good about citing sources and the book Masters of DOOM is cited several times as a primary source, which is also why it is recommended several times in sibling comments.)

Probably mentioned elsewhere, but Masters of Doom is a great book that reads a bit better (for me personally) than an interview like this article.

If you enjoyed Masters of Doom, I highly suggest Blood, Sweat, and Pixels. Not as laser-focused on a single studio, but great reporting on the industry, both positives and negatives.

Lots of classic stories on gamasutra. But I agree, more documentation of historical work is needed.

There are some great reads out there about gamedev and gaming history, though:

- Blood, Sweat and Pixels by Jason Schreier

- Masters of Doom by David Kushner

- The Ultimate History of Video Games by Steven L. Kent was required reading for me in college

- Game Over by David Sheff

- Dungeon Hacks by David Craddock

The Video Game History Foundation is probably the best organization pushing this forward today. Also, last year, Retronauts did a couple of 1-on-1 interviews with early PC game developers from the 70s and 80s (having trouble finding direct links to them now, sorry).

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