Postmortems from Game Developer

SECTION I

Startups

The startup company is truly the heroic myth of the game industry. It's the young success story of a new generation, like a garage band getting a big record contract, or a goateed 22-year-old writing the latest Great American Novel. We know it by heart already: a collection of dedicated twentysomethings (the genius hacker, the visionary designer, the gifted artist), college buddies or the remnants of someone's high school D&D campaign; the brilliant concept, the next DOOM or TETRIS, neon lightning caught in a bottle; the cluster of PCs set up in low-rent office space or someone's living room; the late nights, the pizza boxes, the copy of Business Plans for Dummies. And of course the happy ending: killer demo for an industry ...