The Fourth Curtain

Creator of Pong, Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, Nolan Bushnell has had a galactic impact on both video games and culture in general. The only person to have employed Steve Jobs, through a series of happy accidents he set the video game industry in motion. A truly unique conversation about good problems, hind brains and more this week on The Fourth Curtain. Support the show Thank you for listening to o...

Founder of the Inspiracy, Noah Falstein went from playtesting Joust, to making Sinistar, to ground-floor stints at LucasArts, 3DO, Dreamworks and finally Chief Game Designer at Google. We talk through his very interesting career, with stops at VR, AI, medicine and more! Support the show Thank you for listening to our podcast all about videogames and the amazing people who bring them to life! Hoste...

Strap in for a wild ride everyone! In part two of our deep dive we talk to the Father of the Xbox Seamus Blackley, He co-founded Looking Glass and Dreamworks Interactive, before making the Xbox and funding games at CAA. Get ready to be schooled on ancient Egypt by a strong candidate for The World’s Most Interesting Man. Support the show Thank you for listening to our podcast all about videogames a...

President of Game Content and Studios for Microsoft's Xbox, Matt Booty manages many of the biggest video games in history - Minecraft, Halo, Elder Scrolls, Fallout. Starting as an audio designer at Midway he transitioned to studio management and beyond. We talk similarities with theater, tricky deadlines and the importance of communities this week.  Support the show Thank you for listening to...

One time Olympic hopeful and leader-in-exile Brian Fargo is a true legend. He founded Interplay and inExile Entertainment. He’s made dozens of smash hit games like Wasteland, Battle Chess, Lost Vikings and Fallout. He’s now mastering time and space with the Newgate Clockwork Revolution. We talk sales shenanigans, AI and much more in this week’s episode. Support the show Thank you for listening to...

Naughty Dog co-founder Jason Rubin made massive hits like Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter before moving on to run THQ. Now he's building the metaverse at Meta. Lessons in business success and the future of technology in this week's episode! Support the show Thank you for listening to our podcast all about videogames and the amazing people who bring them to life! Hosted by Alexander Se...

Creator and Host of The Game Awards, Geoff Keighley is possibly the most recognizable face in videogames. Starting as a teenage game reviewer he wrote for Time Magazine, Kotaku, and Fortune, then became a TV personality on Spike TV and G4TV. Now his Game Awards has a global audience of over 100 million viewers. He spoke with us about his origins and vision for the future of games. Support the show...

IGF Design Award winner Jonathan Blow has made legendary games like Braid and The Witness by taking risks and making the hard decisions. Currently he's working on a new game with a homemade game engine (!) using a homemade programming language (!!), he tells tales of perseverance and putting in the reps for when opportunity knocks.  Support the show Thank you for listening to our podcast all...

Maker of Adventure Game of the Year "Desperate Housewives" Ed Del Castillo has made a couple other impactful games - Command and Conquer Red Alert, Battle Realms, Ultima IX. He invented box select in RTS games and revolutionized install screens. Tales of shaving icebergs and catching the froth in this week's The Fourth Curtain podcast. Support the show Thank you for listening to our...

This week Alex and Aaron welcome the co-founder of Bioware, the makers of Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. They revolutionized RPG games. Without Greg - there's no Starfield. We hear stories from Bioware's formative years, the ride that led to their acquisition by Electronic Arts, working with Bono (yes, that Bono), lessons on venture ca...

Creator of the Just Cause and Mad Max games, three-time Chair of the Swedish Game Industry Assn., Christofer Sundberg has weathered some serious setbacks and come out on top. Now Founder and CCO at Liquid Swords he's busy opening worlds for gamers everywhere. Support the show Thank you for listening to our podcast all about videogames and the amazing people who bring them to life! Hosted by A...

Sure, Defender, Smash TV, Narc and Cruis’n were huge games, but this man helped usher in multi-ball! Pinball pioneer turned arcade cabinet rock star Eugene Jarvis joins us with stories about transitions and triumphs. Support the show Thank you for listening to our podcast all about videogames and the amazing people who bring them to life! Hosted by Alexander Seropian and Aaron Marroquin Find us at...

There's OG game devs, and then there's the Elder Gods of game dev, creators from time out of mind. Our guest Don Daglow's games started appearing on mainframes in 1971, before there were MONITORS. Credited with inventing both sim games and god games, he has bonkers stories about the birth of our craft.  Support the show Thank you for listening to our podcast all about videogames and...

"Storyteller of the Decade" Ken Levine has been a thief of our time and a shock to our systems for years. First winner of the Golden Joystick Lifetime Achievement award, he's created huge hits like System Shock 2, Thief and Bioshock. He joins us to talk game stories, innovative mechanics and more.  Support the show Thank you for listening to our podcast all about videogames and the...

This week's guest is a poet, writing the poetry of fun - or at least the prose. Author of the essential "A Theory of Fun", creator of Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, he is likely the world's foremost expert on MMOs. Game industry fundamentals made for the first time with Raph Koster.  Support the show Thank you for listening to our podcast all about videogames and the ama...

Yellow flags, bacon Macs and entertainment experiences in this week’s episode! @TimOfLegend joins us to talk about his long list of epic games, starting with The Secret of Monkey Island. Grabbing beers, dragons from the moon and writing for the trash can with another great #gamedev Support the show Thank you for listening to our podcast all about videogames and the amazing people who bring them to...

From childhood crimes to Myth mods to art directing Destiny, Chris Barrett has had an amazing journey. Now Game Director of a little project called "Marathon" he shares with us stories of piracy, pitching, perseverance and making games pretty. In Game Development or want to be? Consider joining the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). To join the IGDA, visit igda.org/members...

The creator of Grand Theft Auto stops by to talk about one of the biggest leaps for the video game industry - when we all realized we should probably have ratings cuz video games aren't just for kids anymore. In the eighties, David Jones built circuits for one of the very first personal computers in Dundee Scotland when he discovered his love for crafting games. He went on to start DMA design...

Lessons in leadership and long term survival from this week’s guest Chelsea Blasko . Her career began as a producer at Electronic Arts ' Chicago location and she is currently the co-CEO of Iron Galaxy ; one of the world's largest and most successful independent game developers. From Scribblenauts to jackhammers, genitalia to tornadoes in Chicago Chelsea has seen and done it all. Thank yo...

Today we sit down with Peter Tamte and Jaime Griesemer the developers behind Six Days in Fallujah. Peter dishes on what I was like to share an office with Alex in the 90's fresh on the heels of working directly for Steve Jobs. Who was the better office mate? The answer might surprise you. Jaime recounts how he resorted to blackmail to land his first industry job at Bungie. And we are glad he...

This shout-out filled episode features Matt Costello on the curious craft of writing for games. A prolific novelist, his career spans the length of our industry, from the genre-defining 7th Guest , to huge hits like Disney Universe and DOOM3 . A peek behind the Curtain of a lesser known, but fundamental aspect of #gamedev   Support the show Thank you for listening to our podcast all about videogam...

We broke the bleep button in this roller-coaster conversation with the legendary Cliff Bleszinski. Creator of Jazz Jackrabbit, Unreal, Gears of War and many others, he's also made an impact on Broadway and now comics. Author, bar owner - how many polys you want with that math? Support the show Thank you for listening to our podcast all about videogames and the amazing people who bring them to...

A truly fascinating and emotional conversation with the great Edmund McMillen, creator of The Binding of Isaac, Super Meat Boy, Gish and many others. Edmund's story is one of hard work and dedication to his craft. Tales from the Golden Age of indie video games. Support the show Thank you for listening to our podcast all about videogames and the amazing people who bring them to life! Hosted by...

Kongregate Co-Founder and former CEO Emily Greer turned the video game industry on its head hosting easy-to-make browser games and bringing free to play to the West. Over 120,000 games, including "Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar" and "Don't Sh*t Your Pants!" made their debut on Kongregate. Her background is equally diverse growing up around the world. Learn...

You may not know their faces, but you absolutely know their voices. Jen Taylor and Steve Downes made their mark on the video game world as the voices of Halo's Cortana and the Master Chief. Learn about their inspirations for these roles, surprising side-hustles and what they still mean years later to legions of fans. Candy for your ears in this week's podcast! Support the show Thank you...