Interview Matt Chat 181: Joel Billings (SSI) Interview

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Joel Billings; Matt Barton; Strategic Simulations, Inc.

Matt Barton has published the first part of his interview with Joel Billings, the founder and president of Strategic Simulations, Inc. In this video, Joel talks about wargames and the starting days of SSI:

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[Maiandros]

a positive, or a negative thing that interviews with company presidents may now be conducted while they're sitting in their homes' living room?
'gimme a sec Matt, let me put something on, still wearing my pink boxers, this is business, appearances matter'

To polarise it a tad by giving an extreme, give me one Blizzard interview with 'fuck that loser' Wilson sitting in his sweat-stained comfy desk chair

 

[Jaesun]

When are they going to do a damn Kickstarter and make my Gold Box Games 2.0?

 

[4too]

What Did You Do In The Seventies?




Well, while I was stumbling through crunching school lab data on a typing terminal to the classic IBM reel to reel, and computer majors were printing Playboy center folds in ASCII 'shades' of black and white, Joel Billings was creating computer games.

When are they going to do a damn Kickstarter and make my Gold Box Games 2.0?

I would suppose from the interview, featuring the anecdotes about lost (Avalon Hill) and won (Gary Grigsby) opportunities,

that Joel Billings would listen to any timely proposal.

May be in the same position that Brian Fargo was before he got WASTELAND back from EA.

Still ...

How many AD&D Gold Box games are sourced from abandoned software sites and played on DosBox?

Can that be quantified to create a *lucrative* watering in the virtual marketing mouth.

*Lucrative* is a Pavlovian buzz word in many sapient business species.

But ...

Is the AD&D license a lure or a liability?





Avalon Hill's 'Bismark' board game was a favorite, easier to learn and finish (before sundown) then 'Afrika Korps' and 'Stalingrad'.

Interesting that Billings may have been inspired by and built on these game mechanics, for his first computer game, while the experts at AH were 'dumb-ing' their titles down to appeal to a larger demographic.

Back then maybe the relationship of “by gamers, for gamers” meant success.



4too

 

[Dorateen]

Heroic!

 

[domisPL]

I wish they would remake DarkSun or make new game in DarkSun setting

 

[Excidium]

P. cool. I'm always jealous of people that get introduced to board games and stuff by their parents.

 

[suejak]

I remember 4too Poetry.

 

[Jaesun]

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands in the Dungeon Craft engine would be pretty fucking sweet.

The only problem with a new Dark Sun game means that WotC/HASBRO are involved and make demands of the game to the developer (i.e. Yet Another Shitty Action Game with Little or No cRPG elements labeled as a cRPG #8763598465934753). bleh

 

[circ]

Screw your gold box monkey boy. Roadwar 20,000!

 

[EG]

I demand more War Wind.

And with that, I'll show myself out before someone hurts me.

 

[tuluse]

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands in the Dungeon Craft engine would be pretty fucking sweet.

The only problem with a new Dark Sun game means that WotC/HASBRO are involved and make demands of the game to the developer (i.e. Yet Another Shitty Action Game with Little or No cRPG elements labeled as a cRPG #8763598465934753). bleh

What if you just called it Black Star and used Pathfinder?

 

[Jaesun]

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands in the Dungeon Craft engine would be pretty fucking sweet.

The only problem with a new Dark Sun game means that WotC/HASBRO are involved and make demands of the game to the developer (i.e. Yet Another Shitty Action Game with Little or No cRPG elements labeled as a cRPG #8763598465934753). bleh

What if you just called it Black Star and used Pathfinder?

Well then get to that and get that KS going then.