Games

Thank you Game Devs of Color Expo 2018 for our media pass into your  amazing venue.  We talked to coders,  game institute recruiters, game publishing business development execs, game artists, game musicians, game marketers, game writers,  and women game makers.

Congrats for extending this environment to the hundreds who attended and the millions who can see the Youtube clips and Twitter Shares.  It was our first time visiting the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of  Harlem and your event was a perfect introduction to this valuable institution.

Your panel discussions were sharp and on point.

Preview this clip from event producers.

Game makers were great at explaining the work.

View a video of the panels and audience discussions.  6hrs

 

Computer software games generate more industry revenue than movie tickets generate from hollywood blockbuster cinema seat sales.  The United States game market was a $25B industry according to published authorities. Worldwide, the game industry is a $100B a year marketplace, which includes software games for smartphones, console machines, PCs, Online Games, hand held device games,web site games and more.

Games are a big opportunity for blackSoftware creators. It is not unusual for a game developer who puts out product for Playstation or XBox to spend $500M on game development and marketing over a three year period before the game will even work.  The market leaders have profiles like that. There could easily be 200 staff members in various roles from artwork to storytelling and programmer at work on it, while the marketing department is busy creating demand long before the product is ready to ship. There are companies that spent over $50M and never brought a game to market.  Companies who have raised money form Kickstarters to make games have pulled up and not delivered, because they undershot budgets required for their ambitious products.,

Fortunately, games are being released today in record numbers, due to the number of smartphones and the ease in which products can be made and uploaded to the APP stores.  People on public transportation are really huge smartphone gamers.

Not so long ago, a Black women with an IBM pedigree raised $5M to bring an Xbox game to market. She spent every penny of the money she raised on it. It was a Madden NFL Football type game for Black HBCU colleges.

Unfortunately, players didn’t like it. Citing poor graphics and gameplay quality, the game was soundly defeated by their public opinion.  It never caught on but she received high praises for how her programmers handled the HBCU half-time show in the game. It was great, most said.  She may have made the only mass consumer console football game certified by Microsoft for the XBOX that had a half-time celebration episode. You know Black colleges can get down at half-time.


 COMPUTER GAME ARCHIVES
from the the SpiritDatatree Store

listen at spiritdatatree.bandcamp.com


 

The game titles on the list below were the most popular products made by Afro American programmers in the 80’s. The software is available on request. Use a DOS or old Windows machine to run them.

AFRICAN AMERICAN MADE COMPUTER GAMES

BACKGAMMON

LUCKY LOTTO

BIDWHIST

CHECKERS

CHESS

CROSSWORD

DOMINOES

MANCALA

PITTY

SPADES

SPORTS

TONK

BOMB BLAST

CRAZY 8