LudoScience

History of videogames (biography)

Author(s) : Bill Kunkel
Editor : Rolenta Press
Publication date : 11-01-2005
Language : english

Bill Kunkel, usually known as "The Game Doctor", is one of the videogaming press pioneers in the USA. With his lifetime friend Arnie Katz, he started to write down articles about videogames in 1978, for the Video magazine. In 1981, the two pioneers launched Electronic Games, the first magazine dedicated to videogames published in the USA - if not in the world. This autobiographic book gathers numerous trivia and short stories coming from the career of Bill Kunkel: the birth of Electronic Games ; its tragic death in 1985 in the wake of the big American videogame crash ; his participation to several important trials such as the ones of K.C. Munchkin vs. Pac-Man, the Game Genie, and Street Fighter II vs. Fighter's History ; his encounters with famous game creators such as Alexey Pajitnov (Tetris) or Richard Garriot (Ultima) ; alongside with many entertaining stories from the small world of videogames press in the USA - the conventions, the journalists, the rise and fall of magazines... This books is a captivating testimony full of unique information about the videogames history, coming from someone who wrote about them since their very early days. A precious book, even more important as Bill Kunkel unfortunately passed away in 2011.