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They Create Worlds

They Create Worlds

By: Alex Smith and Jeffrey Daum
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Love of the worlds created by video game designers and personalities drives Alex Smith & Jeffrey Daum (history, law, CS degrees) to provide a scholarly yet light-hearted discussion of how arcade, home console, and PC games merged into a Video Game Industry. Emphasis is on the combination of business and creative elements needed for financial success. Interviews of Atari, EA, Activision, & other execs with detailed source evaluations produce the insights you hear in these 240+ hours!

Copyright 2015-2026 . All rights reserved. World
Episodes
  • The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind

    The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind
    Apr 1 2026

    TCW Podcast Episode 255 - The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind

    After Arena and Daggerfall's triumphs, Julian LeFay's Battlespire spinoff marked his last hand in the Elder Scrolls universe. Amid conflicts while working on other projects, LeFay left. Ted Peterson had already departed after Daggerfall. This left Bethesda Softworks with none of the original creators for the next Elder Scrolls. Development stalled amid Bethesda turmoil, spawning Redguard which introduced the Pocket Guide to the Empire, an unreliable in-universe narrator that sowed mystery and deep worldbuilding for Tamriel's forged empire. New lead Todd Howard ditched procedural generation for handcrafted openness where everything interacted. Morrowind featured quests like the falling wizard and pantsless Hentus, hiding logical lore amid hundreds of books blending mythology, humor, and misdirection. Morrowind launched on PC and Xbox at a dire hour for Bethesda. It's make-or-break success rescued the studio from probable collapse in a dark time.

    The Elder Scrolls Legend - Battlespire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk9uKElPCJQ

    Pensacola Wings of Gold (S1E1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDVuiLIKLAE

    The Elder Scrolls Adventures - Redguard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7-Hup8Pqms

    The Terminator - Skynet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD4ZLkbnDCA

    Pocket Guide to the Empire (1st Edition): https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1393284074508.pdf RCW 144 - Ascension into the Black Gate: https://www.theycreateworlds.com/episodes/TCW144

    The-Spolier.com: https://the-spoiler.com/RPG/New.World.Computing/Might..magic.6.html Might & Magic VI - Solution by J Pike: https://rpggamers.com/walkthrough/might-magic-vi-mandate-of-heaven Might & Magic VI - Solution by Mike Marcelais: https://rpggamers.com/walkthrough/might-and-magic-vi-solution

    Morrowind - A Falling Wizard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWVKMMxCgY4

    Morrowind - Hentus Needs Pants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSSv1mcI_GM

    The Elder Scrolls - Morrowind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVFyDmd9RsA Morrowind Map: https://en.uesp.net/maps/mwmap/mwmap.html

    New episodes are on the 1st and 15th of every month!

    TCW Email: feedback@theycreateworlds.com

    BlueSky: @theycreateworlds.bsky.social

    Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theycreateworlds

    Alex's Video Game History Blog: http://videogamehistorian.wordpress.com

    Alex's book: http://bit.ly/TCWBOOK1

    Intro Music: Josh Woodward - Airplane Mode - Music - "Airplane Mode" by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/song/AirplaneMode

    Outro Music: RoleMusic - Bacterial Love: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Rolemusic/Pop_Singles_Compilation_2014/01_rolemusic_-_bacterial_love

    Copyright: Attribution: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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    1 hr and 18 mins
  • The Elder Scrolls: Arena & Daggerfall

    The Elder Scrolls: Arena & Daggerfall
    Mar 15 2026
    TCW Podcast Episode 254 - The Elder Scrolls: Arena & Daggerfall Bethesda Softworks, founded in 1985 by Christopher Weaver with sports titles like Gridiron and Wayne Gretzky Hockey along with licenses like The Terminator, pivoted to RPGs. Demo scene legend Julian LeFay hired Vijay Lakshman as designer and buffer to management so LeFay could focus on games. Together they birthed The Elder Scrolls: Arena, a gladiator combat simulator that morphed, nine months into a 13-month development cycle, into a first-person 3D epic inspired by Ultima Underworld. Arena evolved from a combat management game to a full RPG with a procedurally generated world, unique races like Argonians and Khajiit, and a plot to topple the wizard Tharn. With the second game, LeFay, challenged by Sandy Petersen's claim that CRPGs could never match tabletop RPGs, made Daggerfall a massive world the size of Great Britain: 15,000 cities, towns, and dungeons; 44 regions; 100 factions; skill leveling based on what players actually did; and reputation grinds to unlock quests and plot. Ted Peterson, who took over lead design after Lakshman left, wove a complex plot with gray themes, diverse motivations, and moral quandaries into a simulator packed with layered systems rather than pure RPG simplicity. It sold out the initial run, hit 700,000 units, and became Bethesda's best game yet, bringing fresh air to a fallow RPG era! TCW 156 - Madden for Some Football: https://www.theycreateworlds.com/episodes/TCW156 Gridiron (Amiga): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0q7sc_T3FU Wayne Gretzky Hockey (NES): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Apj9IRcpQ Tell Me Your Name (Russia Heat): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYpcZ2NfMYU (Explicit) Sodan & Magician 42 - TechTech (Amiga): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB5CujcTN8A Terminator 2029 (PC/DOS): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-PBi-N1hQo Flesh+Blood (Trailer): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVyLe-k16gw Jason And The Argonauts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq4requMqvY Khajit/Khajiit Has Wares: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/khajiit-khajiit-has-wares Ultima Underworld: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee4PUcpGSn8 The Elder Scrolls: Arena (Box Art): https://bigboxcollection.com/TESArena.3DBox The Elder Scrolls: Arena: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjEn6ETA7EM What Do You Do With a B.A. in English? (Avenue Q): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYenQEjvlD0 Walk Across the Entire Map in Dragonfall Unity (Timelapse 512x): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xTvdK88cww The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpX5y6jiafg New episodes are on the 1st and 15th of every month! TCW Email: feedback@theycreateworlds.com BlueSky: @theycreateworlds.bsky.social Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theycreateworlds Alex's Video Game History Blog: http://videogamehistorian.wordpress.com Alex's book: http://bit.ly/TCWBOOK1 Intro Music: Josh Woodward - Airplane Mode - Music - "Airplane Mode" by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/song/AirplaneMode Outro Music: RoleMusic - Bacterial Love: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Rolemusic/Pop_Singles_Compilation_2014/01_rolemusic_-_bacterial_love Copyright: Attribution: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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    1 hr and 16 mins
  • Masanobu Endō

    Masanobu Endō
    Mar 1 2026
    TCW Podcast Episode 253 - Masanobu Endō Masanobu Endō is one of Japan's most important game designers, yet remains relatively unknown in the West. Starting from an uncertain role at Namco, he first made his mark by turning Dig Dug play notes into an official strategy booklet, then shifted into programming work where he learned from Namco's maze games, including Pac-Man. Assigned as a programmer on Xevious, he stepped into the lead role when the original planner left, pushing for a coherent world where every enemy and structure had a purpose in a larger mythology. The secrets, patterns, and hidden elements he built into Xevious encouraged dedicated players to map routes, chase glitches, and hunt for new techniques in a way that feels very similar to how modern communities approach speedrunning and score optimization today. Endō then expanded these ideas in The Tower of Druaga, fusing Dungeons and Dragons style dungeon crawling with Babylonian and Sumerian myth, cryptic treasure requirements, and a real ending instead of an endless loop. The result helped shape how Japanese designers approached action adventure, including early thinking around what would become "The Legend of Zelda." A Super Basic Summary of Gundam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16tDMkmZKiA Blockade (Gremlin 1976): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUacA8Dj3BY Atari Football (Atari Arcade): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_ZOtqMWHoU Battlezone (Atari Arcade): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdfKy4c7yuc TCW 029 - 50 Years of Namco: https://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/e/50-years-of-namco/ TCW 116 - The Atari Games You Are Looking For: https://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/e/the-atari-games-you-are-looking-for/ Dig Dug (Atari): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8ZD7VCiBes Pole Position (Atari/Namco): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeYZGtwydIA Learn Assembly in 10 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S5KRJv-7RU Scramble (Arcade): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p08J-AK-BE Galga (Stupidly Explained): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pE2SbPgzd0 Space Runaway Ideon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYI251fFCAY The Nazca Lines (SciShow): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EILw-mKefew The Nazca Lines Part 1 (Astonishing Legends): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYIUJuFj9h8 The Nazca Lines Part 2 (Astonishing Legends): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F9UMJcSCRg Xevious (Arcade): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stjrz3CM8R4 Haruomi Hosono - Video Game Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO7qAggk6-I&list=PL4NXUZspQ7Bxi8nsNylZBWBK392FgMlAT Xevious (Famicom): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_bS_SAzknk Dungeons & Dragons ET: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hJdhL1Ni_w Pac Man Ghosts: https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/1136hi/pac_man_post_from_rgaming_i_thought_it_belonged/ Tower of Druaga (Arcade): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCCGIP4SifE New episodes are on the 1st and 15th of every month! TCW Email: feedback@theycreateworlds.com Twitter: @tcwpodcast Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theycreateworlds Alex's Video Game History Blog: http://videogamehistorian.wordpress.com Alex's book, published Dec 2019, is available at CRC Press and at major on-line retailers: http://bit.ly/TCWBOOK1 Intro Music: Josh Woodward - Airplane Mode - Music - "Airplane Mode" by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/song/AirplaneMode Outro Music: RoleMusic - Bacterial Love: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Rolemusic/Pop_Singles_Compilation_2014/01_rolemusic_-_bacterial_love Copyright: Attribution: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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    1 hr and 18 mins
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