About this episode

Larry Kuperman discusses the business side of classic games and the importance of game preservation.

This week, we’re joined by Larry Kuperman, former VP of Business Development at Nightdive Studios, former Business Development Manager at GameStop, Stardock veteran, and co-founder of the IGDA Ann Arbor Chapter. Larry shares incredible stories from the business side of games, from discovering Wolfenstein 3D on a mighty 486, selling custom PCs in the ’90s, and Stardock’s early digital distribution gamble, to GameStop’s attempt to compete with Steam and Nightdive’s mission to bring classics like Turok, System Shock, Star Wars: Dark Forces and more back to life. We also dig into DRM, lost source code, game preservation, and why classic games are art worth saving. Contents: 00:00 – The Week’s Retro News Stories 49:20 – Larry Kuperman Interview Please visit our amazing sponsors and help to support the show: Bitmap Books – https://www.bitmapbooks.com Go to https://surfshark.com/retrohour or use code RETROHOUR at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN! Nottingham Gaming Market: https://www.nottinghamgamingmarket.com/ Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com for all your PCB needs We need your help to ensure the future of the podcast, if you’d like to help us with running costs…

People in this episode

Guest: Larry Kuperman

Topics covered

• game preservation
• business of gaming
• digital distribution
• classic games
• DRM
• game development

Keywords

• Nightdive
• Stardock
• GameStop
• classic games
• game preservation
• digital distribution
• DRM
• Wolfenstein 3D

Sponsors

Bitmap Books, Surfshark, Nottingham Gaming Market, PCBWay

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Nightdive Studios, GameStop, Stardock, IGDA Ann Arbor Chapter

Books & works: Wolfenstein 3D, Turok, System Shock, Star Wars: Dark Forces

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