How InfoWorld Broke Ground and Pissed Off Steve Jobs in the Process

Image: InfoWorld

In the late '70s and into the early '80s, the tech world was vastly removed from its current omnipresence in American life. Computers were a curiosity. The average consumer would never have considered purchasing a computer for his or her home—on the rare occasion that computers were used by the public, it was strictly in the context of professional business. Most of the tech journalism at the time reflected that sort of mentality—very niche and very inaccessible.

“Most trade publications at that time were deadly boring,” said John Markoff, a former, long-time tech journalist for The New York Times, in an interview with Motherboard. “They were insider publications for people who were professionals or employees in an industry sub-grouping. The publications wouldn’t be interesting to anybody outside of that.”

“People were still trying to figure out what to use these machines for,” continued Markoff. “[At the time], people were in love with these machines as toys and hobby projects.”

Markoff was an early writer and editor for InfoWorld, the first weekly tech newspaper. Founded in 1978, InfoWorld originated as an earlier publication called Intelligent Machines Journal, which was largely geared towards power users.

Image: InfoWorld

But the name of the publication changed in 1980—founder Jim Warren sold the publication to the International Data Group the prior year. And with the name change came a more mainstream focus. The tech community had grown large enough and widespread enough that its writers covered industry news—trends, announcements, unique people, and personalities. It was the first step to moving tech out of the exclusive hands of hobbyists and into the hands of a non-professional, non-technical audience.

InfoWorld was very much a bootstraps, knife-in-the-teeth operation. And one major, early obstacle was the lack of experience on staff.

“There weren’t a lot of professional journalists in the mix,” said Markoff. “We were making it up as we went along. Our editor-in-chief, Maggie Cannon, had been a secretary. My editor, John Dvorak, had previously run a small software company, but he had no experience with journalism at all. I was probably one of the most experienced journalists there, and I didn’t have any experience other than some freelance writing.”

John Barry, Managing Editor of InfoWorld in its early days, remembers the struggles of putting together the publication. He was primarily in charge of the newspaper’s production, and the technological limitations of the early 80’s led to some problems that a modern observer might take for granted

“The editors all had typewriters. No one even had a computer,” recalled Barry in an interview with Motherboard. “The writers would draft their manuscript on typewriters. Copy editor Eva Langfeldt would copy-edit the manuscripts and send them to the type house. And those manuscripts would get sent back and forth by mail carrier.

“Sometimes, when you cut in line corrections, the type density could vary because the mix of chemicals wouldn’t be the same on any given day,” said Barry. “You could see where the lines were cut in because the type would be darker or lighter.”

Barry also had a role in shaping InfoWorld’s editorial voice, which intended to counter the “computerphobia” of the lay public.

“I was mainly concerned with production, but when I started, we didn’t have a copy editor,” recalled Barry. “I was frankly put off by a lot of the jargon and convoluted language of the industry. I remember I worked hard at trying to streamline things. Even though the subjects were technical, I tried to render them in more approachable language.”

“We were trying to figure out how to not be super technical,” said Markoff, “because we were writing for people who were not technically trained. We had to understand the technology but also translate what it was for a broader audience. We had to talk more about how this technology was used, and what its application was.”

“The first story I did was an article about a printer interface,” continued Markoff. “And Langfeld came back to me with it, because I had included every technical specification in the article. She guided me through the idea that I wasn’t writing for a technical audience. I was writing for a consumer audience.”

Markoff remembers some of his best scoops, such as the dangers of using personal computers on commercial airliners.

Image: InfoWorld

“I did some reporting on the risks of people using computers on airplanes,” Markoff recalled. “An Osborne I (an early, “luggable” computer), weighed about 40 pounds. You could barely put it on your lap. But if you did and turned it on, it would give off radio frequency emissions all over the spectrum, including on some of the airliner’s landing frequencies. [My feature article] got a tremendous amount of attention, and it got InfoWorld recognized outside of its tiny niche.”

InfoWorld also printed a fair amount of gossip. And that was the sort of thing that landed the staff in hot water with its subjects, especially when they reported on secret projects.

“About two weeks after I arrived at InfoWorld. I walked into the office of Senior Editor Paul Freiberger,” said Markoff. “He was about to break the story about Apple’s codenames: LISA and Macintosh. This was 1981. The LISA didn’t come out until 1983, and the Macintosh didn’t come out until 1984. And as I walked into his office, Paul held the telephone away from his ear, because somebody was screaming at him. And that someone was Steve Jobs.”

“He was infuriated,” said Markoff. “And he was telling Paul that if he ran this story, the Japanese would be all over him and use it to their advantage, and that Paul was going to be responsible. We ran the story anyway. It was the first public airing of those code words, even though we still didn’t know what the technology was at that point.”

Freiberger also remembers that day well.

“Jobs was angry at me,” said Freiberger in an interview with Motherboard. “But he did calm down about it. We eventually had a nice relationship and spoke at length many times. But at the time, we were all winging it a bit, and so was he. He wasn’t used to dealing with journalists, and he didn’t like it.”

Image: InfoWorld

“Jobs later became a whole lot more sophisticated,” Freiberger said. “He became someone who was very adept at dealing with the press and controlling the public image of both himself and Apple.”

Image: InfoWorld

This early, awkward interaction between Jobs and a journalist illustrates the comparative insularity of the modern tech industry. It’s a strange irony for an industry that prides itself on lack of communication barriers.

“There were very few big companies in the field back then,” said Freiberger. “And there were very few sophisticated public relations organizations controlling access to companies. We could pick up the phone and call the president of a company. And, we also might hear from the president of the company. As I said before, Steve Jobs contacted me. On another occasion, Bill Gates contacted me, because he wasn’t happy with an article I’d written. And Apple and Microsoft were two of the bigger companies back in those days. Imagine how easy it would have been to talk to any senior executive of almost any company back then.”

Today, tech journalism is in a dramatically different field than it was 30 years ago. Print is dying. Digital is thriving. And much of digital journalism—both its packaging and its delivery—is visually intensive, collaborative, and interactive. Markoff is torn by the rise in these current trends.

“Has something been lost in the transition from print?” asked Markoff. “I go back and forth on that. Technology is still changing, and is still not stable. So [the relay of information] might be chaotic for some time. You walk down any city street, and people are staring at the palm of their hand, which is where everyone is getting their information. I can’t believe that’s the last step for user interface.”

“I have no idea what it will be,” said Markoff, “but I’m convinced that the way we consume information will move beyond that.”

from How InfoWorld Broke Ground and Pissed Off Steve Jobs in the Process

The Scariest Thing in 'Resident Evil 7' Is the Silence

Image: Capcom

Resident Evil 7 opens with your character, Ethan, approaching a seemingly abandoned plantation mansion in Dulvey, Louisiana. The bayou climate is hot and humid. Bugs buzz obnoxiously about your head, and your hand constantly intrudes on your first person viewpoint as you wave them off. You approach the rusted gate, and give the chains a tug. They clang loudly—there’s no music to dilute their sharp sound.

The Resident Evil games, particularly the early ones, are memorable for their unique sound design. Generally speaking, music in video games coincides with action, and the first three games in the Resident Evil franchise inverted expectations; music signified that the coast was clear. It was when things got quiet that you had to stay on your toes. It was a game design convention that defined the survival horror genre. Silence, in the context of these games, was a stimulus rather than the absence of stimulus.

Alex Lickerman, a physician and the author of The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self, also considers silence to be a stimulus, and he notes how it can stick out, like a sore thumb, in real-life scenarios.

“Silence can actually be most anxiety-provoking in conversation,” said Lickerman in an interview with Motherboard. “We are constantly reading each other’s verbal or nonverbal cues, and when people are silent, that is one of the most difficult cues to read.”

Silence invites speculation. And over the course of a video game, players can become conditioned to treat silence as something foreboding. As with Pavlov’s dogs, who were conditioned to salivate when they heard a bell ring, players retain emotional memories.

“The stimulus of silence, itself, is not necessarily disturbing,” said Dr. Mary Lamia, a psychologist and psychoanalyst, in an interview with Motherboard. “People who meditate, for example, are not disturbed by silence, and neither are parents who find relief in a quiet house when their children go off to school.”

Negative reactions are learned behavior, gotten through consistent reinforcement,

“People who play such video games are, in a sense, ‘playing’ with their emotions through self-stimulation,” said Lamia. “A sexual fantasy does the same thing; although the stimulus is not real, one’s brain responds as though the object of one’s interest is present.”

But starting with Resident Evil 4, the RE franchise became less about conserving bullets and sneaking about, and more about running and gunning. The games were less “survival horror” experiences and more traditional action/adventure shooters, in which your character fought hordes of infected or undead.

The sound design followed suit in its conventionality: music during action scenes, and silence when threats were neutralized. Critically speaking, this was not well-received. And plus, gamers were too savvy; the tropes, once fresh, had become too predictable.

“I imagine that as people play a horror game, they get used to it no matter what the stimulus is,” remarked Lamia. “Human beings adapt very quickly, and if we didn’t, we would die. To be scary, the stimulus would have to vary to the point where players could not habituate to it.”

Resident Evil 7, which comes out today for Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Steam, is a return to the survival horror that the franchise staked its name on. And with it, a non-traditional, more varied approach to sound is again evident.

Wataru Hachisako, the Audio Director for Resident Evil 7, placed tremendous emphasis on capturing the sounds of daily life—that ambient, background noise that is always occurring—which people get used to on a subconscious level.

Image: Capcom

“Some examples of audio found in daily life could be the subtle sound of electricity in the background, animal or city noises, greenery swaying in the wind, or even the sounds you yourself generate, such as the rustling of clothes or footsteps,” said Hachisako in an email interview with Motherboard. “Sounds such as these aren’t things you might always be conscious of, but they’re all there. By hearing these sounds, it allows someone to feel a sense of routine, comfort, and assurance.”

Image: Capcom

It’s good to establish this sense of daily life, to allow the player to grow accustomed to aspects of the game,” continued Hachisako. “It helps to deepen immersion and gives players a heightened sensitivity to anything that might break from this norm. This is a perfect opportunity to utilize silence, where you wipe away all the assurance and comfort that the user may have.”

Sometimes, instead of cutting all sounds, Hachisako and his team would unnaturally isolate a single one.

“The sound of a ticking clock late at night illustrates that sometimes focusing on a specific sound makes you realize that all other sounds are silent or absent from the picture,” said Hachisako. “By silencing everything else and focusing on a specific sound, we’re able to really heighten the sense of dread of the unknown.”

There’s an irony here—that unease can often spring from mundanity instead of the fantastical. And Resident Evil 7 focuses on and amplifies these smallest of noises—the creak of the floorboards, the intake of breath—to create a horrific, cumulative effect.

from The Scariest Thing in 'Resident Evil 7' Is the Silence

The Ergonomics Behind Pro Gaming Gear

Image: SteelSeries

Actions per minute, or APM, refers to a game player’s ability to execute multiple keystrokes and mouse clicks within 60 seconds. The average Starcraft II professional player can average 300 APM. And when a competitor’s fingers move that quickly, for hours on end, one risks stress and injury.

Enter specially designed gaming mice and gaming keyboards, which enhance players’ skills and reduce inevitable wear and tear. Hardware manufacturer SteelSeries, which specializes in gaming products, is a pioneer of its field.

“We are designing something for the very extreme,” said SteelSeries industrial lead designer Rasmus Madsen in an interview with Motherboard. “We’re not designing products for browsing the Internet. This is not something you’ll do for 45 minutes.”

“The buyer is looking for comfort over everything else,” said product category manager Jason Christian, also speaking with Motherboard. “After playing a game for six to eight hours, they want [a product] that won’t make their hand cramp up.”

To fully accommodate its diverse customers, SteelSeries cannot build a “catch-all” mouse.

“More and more, we define [the mouse] for the specific game,” Christian said.

For an FPS (first-person shooter), players wants to be as precise and quick as possible. And as a natural consequence of that, according to Madsen, players will hold their fingers closer together and also hold the mouse itself a bit tighter. SteelSeries must accommodate that tendency.

SteelSeries must consider the three main mouse grips. There’s the palm grip, the most common grip amongst average computer users, where the entire palm lays over the mouse. Although it is the most comfortable, it primarily engages the wrist and back of the hand, meaning that the fingers are less quick and precise.

Image: SteelSeries

There’s the claw grip, which creates six points of contact with the mouse—the back of the palm and the five fingers—creating an arch.

Image: SteelSeries

There’s the fingertips grip, which only engages the mouse with the five fingers. Both the claw and the fingertips grip emphasize increased finger dexterity, although they both are more fatiguing.

Image: SteelSeries

One of the most important components of development is the esports community, whose involvement is crucial to the success of any serious gaming hardware company. In a statement to Motherboard, Min-Liang Tan, Razer’s co-founder and CEO, said that esports is where Razer "proves its mettle."

“Esports has been and remains a testing ground for our products,” said Tan. “Visibility is a two-edged sword. If we deliver on power and performance, then that message is delivered to the people we serve. If we fail, the same delivery happens, but with a downside result. That’s why we have to aim for perfection and why we involve esports athletes in our engineering and design process. They are the front line for product validation and marketing.”

SteelSeries also partners with professional gamers, such as esports team Evil Geniuses, in order to ensure that they are reaching their intended consumers.

“We've worked closely with SteelSeries, giving feedback on early versions of products to make sure they are as good as they can be,” said Evil Genius team member Saahil "Universe" Arora in a statement to Motherboard. “Specifically, this last year we were provided and able to give feedback on prototypes of the Rival line, which ended up addressing improvements we wished to see in the final products."

This hands-on testing could last anywhere from a single session to several weeks, and SteelSeries gathers data both through observation and direct feedback.

After combining A) The genre of the game, with B) The players’ preferred grip, and C) The direct feedback of professional players, SteelSeries creates an ideally comfortable, effective mouse. Take, for example, the Rival 500 Mouse, which is specifically designed for MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) and MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) games.

"As an MMO player of 13 years who’s used countless 'MMO Mice,' I was a little skeptical of the Rival 500's capability to deliver,” admitted TwitchTV streamer Steven 'DocGotGame' Orama, one of SteelSeries’s brand partners who did early unit testing for the mouse, in a statement to Motherboard. “However, once I placed my hands on it, I knew that it would revolutionize the way MMOs are played.”

The Rival 500 has 15 strategically based buttons, including two ergonomic “flick down” buttons beneath the thumb, to accommodate the thumb’s side-to-side motion. It has a wide base that is suitable for a palm grip.

”The way the mouse follows the natural movement of my thumb makes response times quicker and makes playing MMO's a much more enjoyable experience overall," said Orama.

Image: SteelSeries

On the other hand, the seven-button Rival 700 Mouse has a sleeker, slimmer design, and it accommodates the hand tendencies of a player who might prefer a claw grip or fingertips grip. An FPS player, who does not need a 15-button mouse, would opt for something more streamlined and efficient.

A mouse’s sensitivity is measured in DPI (dots per inch); the higher a mouse’s DPI, the further the cursor will move in correspondence to the mouse’s movement. Madsen explains that professional players turn their DPI all the way down, from a maximum DPI of 16000 to 800 or even 400. This gives players more control, but it also means that their hand movements might drag the mouse way off center—even off the pad. It’s why SteelSeries installed side grips—rubber molded plastic— on their mice, so players can lift and recenter their mice more comfortably.

Image: SteelSeries

Lastly, a SteelSeries keyboard like the Apex M500 has Cherry switches that require 45 grams of force to actuate a keystroke. Other switches might require 60 to 80 grams of force. And over the course of years, tendon damage can accumulate from using a cheap keyboard or mouse.

The difference of having to use 10 more grams of force can be felt,” said Christian. “Over a couple of hours, you can feel the difference.”

Image: Cherry

Which raises the question: Are these gaming products exclusively, or would they be preferable to non-gamers as well? For instance, the precision on a gaming mouse is the same precision that graphic designers seek out in their products. And the programmable buttons, which are traditionally mapped to game functions, can be mapped to traditional office functions instead.

“A lot of IT people are gamers, and they may have to buy products for their company,” said Madsen. “And they’re going to [our gaming products], because they’re going to last a lot longer, and their performance is going to be a lot higher [than non-gaming products]."

“When you buy a gaming product,” said Madsen, “you know that you’re getting something that is extremely thought out. It’s more consistent. It has better tracking. It’s not going to fade, and it’s going to be ultra durable.”

“These are tools,” affirmed Christian. “Not toys.”

from The Ergonomics Behind Pro Gaming Gear

Examining the Lethality of the Booby Traps in ‘Home Alone’

Ouch! Image: Blu-ray.com

For a generation of Americans, the first two Home Alone movies are indispensable holiday classics. Starring Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, each of the films climaxes with an epic showdown pitting Kevin against The Wet Bandits: two bumbling oafs named Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern). It is hardly a fair match-up; Kevin devises an obstacle course of sadistic booby traps. The pair falls for every one of them, and despite their injuries, continue chasing Kevin. It’s a Warner Bros. animated short come to life.

In real life, however, what effect would these booby traps have on the human body? To find out, Motherboard interviewed Joseph O'Hare, an EMT who works in New York City. He rewatched the endings of both films and gave us his professional take.

The Blowtorch Booby Trap

Movie: Home Alone

Victim(s): Harry

Diagnosis: “He's looking at possible 2nd or 3rd degree burns. A burn of this nature has the potential to damage underneath the dermis and affect deeper tissue. One would expect to see deeply blackened skin with severe blistering or even some exposed bone in the area. Placing his head in the snow was a smart move, but depending on how badly he was affected, his body might've gone into shock before he had a chance to do that.”

Treatment: “The burn probably wouldn't kill him right away, but it has the potential to be fatal. I'd be worried about hypothermia, hypovolemia, and infection. I'd also take precautions to protect his airway, as he may have an inhalation issue with this sort of injury.”

The Paint Can Booby Trap

Movie: Home Alone

Victim(s): Harry and Marv

Diagnosis: “In real life, their faces would be destroyed. Teeth would be sent flying, their noses would be broken, and multiple fractures would probably occur from the impact and the resulting fall. The trauma could possibly create a "brain bleed," and a subsequent hemorrhagic stroke could lead to death.”

Treatment: “I would want to immobilize the cervical spine. I'd also be worried about suctioning out and securing their airways as there is a possibility of broken teeth getting lodged in there or fluids building up.”

The Bricks Booby Trap

Movie: Home Alone 2

Victim(s): Marv

Diagnosis: “Death. I would not expect a patient to survive this at all. We're looking at multiple skull fractures and I'd expect to see exposed brain matter all over the concrete, and that’s just from the first brick. Each consecutive brick to the same area of the skull would just compound the damage to the patient.

Treatment: “On the AVPU (Alert,Verbal, Pain, Unresponsive) scale that EMTs use to gauge responsiveness, he is not Alert, as evidenced by his response to Harry’s questions. He is currently at a Verbal level, though in real life, he would probably be Unresponsive and deceased.”

The Exploding Toilet Booby Trap

Movie: Home Alone 2

Victim(s): Harry

Diagnosis: “Another full thickness burn to the top of the scalp. This one is for a much longer period of time and is inside a building. He would present with much of the same signs and symptoms as the blowtorch burn he suffered in the previous movie with possible exposed bone and bubbly, blistering black skin. With the building going through an explosion, he would probably have full thickness burns throughout his whole body. It’s unsurvivable. Exposure to the IDLH (Immediate Death To Life Or Health) conditions inside the building would definitely kill him.”

Treatment: “Unlike the previous burn, there probably wouldn't be a suitable place left on his body to take a skin graft. His inhalation risk increases more than tenfold because he’s inside. He's breathing in multiple carcinogens and other hazardous materials. I'd be worried about my own scene safety in approaching this incident.”

from Examining the Lethality of the Booby Traps in ‘Home Alone’

The Science Behind The World’s Most Convincing Ghost Effect

Image: D23.com

Magic is defined by secrecy. A magician never performs the same trick twice and never reveals how he or she performed it. Even if audience members say they want to know how a trick was done, they may wish they hadn’t once they learn the solution.

Why? Because the solution is rarely as impressive or as clever as the effect. The classic woman levitation trick, for instance, is accomplished via forklift behind a stage curtain. No matter how ingenious, solutions demystify. Take, for example, David Copperfield’s famous “flying” illusion, which was Nielsen ratings gold back in the 90’s.

The solution was revealed as a series of fanned cables by creator John Gaughan, who filed a US Patent in 1993. On one hand, one can appreciate the technical know-how to create such a dynamic effect. But at the end of the day, it’s just a set of wires. David Copperfield is more Cathy Rigby in Peter Pan than Harry Houdini.

Image: US Patent & Trademark Office/Google

The Pepper’s Ghost illusion is different. The solution is nearly as wonderful as the trick itself. Halloween is an excellent time to discuss how, through the use of clever science, ghosts can walk among us.

The most famous example of Pepper’s Ghost debuted at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion in 1969. Midway through the ride, an entire ballroom of see-through ghosts dances to off-kilter organ music. Another set of ghosts disappears and reappears at a dining room table, where a birthday party is being held. And above them all, two paintings come to life, depicting an eternal duel in progress.

When the ride opened, this special effect confounded all who saw it—even magicians, who should have known better, were fooled. But despite this, it wasn’t a technological innovation. The core principles behind this illusion were conceived centuries ago; John Baptista de Porta first wrote about this phenomenon in his work Natural Magic in 1584:

“Let there be a chamber whereinto no other light cometh unless by the door or window where the spectator looks in; let the whole window or part of it be of glass, as we used so to do to keep out the cold; but let one part be polished, that there may be a looking-glass on both sides, whence the spectator must look in; for the rest do nothing. Let pictures be set over against this window, marble statues and such like; for what is without will seem within, and what is behind the spectator's back he will think to be in the middle of the house, as far from the glass inward, as they stand from it outwardly, and clearly and certainly that he would think he sees nothing but truth. But lest the skill should be known, let the part be made so where the ornament is, that the spectator may not see it…”

In plain English, that translates as follows: a piece of glass is placed at an angle between the spectator and a room. That angled glass reflects a second room offstage, so that when the audience looks at the first room, he sees a composite image; the room in front of him and a reflection of the second room offstage. If the mirror is lined up properly, the composition is seamless. Below are visual diagrams that depict the illusion under controlled conditions. The Red Square represents the audience member’s window of vision, and the Green Square represents the sheet of glass. In the first image, the offstage room is darkened. Nothing is being reflected by the glass, and so, we see no ghost.

Image: Wikipedia

This next image shows what happens when the offstage room is lit. Now, the mirror catches the reflection, and creates a convincing composite.

Image: Wikipedia

This illusion was re-discovered in the mid-1800’s by British scientists Henry Dircks and John Pepper; the former invented it, and the latter popularized the effect by making it easy to perform on a theater stage. Below, you can see an artist’s rendition from Recreative Science, a science journal from the early 1860’s. Imagine seeing Jacob Marley or Hamlet’s father’s ghost in a Victorian theater, and being enthralled.

Image: Instructables.com

The Disney Creative team members used Pepper’s technique on a much grander scale. They installed massive sheets of glass to reflect two sets of animatronic ghosts. The first set was installed directly above the audience’s heads.

Image: ImagineeringDisney.com

And the second set of ghosts was installed directly beneath the audience’s feet. Notice how in both photos, everything besides the ghosts is painted black. This ensures that the glass will only reflect the ghosts and not the machinery moving them around.

Image: LongForgottenHauntedMansion

Today, Pepper’s Ghost is used to create entirely different types of ghosts—digital “holograms” of dead musicians, who perform onstage next to live musicians. Digital Domain recreated the late Tupac Shakur at Coachella stage in 2012, first by projecting a high resolution image onto a sheet of glass, and then by reflecting that image onto a mylar screen. The late Michael Jackson made an appearance at the Billboard Awards in 2014 by similar means. Pulse Evolution used six high powered projectors to canvas the stage, giving virtual MJ free range to perform his signature dance moves.

This raises all sorts of ethical questions and opens the door to a bizarre cottage industry. How about a digital John Lennon? Or a digital Kurt Cobain? Or a digital Elvis Presley, embarking on a brand new global tour? Pepper’s Ghost may one day live up to its namesake, ensuring that long dead people live and perform, whether they want to or not, into perpetuity.

from The Science Behind The World’s Most Convincing Ghost Effect

Here’s How An Old School Arcade Survives in the 21st Century

Image: Richie Knucklez / Facebook

The first thing one notices about native New Jerseyan Richie Knucklez (née Vavrence) is his intensity. He half-speaks, half-shouts when he gets excited; he jumps from anecdote to anecdote, eager to resolve each of the stories he started telling. He has a raw, crackling energy, the type reserved for revival halls and homecoming tailgate parties.

In other words, Knucklez is the exact type of person who would be running a successful video arcade business in 2016. One has to dream big and think big to pursue such an unlikely venture. Only all-consuming enthusiasm could will such a thing towards sustainment, let alone profitability.

Image: Richie Knucklez / Facebook

Knucklez’s passion for arcade games started when he was young; he still remembers when the first arcade machines arrived at the Strike & Spare bowling alley in Greenbrook, NJ. It was 1979, and Knucklez was 11 years old at the time. He watched with curiosity as the workers unpacked Space Invaders, Atari Football, and Monaco GP.

“The guy who owned the bowling alley let me come over and help uncrate them,” Knucklez recalls. “My whole world changed. Within a month, I got the world record on Monaco GP, and I was able to play Space Invaders ‘unlimited.’ One quarter, and I never had to stop.”

Today, Knucklez owns a video arcade business that is multi-faceted. On one hand, he rebuilds old arcade games and arcade cabinets, using restorative skills his grandfather taught him. Knucklez travels the country, searching through warehouses for busted, dusty machines. He buys them with cash and takes them home, where he replaces fuses and rewires hardware. He cleans the machines and sands their cabinets down to their plywood before repainting them with accurate stencils. He might even replace springs and screws to ensure that the joysticks have proper give; he rebuilds arcade machines not just for looks, but for the durability and wear that they were designed to endure.

By the time Knucklez is finished, the arcade machines look like they came off the assembly line in 1978. He can then resell them for a higher price to video arcades, collectors, or nostalgic individuals, who want their favorite childhood machine in their homes.

Knucklez also runs Richie Knucklez Arcade Games, a storefront video arcade in Flemington, New Jersey. Right now, it’s only open on weekends, for birthdays, and for other big social functions, but Knucklez asserts, with no small degree of pride, that the arcade is financially successful.

This is easier said than done. One cannot simply stick a cluster of machines in a room, turn on the juice, and expect money to roll in. That lazy mentality and lack of creativity is what killed the arcade business to begin with.

In the late 80’s and 90’s, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Genesis, the Super Nintendo, and a slew of lesser consoles flooded the home market. Knucklez recalls that the earlier Atari 2600 actually boosted interest in the arcades. But the following generation of consoles had graphics that were better than or comparable to arcade graphics. Arcades became oversaturated; Space Invaders begat a clone of Space Invaders which begat an even more inferior clone of that clone. And players realized they would much rather own a game and play it in the comfort of their homes than “pay to play” at a strange location.

Image: Richie Knucklez / Facebook

How does one compete with that, especially in today’s era of purported 4K resolution? The trick, according to Knucklez, is to reinvent the classic arcade as something of exclusive quality. And that starts with the machines—there are no broken down, peeling cabinets at Richie Knucklez Arcade Games. There are no half-dead screens, or wonky joysticks that don’t turn properly. Thanks to Knucklez’s rehabilitative work, these machines play like they’re new.

“Nobody wants to drive hours to an arcade where the controls suck,” says Knucklez. “Instead of going for quantity, I go for quality. When you get here, you get the full experience.”

Knucklez gives his arcade an intimacy that many of his patrons equate with home. He compares his business approach to Cheers; he wants to know everyone’s name, and he wants to have a basic familiarity with his regulars’ favorite games. He takes his hosting duties to extremes; if he finds out that a patron loved a specific game from his youth, he’ll try to track it down and have it in the arcade the following week.

Image: Richie Knucklez / Facebook

Knucklez also makes money by embracing the one strength that arcades will always have over home consoles: the opportunity to play in public, “show off” for a live crowd, and be applauded for one’s ability.

“[When consoles became popular], that’s when video games weren’t cool anymore to me,” Knucklez says. “Girls in my hometown didn’t date guys who stayed at home and played video games. It was more of an anti-social activity by that point. I try to give arcade games a good face and show that they are social.”

It’s this love of attention, of being on stage, that is key to Knucklez’s mindset. It drove him to be great at arcade games (he still holds the world records in both Monaco GP and Space Invaders). And now, it drives him to organize and host some of the most visible, successful video game competitions in the United States—most notably, the annual Kong Offs, where the greatest Donkey Kong players in the world compete against one another. It was Knucklez’s idea and conception, and five years ago, the very first Kong Off was held at Richie Knucklez Arcade Games in Flemington.

Since then, there have been four more Kong Offs; Kong Off 5 took place at ReplayFX in Pittsburgh this past July. It was the most streamed Kong Off in the history of the event, and it’s likely that next year’s Kong Off 6 will bring the competition full circle—right back to Richie Knucklez Arcade Games, where it all started. And now, he has financial support; the Philadelphia 76ers will be sponsoring all of his future events.

Nostalgia is a powerful feeling, and Knucklez believes there is something timeless and irreplaceable about the classics; they will never die, and there will always be a market for them.

“The games were better [back then],” Knucklez says. “The developers had to rely on creativity and the ‘fun’ aspect; they couldn’t lean on accelerated graphics. They couldn’t lean on the wow factor of what it looked like. They had to make the game fun with the shit that they were handed.”

“Classic arcade games are fun from the first time you pick them up,” Knucklez continues. “You don’t have to read a manual to figure out how to play them. You can drop a quarter in, and after you spend about a dollar, you know what you’re doing. Sometimes, less is more.”

“I heard this straight from the mouth of Warren Davis (creator of Q*Bert),” Knucklez recalls. “He said he wanted to make a game that was just one control: the joystick. And in the other hand, you hold a beer or a cigarette.”

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from Here’s How An Old School Arcade Survives in the 21st Century

How ‘WWE 2K17’ Fixes the Series’ Longstanding Animation Awkwardness

Brock Lesnar is on the cover of WWE 2K17. Image: 2K Sports

On August 19, the Friday before SummerSlam, 2K Games gave Motherboard an exclusive peek at WWE 2K17. This latest, annual installment comes out on October 11, a little under a year after the release of WWE 2K16.

2K is hyping the more obvious additions—the ones that are easily expressed as bullet points in marketing materials. There are new faces such as Sasha Banks, the charismatic “Boss” of women’s wrestling on Monday Night Raw. There’s Shinsuke Nakamura, the “King of Strong Style” and the newly crowned NXT Champion. There’s the returning, much-demanded Backstage Brawl mode that allows you to fight behind the curtain. There’s a deeper, improved reversal system. There’s a “Promo Engine,” that lets you personalize your trash talk.

The visuals have improved. Randy Orton’s lip curls with the right amount of disdain. But it’s one thing to make Orton (below) look like himself in screenshots and promotional stills. It’s quite another thing to make him wrestle and move like Orton, in a way that feels natural and unrehearsed.

Randy Orton, looking mighty proud of himself. Image: 2K Sports

The sheer labor that goes into programming a wrestler’s natural movement is incalculable. Say, for instance, that you, the attacking wrestler, is standing. The opponent is lying on the mat, face-up. Depending on where you are in relation to the opponent—near his head, near his left arm, near his right leg—you’re going to interact with him differently, and each scenario requires its own animation. If the opponent is lying face down, that’s another set of animations.

Then, throw in mitigating factors like height differences, strength differences, and weight differences between the two wrestlers. And lastly, account for the length of the match itself; a person moves differently when he’s tired than when he’s fresh. It’s less a question of ‘how’ to do it—the technology is definitely there—and more a question of ‘how long’ it will take to do it. It’s a voluminous chore with slow, incremental benefits from one game to the next.

“Our game has thousands of moves in it, so it takes us years to go through the entire move library and update,” WWE 2K17 Executive Producer Mark Little told Motherboard. “This year, we shot another couple thousand animations for the game. It’s going to be a continual process.”

Years ago, WWE games would have dodged these complications by creating pre-rendered, catch all sequences. If you wanted to perform the People’s Elbow, you’d press a button, and no matter where The Rock and his opponent were, they would miraculously relocate to the center of the ring.

Little, who is receptive to fan feedback, seeks to eliminate those sort of immersion-breaking shortcuts.

“A lot of what we have done this year for WWE 2K17 is to smooth out the flow for transitions—where one move stops, another move begins, and how to get between them,” says Little. “If they’re not shot well, moves will start in one spot and end in a different spot.”

2K markets its sports titles not as “video games,” but as “simulators.” In keeping with this philosophy, 2K built an authentic WWE ring in their studio. Then, they got real professional wrestlers to suit up and perform the various holds, throws, and strikes against one another. In past iterations, they’ve invited WWE Superstars like Cesaro and Finn Balor to perform their signature stunts.

“[For WWE 2K17], while we didn’t have the opportunity to work with active WWE Superstars because of their crazy schedules, we did have the opportunity to work with a number of the very best talents in the industry,” Little says. “Many of these guys were actually featured in the WWE Cruiserweight Classic, so we hope to one day see them in NXT or on the main roster.”

Little is hesitant to name the specific wrestlers who do the motion capture, lest it breaks the immersion and fans’ suspension of disbelief. But he singles out former WWE Superstar Mike “Mikey” Mondo for praise. Mondo, who was a former member of the infamous Spirit Squad stable, stands at 5’6. Thus, Mondo performed the motion capture for a lot of the smaller wrestlers on WWE’s roster.

In the time I got to preview and play WWE 2K17, the new animations did not immediately stand out to me. Rather, they had an imperceptible, cumulative effect; I left the booth with an overall impression that things looked and moved more smoothly. The wrestlers also moved a bit slower; this was far removed from the button mashing, frenetic, "pick up and play" style. This was sports entertainment at a more thoughtful, deliberate pace. Strategy over flash. Realism over fantasy. It all fits perfectly into WWE’s “New Era," which is less about the crazy gimmicks and more about the matches themselves, which must look real and competitive.

Natural motion is flawed motion; wrestlers bend their knees when they’re lifting someone. They buckle when positioning their opponent on their shoulders. Accounting for every scenario is an endless, intimidating task. But 2K Games is doing what it can to animate as many of them as possible. Because it’s these small touches—these minor, incidental subtleties—that make a simulation seamless and challenge our perception of real.

from How ‘WWE 2K17’ Fixes the Series’ Longstanding Animation Awkwardness