Topic: Trip Hawkins Named to AIAS Hall of Fame

[Jonnyboy117]

Founder of Electronic Arts gets his spot in history.

TRIP HAWKINS TO BE INDUCTED INTO THE ACADEMY OF INTERACTIVE ARTS & SCIENCES (AIAS) HALL OF FAME

Video Game Legend to Receive the Academy's Most Prestigious Honor at the 8th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards on February 1

CALABASAS, Calif. (Jan. 31, 2005) ­ The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), the professional organization dedicated to the advancement and recognition of interactive arts, announced today that Trip Hawkins will be awarded the AIAS Hall of Fame Award, joining an elite group of interactive entertainment industry legends. Hawkins will be given the award at the 8th Annual Interactive Achievements Awards ceremony, being held at the Green Valley Ranch Resort in Las Vegas on February 1, the second evening of the 2005 D.I.C.E. Summit.

"Trip Hawkins is one of the interactive entertainment industry¹s true pioneers, with credentials that are unparalleled," said Joseph Olin, President of the AIAS.  "Trip¹s belief that the video game industry would achieve the status as a mass entertainment medium spans three decades. From the earliest hardware platforms to today¹s mobile technology, Trip continues to create and innovate with all of us the benefactors of his efforts."

One of the most difficult decisions the Academy's Board of Directors faces each year is choosing an inductee into the AIAS Hall of Fame. The Board looks for a person that has made a significant impact or contribution to the industry, such as pioneering a new game genre; changing the face of the art form through new technology; influencing other designers and products; demonstrating the highest level of creativity and innovation; and consistent product success at a level that helps expand the industry.  Trip Hawkins has accomplished all of those things and much more.

"It is an incredible honor to be recognized by my distinguished peers in the industry," said Trip Hawkins.  "It is a great privilege to join the industry¹s greatest luminaries and be one of few to be named an AIAS Hall of Fame inductee.  I love this industry and am not finished pushing its boundaries."

From the moment Hawkins laid his eyes on the first computer in 1972, he knew he wanted to make video games.  He began programming his first games while at Harvard, where he graduated magna cum laude with a degree in strategy and applied game theory.  His first game was a 1973 football simulation, which foreshadowed the video game empire that would become known to the world as "Madden" and "EA Sports."  Hawkins earned his MBA at Stanford, and in 1978 went to work for Apple.  Hawkins helped grow the company from $2 million in revenues and 50 employees to $1 billion and over 4,000 employees, in just 4 years.

After leaving Apple in 1982, Hawkins regained his focus on video games and incorporated Electronic Arts later that year. The 1980s were tough, due to the demise of the original Atari, but Hawkins pushed forward.  After developing some of the industry¹s earliest sports games, Hawkins moved onto a favorite sport, football, and brought legendary football coach, John Madden into the picture -- and the rest has made history.

In the 1990s, Hawkins left EA and formed 3DO with the goal of advancing the video game industry through 3D graphics, multimedia capabilities, optical disc mass storage and liberal licensing models.  While at 3DO, Hawkins set his eyes on the Internet and launched what many industry pundits consider the first massively multiplayer game with graphics, Meridian 59.

The dawn of the new millennium spawned Hawkins' current endeavor, a company called Digital Chocolate. Targeting the burgeoning mobile games industry, Hawkins newest business has already reaped some recent successes in the growing new world of casual games like Bubble Ducky.

Previous winners of the AIAS Hall of Fame award include 2004¹s winner Peter Molyneux of Lionhead Studios (Black & White); 2003's winner Yu Suzuki of SEGA® Corporation (AFTERBURNER, F355 Challenge, Shenmue series, Virtua Fighter 4); 2002's winner Will Wright of Maxis (SimCity, The Sims, The Sims Online); 2001's winner John Carmack (DOOM, Quake); 2000's winner Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy); 1999's winner Sid Meier (Civilization, Railroad Tycoon); and 1998's winner Shigeru Miyamoto (Pikmin, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda, Mario).

The 2005 D.I.C.E. Summit (Design, Innovate, Communicate and Entertain), is a high-level interactive entertainment industry conference that brings together the top video game designers and developers from around the world and business leaders from all the major publishers to discuss the state of the industry, its trends and the future. The three-day event will be held January 31 ­ February 2, 2005 at Green Valley Ranch Resort in Las Vegas, NV. More information on the 2005 D.I.C.E. Summit can be found at  www.DICESummit.org.

[Ian Sane]

Hooray!  The guy who ruined gaming forever is in the hall of fame!

All the other hall of famers are legitimate gaming artists.  Trip Hawkins is a business man.  He's innovated in corporate ways but in terms of gaming as an art form he has ultimately contributed nothing.  He's just made gaming more of a product.  True game artists now have to struggle to survive because of him.

He's an important figure in gaming history sure but I don't think that's enough.  A person should be honoured if their contribution is positive.  If this was a business hall of fame then he's a worthy choice but this shouldn't be just about who brings in the dough.  No game developer with any sort of real talent has been influenced by Trip Hawkins.

This hall of fame should be about game design talent not creative marketing.

[KnowsNothing]

Hitler is in the Influential Leaders Hall of Fame, boourns.

[mantidor]

I think most of us can agree this is just... wrong

[JB]

The guy that founded the company that gave us Army Men inducted into a gaming hall of fame? Forget that he founded EA, founding 3D0 is much worse!

[ruby_onix]

Apparently he was a pretty big figure in the early days of videogames in America. In some circles, that apparently seems to mean that the entire time/space continuum owes it's existence to him. I dunno. I should think that there would be quite a number of legendary people from the golden days of videogames that were more important than him.

Supposedly when Sega came out with the Genesis, Trip saw that he had a few options open to him, and could afford to burn some bridges, so he bluffed Sega, claiming he had figured out how to break their copy protection system (which he hadn't), and used that bluff to negotiate an abnormally profitable deal with Sega, which pretty much put EA into the position of being the biggest name in sports games.

After leaving EA, he made a lot of speeches about what he thought videogames should become, but nobody seemed to be following his advice (some things did eventually happen, like CDs, but they can't just be attributed to him). He put his money where his mouth was and formed 3DO, but his philosophies didn't seem to do him much good in selling a console.

Then he became a publisher of generic games. (Just to ward off some potential hate mail from Trip himself, I'll point out that I can't even make generic games.)

If the 3DO hadn't bombed, I could see him being a "visionary", and well-deserving of the award, but as-is he's just a name from the old days who remained passionate about videogames. And you don't win points for enthusiasm. Meaning they should've given the award to a more important legend.

That's not to say that Trip doesn't deserve an award (although some people seem to say he's a jerk, but I wouldn't really know), but at this one-per-year pace they're going through, he doesn't deserve this award.

What they really should do is establish this Hall of Fame. Put in everybody who is deserving of recognition, as fast as they can reasonably think of someone who deserves it. Don't try and "rank" people. Just put them in, and explain who they are. Then nobody will care about the order in which they were mentioned. And when they decide to add a new member, once everybody's in, it'll be all the more memorable.

But, what's done is done. None of us run the Academy.

Yay for Trip. Congrats.


Edit: Hitler made the VW Bug.

[KDR_11k]

(Just to ward off some potential hate mail from Trip himself, I'll point out that I can't even make generic games.)

Ah, you're referring to that threat he sent to ome publications after they gave a bad game of his a bad review?

[ruby_onix]

Yep. I had just read a copy of it on the Gaming Age forums.

[KnowsNothing]

Quote
Edit: Hitler made the VW Bug.

I'm not sure how that's relevant =P I was trying to point out that "the face of evi"l was actually a very influential leader and he did more than just kill off a crap load of people.  Unfortunatley, he did.  And that's why we all hate him.  It was a kinda sorta analogy >_>

[NWR_Lindy]

The problem with Trip being inducted into this particular Hall of Fame is that he hasn't really had an impact for about 20 years.  He does his thing with Digital Chocolate (which I never would have even heard of if not for this press release), but he hasn't done anything to shape the industry since he left Electronic Arts (and I'd even say that Larry Probst was the one that really took EA to the next level).  Look at the other people in this Hall of Fame:

Peter Molyneux
Yu Suzuki
Will Wright
John Carmack
Hironobu Sakaguchi
Sid Meier
Shigeru Miyamoto

All of these are HUGE names that are still relevant within the industry, who conceivably have their best work ahead of them.  They're still shaping the industry right now, not 20 years ago.  Trip is a great businessman but he's simply not a runaway creative force like everybody else on the list.  The AIAS deserves to get heat for this nomination.

silks

[Infernal Monkey]

I hear the 3DO was a very popular system with thousands of top quality games. Army Men is also an excellent series, I wish they made some more sequels, four hundred isn't enough. Portal Runner on PS2? Best game ever.

GOOOOOO PLANET! Er.. TRIP!