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About This Podcast
The games we love reveal something true about who we are, and about the world that made them. They Create Worlds is a podcast about the people, technology, and forces that built the video game industry.
Through video game history, the show looks at how culture, business, and technology shaped what we play, tracing the choices and circumstances that led to the games so many people around the world enjoy.
Each episode digs into where games came from, who made them, and why they were made the way they were. Business decisions, technological shifts, and creative choices all shaped what ended up on screen, and the show covers all of it together, not just one piece in isolation.
Hosted by Alex Smith and Jeffrey Daum, They Create Worlds grew out of long conversations about the strange corners of the industry and the patterns that only show up when you look across companies, platforms, and decades. That conversational feel remains, built on careful research, clear structure and editing that makes even the deepest topics easy to listen to.
History turns out to be less settled than it looks. New documents surface, memories conflict, and the clean stories about why things happened the way they did rarely survive contact with the evidence. The show digs into all of that, following the creative and business forces that pushed and pulled on each other, and uncovering the human stories that lie beneath the games so many people around the world enjoy.
New episodes are released twice a month.
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Recent Episodes
Nine Atari Games
TCW Podcast Episode 257 - Nine Atari Games The Atari VCS launched with nine games to entice consumers into the new gaming medium, and Combat set the trend of packing multiple "games" into a single…
Cinemaware
TCW Podcast Episode 256 - Cinemaware Bob Jacob launched Cinemaware to fuse movies and video games on Amiga, hiring journalist Kellyn Beeck to design Defender of the Crown's medieval themes.…
The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind
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…
The Elder Scrolls: Arena & Daggerfall
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…
Masanobu Endō
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…
A Guitar Hero
TCW Podcast Episode 252 - A Guitar Hero The rise and fall of the Guitar Hero franchise and the rhythm game craze of the mid to late 2000s. Red Octane got its start making Dance Dance Revolution…
Virgin Games
TCW Podcast Episode 251 - Virgin Games As a companion piece to our Mastertronic episode, we look at the rise and fall of Virgin Games. Beginning with Richard Branson’s mail-order record business…
Mastertronic
TCW Podcast Episode 250 - Mastertronic From budget software publisher to the gateway for SEGA’s entry into Europe, we look at the rise and fall of Mastertronic. Initially shunned by high street…
New World Computing
TCW Podcast Episode 249 - New World Computing We look at the rise and fall of New World Computing through the career of Jon Van Caneghem. Coming from the era of the lone programmer as the industry…
An Act of Control
TCW Podcast Episode 248 - An Act of Control We look at Japan’s Act on Control and Improvement of Amusement Business and its impact on the arcade industry in Japan. In the late 1970s and early…
The History of Commodore Pt 4
TCW Podcast Episode 247 - The History of Commodore Pt 4 The final chapter of our Commodore series covers the company’s chaotic decline. After early success with the Amiga line, internal conflict…
The History of Commodore Pt 3
TCW Podcast Episode 246 - The History of Commodore Pt 3 After Jack Tramiel left Commodore and founded Tramel Technology, the company pressed on with mixed results. Systems like the SX 64, the C900,…
The History of Commodore Pt 2
TCW Podcast Episode 245 - The History of Commodore Pt 2 Commodore’s shift from calculators to computers began with the PET, which found success in Europe as a business machine. After seeing the…
The History of Commodore Pt 1
TCW Podcast Episode 244 - The History of Commodore Pt 1 We kick off our look at Commodore with the story of its founder, Jack Tramiel. A Holocaust survivor who emigrated to the United States,…
RCA Studio II
TCW Podcast Episode 243 - RCA Studio II The RCA Studio II emerged from the company’s faltering computer division and the vision of engineer Joseph Weisbecker, who had long dreamed of personal…
Fumito Ueda
TCW Podcast Episode 242- Fumito Ueda Fumito Ueda entered game design through art rather than a love of traditional play. Influenced by titles like Flashback and Another World, he sought to tell…
The First 10 Years of European Consoles
TCW Podcast Episode 241 - The First 10 Years of European Consoles The first decade of European consoles began with imports of the Magnavox Odyssey, but soon local experiments took shape. In Spain,…
Nintendo: Playing with Mii & Wii
TCW Podcast Episode 240 - Nintendo: Playing with Mii & Wii From DS touch-and-stylus play to living-room motion, we trace Nintendo's road to Wii. Nintendogs and Brain Age broadened the audience…
Nintendo: Wii Were Struggling
TCW Podcast Episode 239 - Nintendo: Wii Were Struggling Nintendo’s struggle for cultural relevance in the lead-up to the Wii was marked by the N64’s poor fit for Japanese homes and the GameCube’s…
Quake
TCW Podcast Episode 238 - Quake We dive into the development of Quake, the ambitious and turbulent follow-up to Doom from ID Software. John Carmack set out to build a groundbreaking engine…
Frequently Asked Questions
They Create Worlds has published 257 episodes since September 2015, covering topics in Games, History.
They Create Worlds is currently highly active with new episodes every 2 weeks. Average episode length is 1h 25m.
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